Golden Dolphin III
I did a 15 day trip on the Golden Dolphin lll in Egypt's southern Red Sea. The Itinerary took us to Big Brother, Little Brother, Daedalus, Elphinstone, and farther south to Zabargad, Rocky Island, Fury Shoal, and others. We boarded the boat in Hurghada and ended the trip in Port Ghalib. There are a lot of flights into Hurghada, making it easy to get there. The closest airport to Port Ghalib is Marsa Alam, where there are only a few flights. We booked our return from Marsa Alam, not knowing that the boat provided transportation for the approximately three hour trip back to Hurghada at no additional cost. Be sure to ask if this true for your trip. Connections are much better departing from Hurghada.
The crew on this boat was amazing. Everyone from the captain on down did an incredible job at making our trip wonderful. Mooring the boat in the dark around the dive sites using Zodiacs to haul the lines was a remarkable job. The dive guides were excellent at finding all the interesting stuff as well as guiding us through several caves.
The diving ranges from shallow reefs, to sheer walls to open blue water. At Daedalus, the objective is to find schooling hammerheads. The divers hover around 90 feet or so, while the dive guide goes deeper looking for the sharks. When he spots them, in order to get a better look, we found ourselves near 130 feet. Expect deep dives and strong currents here. We found strong currents at other sites, but most sites are current free. Most divers are able to check many sightings off of their bucket lists, such as, schooling Hammerheads, Mantas, Dolphins, giant Napoleon Wrasse, Oceanic Whitetips (Longimanus), Thresher Sharks, Silky Sharks, schooling Barracuda, Spotted Scorpionfish, Green Turtles, Cuttlefish, Giant Clams, Batfish, Octopuses, Bumphead Parrotfish, Giant Moray Eels, nudibranchs, and much more. Three dives are offered everyday and night dives on days when you’re not in a marine park (not allowed by government regulations).
The food was all served buffet style and consisted of three meals and an afternoon snack. I found the food to be somewhat basic, consisting of meat, fish, and pasta. Everything was good, but I wanted more variety. More Middle Eastern food would have been nice.
I shared a room with my buddy and we found it comfortable with plenty of storage room. Each room has air conditioning, but unfortunately, one of the generators broke down and the other generator was used for providing power to the compressor, kitchen, and other necessary items. The A/C only worked from late in the evening to early in the morning. I also encountered a couple of safety issues on the boat. Some water was spilled in the passageway between the rooms, contacting electrical wires, causing them to arc and be a potential fire hazard. The crew immediately remedied the situation when notified. I also found the emergency exit blocked by trash bags or supplies on several occasions.
About half of the diving is from the main boat and half from Zodiacs. Free nitrox is offered on all dives. The Zodiacs on this boat did not have ladders to reboard after the dive. After removing your gear, you have to haul yourself back into the boat “dolphin style". Many divers were not able to do this and the Zodiac driver had to grab a hand and pull them in (including me due to a bad shoulder). Ladders would have been nice. My buddy and I were two of three Americans on the boat and we have yoke attached regulators. All tanks on the boat have din attachments. They provided yoke adapters for us, but they didn’t seem to be maintained regularly, and we had several issues with leaking at the connection point. The dive guides were always there to change the o-ring or the adapter, but sometimes delayed the dive waiting for the changes. Free nitrox is also offered
Despite the issues mentioned, this was still an epic trip. Diving the Red Sea is something everyone should do at least once. Also, diving in Egypt is very economical. We paid approximately $2200.00 for this 15 day trip. That's about half the price of 7 day trips on many other liveaboards around the world.
