Over recent years, members of Saddleworth Sub-Aqua Club have enjoyed themselves on
several club diving holidays. In October 2004, ten of the members booked a live-aboard
to sail and dive the waters of the Red Sea off the Southern Egypt coast. The itinerary
included some fine diving on the excellent reef systems of St. John's and Fury Shoals.
So good was the first trip that another holiday was quickly arranged to go back in
April 2005. This proved to be another successful trip.
Various member commitments prevented the club from getting a holiday 'off-the-ground'
in 2006, but was rectified in 2007 with another southern Egyptian Red Sea holiday
in November. The location of this shore-based holiday was chosen as it offers day-boat
access to the Fury Shoals - a highly regarded reef diving area. The diving was indeed
excellent, although the lack of night life was a little upsetting to some - mind
you, when you had to be up at 7am most days to get on the dive boat, most people
didn't feel like boogying!
2008 & 2009 were years when due to other diving commitments a holiday wasn't offered
- this was corrected in November 2010 with another Red Sea liveaboard holiday again
to dive the southern Egyptian Red Sea! Photos of this holiday can be viewed in our
Photo Galleries section. You can see that we like to dive this area - the reefs are
still in excellent condition, despite the increased liveaboard traffic. The diving
and the boats are well organised and offer fairly good value-for-money when compared
to shore diving. 2011 looks like being another 'fallow' year, but there are plans
afoot to organise a club holiday in May 2012 - watch this space!
