Red Sea Shark Encounters

Approaching the street I cut the sirens and blue lights. Just as we pulled up outside the house a chair came flying through the front window, scattering broken glass across the pavement. It was my first shift back and so far it had been fairly typical of a Saturday evening. Welcome back!

Five minutes later and the angry, young man that we had dragged from his hiding place in a wardrobe was handcuffed and in the cage in the back of my van. I’d left colleagues to look after his girlfriend with her black eye and swollen lip. I waited a moment for free air time to get onto the radio and advised the custody office of the in-coming prisoner. With the young man still spitting and screaming abuse in the secure cage behind me I took a deep breath and for a moment closed my eyes and took myself back just a few days; for not too long ago I had been sharing memorable moments with a predator of an entirely different kind. Earlier that week I had been diving in the company of sharks!

The Search Goes South

Tim and I had been on Red Sea dive trips for the two years previously. We’d taken liveaboard trips out of Sharm and had enjoyed the first so much we had repeated the experience in its entirety the following year; booking the same boat for the same week and even with the same guide. I’d organised both those holidays, taking full groups with us, and while they had been particularly pleasant and memorable trips we really felt it was essential to do something different this year. I didn’t fancy all the organisation of taking a group again and we both thought we’d like the space, freedom and increased social possibilities of a shore based trip. But apart from anything else, there was one thing that had been lacking in our previous trips. We hadn’t seen sharks.

We always go in late October or early November, which explains the lack of shark encounters on our previous northern based holidays. We knew that for that time of year if we wanted to see sharks we’d have to go south. We started the search for something suitable with the operators with whom we had travelled previously; Oonasdivers. We quickly came upon what appeared to be the ideal solution.

Shagra and Nakari Ecovillages

The Shagra and Nakari Ecovillages are operated by Red Sea Diving Safaris and are based south of Marsa Alam. They offer a variety of accommodation ranging from tents to self-contained, en-suite guest houses. There is unlimited diving on the house reefs and RHIB and hardboat diving on offer. They come as an all-inclusive package.

It looked ideal for our needs; with the options to dive as much as we liked, the space and freedom of being shore based plus the social angle of having a few more people about but not the hustle and chaos that you would normally associate with a hotel holiday in Sharm. But most importantly it offered diving at the famous reef of Elphinstone – and that meant sharks!

We got it booked, and having a fancy for the romanticism of camping out in the desert on the shores of the sea we opted to rough it in the tents. Now all that was left was the long, impatient wait for departure day.

Journey’s Beginning

Okay, so the planning wasn’t everything that it might have been. The only flights available were out of Gatwick and I had set the departure date for the day after my wife Debbie’s birthday. I thought it would be a good idea for the two of us to spend the night in London at some swanky hotel, perhaps take in a show and have dinner and then Deb could drop me off at the airport the following day to meet Tim. Unfortunately it turned out that Deb had an exam to do on her birthday (it shouldn’t be allowed!) so that idea went out of the window.

Instead birthday celebrations came a day early and I drove down to Leicester to spend the night before the flight at Tim’s. Getting up early I then drove us both down to Gatwick for our mid-day flight. It’s always stressful making a long car journey before flying and this was no exception. Inevitably we got caught in numerous traffic jams on the M1 and M25 but managed to arrive at the airport spot on time. With my fingers crossed I left the TT in the long-stay car park and said a little prayer asking that it still be there when we returned!

As it was we needn’t have stressed as our flight was delayed 3 hours! Fortunately Tim is a diving photography nut. As it happens he’s a bloody good one as well. So, together with about £4k worth of camera and housing carefully stored in his hand luggage (which must have weighed more than 10k!) I had his laptop computer stuffed in my rucksack. So, we were able to while the idle hours in the departure lounge watching DVDs. Naturally we were given no information about the cause of the delay, but we could see that all flights to Egyptian airports (Sharm, Hurghada and Marsa Alam) were being held back. We could only speculate that there might be some kind of security problem and were resigning ourselves to a long wait, and perhaps even an overnight stay. But just as we finally decided to head for the bar and sat down with a pint they typically called our flight! Leaving our barely touched drinks behind we headed for the departure gates and finally we were on our way.

New Friends, New Places

It was a fairly comfortable flight with a decent film and palatable food, but of course we were arriving very late; landing at 11.00pm local time. They’d kept the airport open just for us and were keen to get home so bustled us all through with little fuss. Meeting the tour rep outside the airport we were allocated our resort (we were going to Nakari) and being herded onto the small bus we met for the first time those whom we’d be sharing our experience with.

