Dive Review of Seawolf/Dominator in
Red Sea/Brothers, Daedalus, Elphinston

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Seawolf/Dominator: "Red Sea: SHARKS!", Jul, 2018, by John Sommerer, AZ, US ( Contributor 15 reports with 7 Helpful votes). Report 10358.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	A special charter arranged by a Swiss friend with a long history of Red Sea diving, who knows the Seawolf owner. Payment was wire transfer only, with a chain of three banks involved. Three attempts failed, incurring transaction fees for no results. Seawolf claimed "credit cards are impossible." Best to send money to a European friend, and have them wire the money. Frustrating procedure. Boat was pretty good, except for camera facilities. Beds were hard, but the AC worked. Deck showers were better than the room showers. We had upper deck cabins, which were nicer than those below decks (though alongside the pier at Hurghada on the first and last night, loud disco music disturbed those on the starboard side). Passengers were 4 Americans, 2 Swiss, 2 Swedes, 5 Germans. Because our friend reserved this trip first, the briefings were in English. Most sites had multiple liveaboards, and they did not coordinate dives with each other (as for example at Cocos). That created some difficulties. At particularly crowded sites (mostly those nearest Hurghada and the Egyptian coast, the boats hang ID signs in the water so you can return to the right one. Brother Islands featured excellent reefs, two wrecks, oceanic white tip sharks, and unusually, a whale shark. Daedalus had very bad vis, obscuring the hammerheads, but there were lots of big Napoleon wrasse. Elphinstone was perhaps the best reef, with lots of schooling fish. Night dives only twice, near Egypt coast -- it's not permitted in the marine park reefs. Dive operations were pretty efficient, using two zodiacs drops for each group of divers. There were two groups, each diving with a guide who stayed with the group for the entire 12 days. The "top" guide spoke good English, but largely pointed out big stuff, and moray eels. The other guide was probably better at pointing things out (we dived with him once, because his group was staying near the boat to get more looks at the OWT sharks hanging in the vicinity). Some dives were done directly from the boat, some started or ended with zodiacs, and some had both drop-off and pick-up by zodiacs, which could be problematic if there where big waves. Loading the zodiacs was done with all gear on, and it was a big step down. A few falls happened. Nitrox was free, and reliably 30-32%. The boat provided a (rather bulky) ENSO rescue beacon for free. We had Nautilus GPS units, but we could not find out the MMSI number of the boat (they claimed not to have one). Having traveled extensively on land in Egypt, I was concerned about food safety, but the food was excellent, and only one guest had stomach troubles, which she attributed to "one batch of lettuce." The best stuff was middle eastern food, but there were notable surprises, including a good barbecue al fresco, and a roast turkey. The crew was very helpful, and rather playful in a good way. One afternoon, we found a strange man in our bed (artfully constructed of quilt and pillows, my shirt, shorts, and ball cap). Red Sea was a long-held goal. But I probably wouldn't do it again, having seen the OWT sharks. Really grateful to our Swiss friends for arranging such a good trip, with English briefings.
Websites	Seawolf/Dominator
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Alaska, Australia, Caribbean, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Galapagos, Maldives, Melanesia, Micronesia, Philippines, Polynesia, Revillagigedos
Closest Airport	Hurghada	Getting There	multiple flights weekly from Zurich on Edelweiss/Swiss
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm, choppy, currents
Water Temp	78-84°F / 26-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	50-150 Ft/ 15-46 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	Depth was discretionary (<40m, less if Nitrox was used), but groups stayed in the vicinity of the guides.
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	1 or 2
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Two very small rinse tanks suitable for compact cameras/GoPros. No good way to rinse housed SLRs. No camera tables. Our group had four large cameras, and the best we could do was set them on towels on the floor of the salon, making the seating mostly unusable. Charging batteries, etc. was done on two small racks outside. Very inconvenient

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Dive Review of Seawolf/Dominator in Red Sea/Brothers, Daedalus, Elphinston

Seawolf/Dominator: "Red Sea: SHARKS!", Jul, 2018,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Seawolf/Dominator in
Red Sea/Brothers, Daedalus, Elphinston