M/Y Andromeda reached Hurghada’s main marina yesterday in the early afternoon. She will go through a few days of customs checks, administration, some beautification and after a full paint job, she will continue her work in Egypt from the beginning of July. We have detailed the dock work on the boats in January… as if it was yesterday! So what has actually happened since then? You can read about it in this article!
The Sudan weeks were practically fully booked already by the end of last year and our optimism was only hampered by the Egyptian revolution at the end of January. After the situation had improved in Cairo, could we just start our work almost from scratch and we had to re-schedule bookings for 13 dates in Sudan. But in a short time, we were able to get back the bookings to almost where they had been originally.
The boat left Hurghada for Sudan a week later than planned, on Febuary 15, 2011, so we spent 15 weeks in all in Sudan out of which the boat worked 14 weeks straight and spent only 1 week in port.
Our last Sudan tour this season ended this past weekend. During these 14 weeks M/Y Andromeda welcomed 269 guests from 14 countries like Germany, Hungary, Finland, Holland, Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Romania, Spain, the US, Poland, France and Japan.
The Icelandic eruption a couple of weeks ago (which happened almost a year to the date of the 2010 disastrous eruption) caused a minor scare again but thankfully this time it did not create any real havoc.
This season the boat completed 13 North tours and navigated to South only once. She sailed 6,700km in total during these 15 weeks. And what did the unparalleled Sudan waters hide this time? Besides hammerheads in unimaginable numbers, grey, tiger, oceanic and reef sharks, some manta adventures, not to mention the humphead parrot fish, schools of barracudas and Napoleon fish which have become a common site by now.
On the last day of the safari holiday, almost all divers visited Suakin, the once majestic port in the Red Sea. These days the uninhabited white ghost town is famous only for its once beautiful “coral brick” houses and their ruins.
We have had a successful 4 months of things to see and of satisfaction. We especially thank our partners, tour operators, tour organisers and all those divers who chose us this year for making their Sudan holidays come true.
Thank you for your trust, the plenty of pictures, comments, acknowledgement we received from you during the past weeks and months!
Our next shark adventure in Sudan starts again in February, 2012 and we look forward to seeing all diving schools, clubs, tour organisers and divers who did not have the chance to join us this year, or who would like to continue collecting even more Sudan diving memories!
If you book our 2012 tours by September 30, 2011, then you can enjoy our 2011 rates next season as well! Contact your diving instructor and tour operator for details!
