Tag: andromeda

The Sharks winked back!

Posted on by Livia (Volgyesi) Hertelendy

Last week Poseidon showered us with his affections once again – sharks were winking back at us at every dive site! The air temperatures keep rising in Sudan – this week it was already 30-32C and only our last 2 days were a bit windy.

Tour date: March 2-9, 2013
Itinerary: Sudan North
Air temperature: 30-32C
Water temperature: 25C
Visibility: 20-30m

There were plenty of sharks at all the main dive sites. At Abington we did not know where to look because 20 hammerheads were circling around us at 15-25m for as long as 5 minutes, only 2-3m from us. Angarosh and Shaab Rumi did not disappoint again. Thankfully the grey reef sharks have returned to Shaab Rumi, giving us plenty to see. The giant school of barracudas was at Sanganeb, as always. We were able to visit all the dive sites in the itinerary:

Day 1: Shaab Suedi; Gota Shambaia; Gota Shambaia
Day 2: Angarosh; Angarosh; Merlo; Gota Shambaia
Day 3: Quita el Banna; Quita el Banna; Blue Belt; Shaab Rumi Precontinent
Day 4: Shaab Rumi South Plateau (2 dives), Precontinent
Day 5: Shaab Rumi; Sanganeb South; Sanganeb South; Umbria
Day 6: Umbria

A new week, new hopes. We will be back next week let you know we have seen.

If you have missed the action of the past weeks, click on the links below to catch up!
Angarosh, the “Mother of Sharks”
A Perfect Start in Sudan!
Fish parade in the month of Pisces!

Angarosh, the “Mother of Sharks”

Posted on by Livia (Volgyesi) Hertelendy

This time around we have enjoyed a lot more sunny days then last week. Winds were not too strong and luckily the waters were quite calm at the northern dive sites. Our dives were made more colourful by the schools of hammerheads, jackfish and barracuda. This week Angarosh rocked!

Tour date: February 16 – 23, 2013
Itinerary: Sudan-North
Air temperature: 28-30C
Water temperature: 24-25C
Visibility: 25m

We were able to visit all the sites of the North itinerary:

Day 1: Shaab Suedi, Gota Shambaia, Gota Shambaia
Day 2: Angarosh, Angarosh, Merlo, Gota Shambaia
Day 3: Quita el Banna, Blue Belt, Shaab Rumi Precontinent (day and night dive)
Day 4: Shaa’b Rumi South Plateau (3 dives), Precontinent (night dive)
Day 5: Shaa’b Rumi, Sanganeb, Sanganeb, Umbria
Day 6: Umbria

We hardly saw any other boats this week again, and this made our dives undisturbed at most sites and no other diving group’s bubbles disturbed our underwater adventures.

Shaab Rumi, one of the most beautiful dive sites in the world, lies 40km north of Port Sudan. Visibility had improved since last week and the site was especially rich in marine life. The shallow waters of the lagoon protected from the currents, were perfect for night dives. Another thing that makes Shaab Rumi so famous and why we love this place, is Precontinent II, the experimental underwater station built by Cousteau, whose remains are still visible today.

Still, this week we saw the most sharks at Angarosh. We counted about 20 of them at once. No wonder the reef was named the “Mother of Sharks”. The name serves it right, week after week at every dive!

The hammerheads got closest to us at Quita el Banna, to about 4-5m. After our dives, we marvelled at the gorgeous scenery and sunsets.

To be continued next week…

You can read about our last week’s adventures in Sudan here…

WE ARE TURNING 10 YEARS OLD!

Posted on by Livia (Volgyesi) Hertelendy

The time has come in our company’s life when we can celebrate a milestone! A lot has changed since the beginnings… Red Sea Boats Holidays started its journey down a path in the first years of the 2000s as the vision of a young and relentless small team, that we believe it is still journeying on.

It all started in 2003 with an Egyptian diving tour and a boat engine that had been wasting away. To most, this information would have been frivolous but we had already envisioned the boat around the engine.

Our story began with a small, 10-person safari boat called Liliom. Then came other favourites such as Nabila Ebeid and Seaflower. Mentioning the names of these boats surely conjures up warm safari memories for many. It has been 6 years that Cassiopeia was born, eventually becoming our flagship. Then 3 years later her sister, Andromeda was born.

Our initial goal was to organise and manage diving safaris in Egypt for more and more divers. Ten years is a long time and enough to be able to observe some interesting tendencies.
We have tried to gather all important events, stories and people that/who had defined this period in our company’s life. We, ourselves, are amazed by the number of events and turns and about how much the world had changed in these 10 years.

“It is not the strongest nor the smartest that stays alive but the one who is most apt to change.” (Darwin)

Some things we liked…

  • Clients from 32 various countries, all the way from Brazil to Japan
  • Clicks on our Web page from more than 150 countries
  • Servicing thousands of clients annually
  • Moving to a large and comfortable office
  • Our brand new Web page is available

 

Some things we did not like…

  • SARS virus
  • Iraqi war
  • Icelandic volcano eruption
  • Arab spring 2012
  • World economy crisis

Ten things you may not know about us…

  • Four of us work in our Budapest office
  • We have 7 diplomas altogether, only one of which is in tourism, yet we have been working successfully in this field for 10 years
  • Our mean age is 35 and the ratio of men to women in our office is 1:3
  • Two more colleagues and a 24-person crew helps our work in Egypt
  • We speak and understand 8 languages in total: Hungarian, Arabic, English, German, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish
  • In our Budapest office 2 instructors, 1 dive master and a non-diver make up our team
  • Some of our unique personality traits: claustrophobia, shisha-dependency, vertigo, germaphobia, insomnia, workaholism, “Apple”-dependency
  • We organise about 75 dive tours a year all over the world and our clients travel close to 40,000 kilometres annually, which means we “circle the world” once every year
  • We are the only officially registered travel agency in Hungary specialising in dive tours and diving safaris
  • We are about to start our 11th year in Egypt and our 7th season in Sudan

Some interesting facts about Andromeda and Cassiopeia…

  • The locals in Egypt just call them the “Coca-Cola” boats
  • The length of the boats is 40 metres which is roughly the total of 85 fin-lengths
  • The weight of Andromeda is 470 tons and add to this 1 ton of groceries, 70 tons of diesel, 15 tons of fresh water, all needed to prepare for a Sudan season
  • During construction 12 cubic metres of teak, 180 cubic metres of wood and 120 tons of steel were used
  • The client area is 400 square metres in total on both boats

Interesting travel facts…

  • We organise 70-80 diving tours around the world annually, with more than 100 clients travelling to Marsa Shagra and others travelling to over 50 exotic countries
  • Our clients are from 32 various countries
  • The ratio of women to men on our boats is 15:85
  • During a week, our divers spend more than 1,000 minutes on average under water
  • Our tanks are filled 546 times on average during a week

Weekly food consumption per boat…

  • 26 chickens (1 chicken = 1,2kg)
  • 36kg beef
  • 8kg calamari
  • 15kg sea fish

The guest of honour celebrates!

More than 12,000 of you have honoured us with your trust in the past 10 years and we have happily acknowledged that you were satisfied with the quality of our services.

Our wishes had come true every year and now, on our 10th anniversary, we would like to surprise others as well. We would like to present all our loyal and returning as well as our future partners and clients with some gifts in 2013!

  • The first 200 guests in 2013 will receive a nicely designed mug
  • And continuing on, everybody will receive something nice throughout the year

We thank you for choosing us in these past 10 years and we hope to continue being your choice in the future!