TRAVELSPECIAL UKDIVING
Gorgonian fan corals at Little Brother
Barracuda cleans up its act
Glassy sweepers
Back to the diving
The Brother Islands , remote and currentswept , offer some of Egypt ’ s most exciting diving . Big Brother has a lighthouse , two wrecks and sheer walls with a series of shelves on the southern side . Little Brother is similar , but has a better rep for sharks . Diving at both sites is dictated by the direction and speed of the current , which in our case restricted us to the south plateau , with its sloping shelves of greenish soft coral .
Both sites are beautiful , but they just weren ’ t feeling very sharky on this particular trip ; I settled down with my buddy , fellow photographer Nick Godfrey , to track down reef fish on the wall . A challenge was presented in the form of a hideously beautiful pink stonefish perched inside a little cavern .
This was both a photographic and a buoyancy challenge . To get a decent picture of the fugly fish , I had to swim into this little overhang , over my grimacing quarry , turn around and maintain buoyancy to avoid thumping my head on the ceiling or landing on a creature brimming with bio-weaponry . Added to this was the general rule that where there ’ s one stonefish , there ’ s usually another nearby but not visible ; I had to get in and out of the space without making the slightest physical contact with ... anything .
Short version : I successfully exited the cavern , then pointed out the perilous photo-op to my buddy , wishing him good fortune as he negotiated diving ’ s answer to a game of Operation .
Another big gorgonian
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