There were nine of us from the UK. In addition to Tim and me there were three couples. Sophie and Paul had travelled together with Annie and Simon. They had met on a previous diving holiday and had been organising holidays together ever since. Then there was Jennifer and Ron and finally, travelling on his own and still learning to dive, there was Duncan.

The trip to Nakari took about 45 minutes. Arriving at the village we found it very quiet – everyone else had already gone to bed – and it wasn’t quite as remote as we’d expected, with a huge Italian run hotel clearly visible less than a mile further down the coast.

The cloud of our delays and late arrival immediately produced a silver lining. Being the last to arrive we were all offered a free upgrade to the vacant, top of the range guest houses. Tim and I had been quite looking forward to our tents but it had been a very long day and the upgrade itself was worth £200 each so we were hardly going to refuse!

We carted our baggage up to our rooms, the only disadvantage of which was that they were at the furthest point of the site from the sea. Not to worry, it still wasn’t far. The guest houses were of a traditional design, with high, domed ceilings to keep them cool during the day. We never felt the lack of air conditioning during our entire stay which was very comfortable. We settled down for our first night.

Bright New Day

We woke to the expected wall-to-wall sunshine and (as it had been pitch black when we’d arrived) took this first opportunity to look around our home for the next week.

So what is the Nakari Ecovillage like? Well, I’d have to say there was very little ecological about it. I imagine it was given the tag some time ago simply to account for facilities which would at that time have been pretty basic. Over the past 15 years the site has been much developed with considerable numbers of brick-built structures and electric light (powered by oil generators and not solar power) supplied everywhere, even in the tents. The guest houses are en-suite and the lodges and tents have decent shower and toilet blocks to share. By the shore is the rush-covered, open dining room with lovely views out to sea and next door another covered area with shelves for storing dive kit, drying rails and two fresh water rinse tanks. There is a bar of sorts where soft drinks, tea and coffee are supplied free all day and where the beer is cheap, though you are limited to the locally brewed Stella. Again, with little inclination towards the ecologically conscious the water available is supplied by Nestle and the soft drinks from Coca-Cola. Make up your own minds on that.

So, those who were hoping for an ecologically sound holiday experience were a little disappointed, but to be fair, for the money we were paying you could hardly expect more.

The Dive Package

Dive-wise we had been told by Oonasdivers to expect things to be a little ‘laid back’. I’d translate that as being a bit disorganised. There was very little structure to our diving days, with starts ranging from 6.00am to 9.30 am. Much of the time we had little idea of what we would be doing from day to day.

The dive package included is for five day’s diving, to include two days from a hardboat (with two dives a day) and unlimited shore diving. Shore diving could be on the house reef or you could sign up to the daily truck trips venturing to reefs up and down the coast. RHIBs were available to take you out from the centre to offshore reefs and these were charged at $10 a dive.

The house reef was a little disappointing. The corals were good but the conditions were windy, blowing a lot of sand into the water so along the shore the visibility was often no better than 10m. In addition, the bay was a deep hook shape so it had a tendency to collect all the floating rubbish being blown south along the coast. It’s a big problem for the centre so to counter this they offer free diving for the sixth day providing you agree to spend time on the house reef with a bag collecting up all the rubbish.

Given the poor visibility along the coast we didn’t opt for any of the truck diving but instead took the RHIBs out offshore where we did find excellent reefs with visibility of 25m or more. Clearly the better option.

The Divers

In addition to those of us from the UK there were divers there from Hungary, Germany, Holland and France with the odd individuals from elsewhere in Europe, such as Sweden and Norway. No Italians, Russians or Japanese, who apparently do not have operators who deal with this site – again I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Unfortunately most of these groups pretty much kept to themselves, spelling out poor prospects for a united Europe! The individual travellers tended to attach themselves to us Brits.

It was a refreshing group of people to dive with. Diving extensively in the UK I’m pretty much used to being surrounded by tech-heads, kit-fetishists, agency-fascists, DIR-acolytes and rebreather-bores – people who are on the whole obsessed and enthusiastic about anything and everything about and surrounding diving but so rarely enthusiastic about the dives themselves. In the UK ‘holiday divers’ are so often derided but I found it an absolute joy to dive with this group, so enthusiastic where they about the wonders they had seen under the waves. Unlike many divers back in the UK, they remembered exactly why they were there in the first place!

Camera Disaster

After a bit of an introduction to the site and a briefing on the diving we made our way out for the customary first weight-check dive.

