TRAVELSPECIAL
Soft corals on the reef at Little Brother
Why it ’ s worth the hassle
Back to the trip ... After a day of shakedown dives around the shallow reefs of Hurghada , we set off overnight to the Brother Islands , where we began by diving around the southern end of Big Brother . Being two very isolated pinnacles in the middle of the Red Sea , the reef walls are festooned in soft corals , and from depths of 20 metres you will find some of the most beautiful gorgonian fan corals in the Red Sea .
I never found out why we didn ’ t dive the north point ; it would have been my preference because of the wreck of the
Numidia , and most regard it as the classic Brothers dive . Ours was a shark-fixated group , so I think it may have been a punt to try and find an oceanic thresher on one of the southern plateau ’ s cleaning stations . There were no threshers , but Sayed the guide did manage to find a baby white-tip reef shark in a cave , and I found myself eye-to-eye with a titan triggerfish nibbling at a sponge .
I would have liked two days at the Brothers , but it was very busy , with 15 liveaboards on Big Brother and another nine on Little Brother . We Brits weren ’ t the first back to the Red Sea , other European nationalities having returned a few months previously . Hurghada Harbour was full of gleaming new liveaboards , advertising their presence with the latest fad – lurid LED lights .
Back on the Hurricane , it was very much business as usual : three or four dives a day in superb conditions , often with the choice of entering the water from the liveaboard or via Zodiacs . This is where the crew really excelled , ensuring everyone ’ s safety as equipment and divers were transferred .
Ours was quite a senior crowd – with an assortment of gammy knees , bad backs , dicky tickers – so the deck hands and the boat boys had a job on their hands as we waddled gingerly onto the tubes , with all the assurance of baby penguins .
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