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 Joe and Karins Report on Sudan
Before we knew it we were back at the Cairo Airport nervously waiting for the Air Sudan flight to Port Sudan. Why nervously? Well the one thing we had heard about the trip to Sudan was the horrendous experiences people have had with the flight down to Port Sudan. This is an airline using obviously second hand planes using staff with second hand organisational skills. It is not unknown for people to be delayed by 7 or 8 hours. But our worrying was all for nothing because the plane was very punctual. Having spoken to JCS since then it seems that Air Sudan have improved their service in the 18 months that he has been operating down there. The only concern I had was on boarding I looked at my ticket and my seat number was 27G, no problem I thought, until I realised that the plane was only 6 seats wide. Seats A through to F all present and correct, seat G……….obviously out on the wing!! So after a trouble free flight and transfer with a bus we came to The Royal Emperor looking resplendent at her mooring directly across from the rather large container loading cranes on the other side of the Marina. There are 3 or 4 other safari boats there, but none looking as slick as Royal. Or maybe it was the glow of JCS smile as he greeted us, hopeful that we had smuggled in a whole pig for him to gnaw on! First thing the next day we were on our way. At this time
of year Royal Emperor follows an itinerary which takes it north for
the first couple of days then coming back close to Port Sudan to
finish the safari with Shaab Rumi, Sanganeb and the wreck of the
Umbria. After a check dive we made our way onto a reef
called Merlo for an afternoon dive. This is a stunning reef
with fantastic soft corals and an abundance of fish. As I was
finning along it reminded me of the diving on the south side of Zabargad
Island in Egypt, but with even more table corals and fish. That
night we moored up in the shelter of Shaab Suedi. This is an
extremely long reef stretching away to the horizon for more than
30km. It is also the last resting place for an unusual wreck
called the Blue Belt. This is an exciting morning dive. The
story of the Blue
From there we headed south to the famous Shaab Rumi. Besides
the exciting diving that can be had on the southern plateau, this
reef is famous for one special reason. It has the remains of
Cousteau’s Conshelf 2 experiment. It is one of those
places that if you have any sort of interest in diving you must have
heard of. In 1963 old Jack thought he would experiment and
see how long it was possible for people to live underwater. They
had surface supplied air and they managed around 4 weeks. The
remains of the various pieces of equipment they used are still there
at around 12m of depth. The highlight is the dome shaped port
where apparently they used to park their underwater scooters. How
cool, to imagine those guys in their shiny silver suits cruising
A favourite place for divers to congregate is around cleaning stations. Many divers find that opening ones mouth and allowing a cleaner wrasse in is the best way to keep those teeth pearly white. It is also not a bad place to see other animals getting a clean. On the south end of Shaab Rumi, at a depth of around 20m, there is one of the best shark cleaning stations that I have ever visited. 5 or 6 Grey Reefs where coming in like low flying bombers and then when they reached the right spot, bringing themselves up into a completely vertical position, opening their mouths and getting a good old clean from the wrasse. It was superb, made even better by the fact that I was on the rebreather and they were doing it about a metre away from me!! The British are quite famous for building lighthouses in remote locations. If you have visited the Egyptian Red Sea you might have seen a couple of good examples at the Brothers Islands and Daedalus Reef. The lighthouse down on Sangeneb, our next stop on the Sudan itinerary, was constructed around the same time, the late 1800s. It is worth the climb up to the top as the view is fantastic across the reef, with a hazy view of the Sudanese coastline on the horizon. Again Sangeneb is a large reef with many dive sites around it. The Northern end can be dived in calm conditions and it was here that I sighted the largest group of swirling barracudas I have ever seen. I lost count at around 500!! Down on the south there are some very friendly Grey Reef Sharks, who apparently hang around waiting for someone to feed them. This is a practice on some safari boats but is discouraged on Royal Emperor. Finning gently out along the plateau and away from the main part of the reef, at around 35m, there are some good examples of Black Coral. Nestled in amongst the branches are the elusive Longnose Hawkfish who are content to face the diver until you even hint at the fact that you are about to take a pic and then they turn their back on you. Do fish have backs?