Tim was planning an entry into a photographic competition. His three week trip to Indonesia in the summer had netted him a large portfolio of fine work. He needed six shots for his entry and was happy that he’d bagged four. I thought he’d got a couple of dozen winners but Tim’s standards are somewhat higher. He was hoping to get the remaining two quality shots on this trip.

We waded out from the shore and I was putting my fins on when I heard Tim utter an expletive. Turning I saw him holding his camera out in front of him, staring intently at it with a look of consternation on his face. It was knackered. He’d turned it on, and while it had powered up it just wasn’t working. And that was the way it remained all week. Despite every effort Tim made, two or three times daily, he just couldn’t make it work. Frankly, we just couldn’t understand what was wrong with it. And so, right from the start, the whole focus of Tim’s trip was gone. I’m sure he enjoyed his diving but for the whole week as we dived his frustration was palatable. And the better the diving got the worse it was for him, seeing all those perfect photo-opportunities going begging! Bless him.

And so our normal roles were reversed. I’d always been Tim’s ‘camera bitch’, patiently waiting for him to get his shots and spotting for other subjects. Over the years I’d seen Tim’s photography develop until it had got to the point where I knew he was likely to spend half an hour at a time concentrating on a single subject. Simply to avoid getting bored hovering around I’d decided to join him in his obsession and had bought myself a camera for this trip. So he was my ‘bitch’ now! Frankly he needs more training. Instead of patiently waiting around as I would have done he went shooting off everywhere, forcing me to fin hard to catch up with him time and again. He was an excellent spotter though, pointing out some great shots. I’ve got to say, as pleased as I am with the standard of some of my first attempts, much of it has to be credited to Tim. I did offer him my camera throughout the week but sulking he continually refused!

Lessons learnt, no doubt Tim will buy himself a second, back-up camera body (it is after all the cheapest element of his kit package) to avoid a repeat performance of this disaster. We’re all on a learning curve!

The Diving

As I’ve said, the house reefs were fairly ordinary because of the poor visibility, but they did make for decent night dives. We found an array of life including octopus, squid, rays, stargazers, crocodile fish, spanish dancers and the usual selection of fish species, including lionfish and anemone fish. Smaller finds included pygmy lionfish and weird crabs such as the anemone carrier and the camouflage spider crab. Our dive guide had told us that sharks could sometimes be seen passing by, including hammerheads in season but Tim and I saw none, though others did spot a small reef shark (of uncertain species) on one dive.

Offshore the diving was much better. We made two trips to Habili Nakari which was a collection of pinnacles a 10 minute RHIB ride from the centre. This is an extremely pretty reef with the visibility to enjoy it. Here we added morays and a turtle to our list of sights.

For what would be my 200th dive we were taken to a site that was claimed to have been previously undived. We were a little sceptical about this but were happy to go along with the possible deception. We had been dubbed Team Banana so named it Banana Reef. No doubt it will get another name the next time it is dived for the first time! Whether it had been seen before or not it was still a very attractive reef and fitting for my personal milestone.

Down To Business

The rest of the diving was great, but what we’d come for was the large pelagics, and that was business for our two days of hardboat diving. Our sites for these would be Dolphinhouse and Elphinstone. All divers know that as soon as a reef is given a name including some species of life that is the one thing you’re least likely to see! So at none of the many Stingray Stations around the world has anyone ever seen a stingray. We didn’t really expect to see dolphins at Dolphinhouse and were pretty certain that Elphinstone wouldn’t produce any elves! But you can always hope!

Dolphinhouse did indeed live up to expectations, with no dolphins in evidence. We still enjoyed our dives there, exploring the caverns within the reefs. These were extremely picturesque. We made it a gentle day’s diving as Tim and I had sat up with one of the dive guides and a few bottles of beer putting the world to rights until 3.00 am! We were not in the best condition!

Elphinstone was different. Earlier in the week our guide had shown us a film of the sharks to be found there. We could only hope that our own experience would be the same. We had to take a truck transfer north first, to the sister resort at Shagra. This looked larger and more developed than Nakari but still pretty much within the same mould. I couldn’t really make comment on how the house reefs may compare. From there it was a short cruise in a hardboat – certainly short enough to be reachable by RHIB if you were staying at the resort.

The boat was packed – a liveaboard designed for perhaps 14, it was carrying around 30 divers. A recipe for chaos. As we approached the reef we could see no less than a dozen boats already moored there. Before the end of the day there would be more than 20. There could have been no less than 400 divers at that site on that day. I couldn’t imagine anything would hang around for long in such a diver soup, and my heart sank. Our guide was more optimistic.

For our first dive the boat was going to drop us off in two waves at one end of the reef before going on ahead to moor up. We were going to take a gentle drift along what was a steep and deep wall to a 15m plateau where it was hoped we may find the sharks.

I have to admit, I remember little about the wall, so impatient was I to get to the plateau. When we reached it we made our way out to the edge of the blue, hanging at 10m and waiting. With heads on swivels we searched all around us, looking out for any signs of our quarry. It seemed like an age, though was perhaps only ten minutes, before I heard the rap of a knife blade on a tank. Looking around for the source I saw a diver pointing out to the open sea. Eagerly following the line of his arm I peered into the blue. And there it was – the unmistakable profile of the ocean’s great predator!

An Oceanic White Tip.

Slowly this magnificent creature patrolled off the back of the moored boats. I started making my way towards it, Tim being completely forgotten! I left the reference of the reef plateau and followed the hulls of the moored boats, all in a line. My diving companions ventured out with me and we hung there waiting for another sighting. Before long we saw it again, and then two others, always just within the realms of visibility. I tried to take a photograph to record my sightings but always only capturing vague shapes in the distance. They circled around for several minutes. Realising my air was running low I dragged myself away, heading back towards the reef where I could surface safely away from all the boats buzzing overhead.




I came up from that dive delighted. I had finally seen sharks and even got some photographic evidence of it. I thought it couldn’t get better. But I was wrong.

The Dive Of My Life

We had a short interval before our guide took us few aside for a briefing, out on the dive platform where we wouldn’t be overheard. He had been impressed with our diving skills over the week and had plans for us.

“You have seen the lions”, he said. “Now I am going to take you into the lions’ den!”

Our boat was fourth in a long line of boats, the first of which had been moored to the reef and then the rest tied to each other. We were at the end of the line and way out from the reef, deep into the blue itself. The plan was to jump straight in off the boat and then to head further out still – out into the sharks’ realm. It suited us!

We jumped in. Excited as I was I just had to perform an athletic forward roll entry! We gathered together and dropped down. Our guide headed out into nothing and we followed after, our computers and ears being our only reference. We didn’t have to wait for long. First one on its own, then two together, then three – they started to circle around us and then ventured in among us. Time and again as I looked for my next sighting I’d see a diver pointing behind me. I’d turn to see a shark right behind me.

Oceanic White Tips, about 6 of them and the largest at around 3m! My camera was snapping away at every turn – sighting after sighting, picture after picture. Time and again one of these truly awesome animals would pass close enough for me to touch! They were frighteningly beautiful!

And it could have gone on. They never really left us, but in the end we had to leave them. We returned to the reef and yet it wasn’t over, as one or two followed us in, making occasional sweeps under the boats. A huge napoleon wrasse (normally a focus of much attention) was left to swim about completely ignored! In the end, with virtually no air left, I had to surface. What a rush it had been!


Winding Down

We did another dive that day back at the house reef – can’t remember what we saw! The next day we had a return trip out to Habili Nakari, which didn’t seem quite as good, and then did our turn cleaning up the rubbish from the house reef. Our diving was done.

Our last night and the staff prepared us a little party, though to be honest I think it was for their benefit more than ours! I would have enjoyed a late night but an unsettled stomach (a first for me in Egypt) sent me to bed at midnight. Tim didn’t turn in until 5.00am! Safe to say he enjoyed the party! He was up late the next day and we both missed breakfast. We had a quiet day, sorting our kit out, getting packed and exchanging contact details with new friends. We saw a DVD of our diving at Elphinstone. It was good, but the videographer had not been with us for our second dive and had missed the best of it. Ron bought a copy as Jennifer never seemed to be out of it. I think this was because they’d told the videographer beforehand that they’d probably want a copy so she did a job for them!

At 4.00pm BST we left the camp for our long journey home. Another first for me, our homeward flight left pretty much on time and landed on schedule at 1.05am. By 2.30 we were searching around the car park, relieved to find the TT just as we’d left it and I began the long drive home. Dropping Tim off along the way I finally got home for 7.30am. It had been a very long day! But worth every bit of it.

Journey’s End

Back to reality and a Saturday late shift. Sat in the police Transit van I let out that deep breath and opened my eyes, leaving the Oceanic White Tips behind and returning to the here and now. The muppet in the cage was still spitting out his venomous abuse. He’d later be found to be an illegal immigrant and would be deported before the weekend was over. He didn’t bother me any more. For I felt the privilege of seeing and experiencing something he’d probably never know, and those memories will carry me through many a difficult shift still.

I will never forget the thrill of that dive in the Lion’s Den.