June 1940 found the boat on a trip down the Red Sea bound for Eritrea
with a cargo of 350,000 bombs, 60 boxes of detonators, 4 Fiat Laguna
cars, crates of wine and many other items. At this stage Italy
was technically neutral, not having yet declared war on the side
of the Germans. The declaration was imminent so as a result
the HMS Grimsby shadowed the Umbria all the way down to Port Sudan
The legendary Hans Haas once said that the Umbria was “The finest shipwreck in the world”. It’s easy to see why he would say this. It sits in max depth of around 35m, but for most of the dive you are at the 15m-20m mark. It is lying over on its side completely intact. What struck me as I descended was the sheer size of this boat. All the wooden decking and hatch covers have disappeared leaving easy access to just about every part of this boat. The cargo holds are a particular highlight with rows of different sized bombs visible, all stacked up just how they were almost 70 years ago. The 3 Fiat cars are a must, easily photographed if you don’t kick up the fine silted bottom. Various doorways provide easy access to the main superstructure. Once inside, it is easy to find the bridge, crew’s quarters, kitchens complete with pizza ovens (what else do hungry Italian seamen eat??), and the mess hall. Besides all this the ship as become covered by huge clumps of hard and soft coral, attracting many different species of fish. The only problem is………….its impossible to see everything, even in 4 or 5 dives!! So like all good liveaboard trips, the end came too quickly. Before we knew it we were back in port and preparing to leave the boat for the flight back to Cairo. My general impression of diving in Sudan? Although there were some other dive boats around it has an untouched feel about it. The amount of fish life was prolific on all the reefs we dived. Of course as divers we are always keen to see the big stuff, and we definitely weren’t disappointed. I would go back in a heartbeat, even if there were a chance of delay for the Air Sudan flight!!
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The trip begins with a day in Cairo, staying at the beautiful Meridian
Pyramids Hotel. The name of the hotel gives you a little clue
as to what you can get on with whilst waiting for the flight down
to Sudan!! And believe me when I say it is well worth the hype. They
are amazing structures, easily accessible by a short 15 minute walk
from the hotel. As you are gazing up at these wonders of human
achievement, it is easy to forget that men working with absolutely
nothing even resembling a crane placed all of those 2 tonne blocks
of stone there over 5 thousand years ago!
Belt is an interesting one. The date is 1977
and this large Saudi Arabian registered cargo ship was doing the
run down to Port Sudan loaded with 187 new Toyota cars and trucks. How
she managed to hit the reef has been an object of much discussion
and speculation. It has been alleged that she was involved
in illegal smuggling of cars. In other words duck in there,
meet someone on the beach, offload a few cars and trucks and then
carry on to Port Sudan reporting any shortfall as “fallen off
the back of a truck” or boat in this case! Or it could
have been just a case of bad weather, navigation error and then bow
saying hello to the top of the reef plate. Either way the ship
sank with no loss of life but took down all its cargo with it. As
it rolled down the reef it spilled cars and trucks out onto the steep
coral wall eventually coming to rest hull up on a 45 degree angle. The
depth of this wreck goes from 16m down to the props at around 75m. The
shallow parts make for the best diving because this is where you
come across many of the cars and trucks that are now covered in corals
and have attracted a good amount of fish life.
The most northern reef on this itinerary is Angerosh (“mother
of sharks”) reef. We spent a whole day there diving on
the South Plateau. This plateau goes from the surface and has
steps heading out at around 25m, 35m and finally around 45m. It
is truly one of the best places I have dived. There was a school
of around 15 to 20 Hammerheads constantly circling at a depth of
30m to 40m. Heading up shallow you can easily come face to
face with Grey Reef Sharks patrolling the sandy patches. It
is the perfect place to dive with the rebreather and Karin, JCS and
I had to work out a schedule as to who was going to use it next! I
think the one unit we had on the boat ended up being in the water
for 5 hours that day!
around down there 40 years before I dropped into the water with my
modern equipment. A definite must. Diving on the southern
end of the reef is mind-blowing. It has a rather large plateau
gradually sloping down to a depth of 35m and it was here that I had
a 3m Tiger Shark come barrelling up the reef towards me. Before
ducking in behind a rather large coral head I managed to blindly
hit the shutter release button on my camera and was quite pleased
to get a reasonable shot of him.
The last stop on the itinerary is possibly one of Sudan’s
most well know dives, the wreck of the Umbria. This sits just
outside Port Sudan at Wingate Reef. The Umbria was launched
in 1911 as the “Bahia Blanca”, registered as a passenger
cargo ship capable of carrying 2000 people and 9000 tonnes of cargo. Her
measurements were 153m long and 18m wide. Having been purchased
by the Italian government in 1935 she had a change of name and began
working as a troop carrier to the various colonies in Africa.
finally boarding her in Port Sudan on the false premise of searching
her for “contraband”. They confiscated all radio
equipment and confined the crew to quarters. Unbeknown to the
British boarding party the Umbrias skipper, Captain Lorenzo Muiesan,
had his own little portable radio in his cabin. The next day,
June 10th, Lorenzo became the only person on board to hear that Italy
had formally declared war on the Allies. His plan of action
was to scuttle the ship to avoid the cargo falling into British hands. But
how to get all his crew off without casualties? Easy, lets
have a practice abandon ship drill!! Whilst this was going
on it became apparent that the ship was actually sinking so orders
were given to really abandon ship!
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