Southern Red Sea Pelagic birding trip

Schedule

1-8 May 2011

N.B: It is possible to charter the boat at any time of year, even for individually-tailored trips.

Individuals may join shared trips with divers twice a month, from 850 euros (€) per person!!!

Duration

7 days

Price

€1199 per person (for non-divers, €100 Euro less)

Children (2-12 years old) have 40 % discount

Equipment rental for divers: €80 per week

Supplement rate for single room occupancy is at least 50%. Rooms can be share upon request with other lone participants.

National Park fees: Brothers Island €50

Rocky and Zabargad or Daedalus reef €70 per passenger

The Open Water Diver course can be undertaken en-route on the boat for an outstanding price: €230!

Other courses like Advanced Open Water Diver, Rescue Diving and speciality and gas courses can be undertaken upon request as well (prices subject to individual cases), which would require a technical diving instructor to join the expedition.

Special offer

For a family or group of friends, the chartered diving safari boat can be hired for a special price, which includes food, beverages, supervision by a dive master, unlimited diving and snorkelling and the attendance of a birding guide. Price: €12,890. For ANY special requests, please contact us.

Numbers

A maximum of 20 tour participants.

Accomodation

On the boat, in separate air-conditioned cabins (based on double occupancy).

Transport

From Marsa Alam International airport, transfer to our boat by microbus.

Meal plan

Full board, including soft drinks.

Summary and purpose

7 days sailing on the Southern Red Sea, including round two islands where Red-billed Tropicbird Phaethon aethereus and Sooty Falcon Falco concolor breed.

In order to avoid disturbance at the nesting sites, it is FORBIDDEN to land on the islands!

Target birds

Red-billed Tropicbird,, Goliath Heron Ardea goliath, Indian Reef Egret Egretta schistacea, Brown Booby Sula leucogaster, Slender-billed Gull Chroicocephalus genei, Grey-hooded Gull C. cirrocephalus, White-eyed Gull Larus leucophthalmus, Sooty Gull L. hemprichii , Armenian Gull L. armenicus, Lesser Black-backed (‘Baltic’) Gull L. fuscus fuscus, Heuglin’s Gull L. heuglinii), Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia, Swift Tern Thalasseus bergii velox, Lesser Crested Tern T. benghalensis, Sandwich Tern T. sandvicensis, Little Tern Sternula albifrons, Saunders’s Tern Sternula saundersii, Bridled Tern Onychoprion anaethetus, White-cheeked Tern Sterna repressa, Western Osprey Pandion haliaetus and Sooty Falcon.

Marine wildlife

Spinner dolphin Stenella longirostris, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin Tursiops aduncus, Whale shark Rhincodon typus Oceanic white-tip shark Carcharhinus longimanus, Tiger shark Galeocerdo cuvier, Scalloped hammerhead Sphyrna lewini, Bluespotted stingray Taenyura lymma, Spotted eagle ray Aetobatis narinari, Giant manta Manta birostris, Dugong Dugong dugong, Giant moray Gymnothorax javanicus, Common lionfish Pterois miles, stonefish Synance ia verrucosa, Indian Ocean crocodile fish Papilloculiceps longiceps, Red Sea (or Twoband) anemonefish Amphiprion bicinctus, Napoleon wrasse Cheilinus undulatus, Hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata.

NB: It is probably best to book flight tickets from Egypt Air because it is simpler and cheaper to book international and domestic flights from the same company.

Description

Day 1 - Saturday

Arrival on 12^th March at Marsa Alam International Airport. If agreed in advance, meet the guides at the airport and transfer to the boat or to a hotel.

There is an optional trip to a place where dugongs can be found within snorkelling depth. In the early evening, once everyone has arrived, there will be a boat briefing on board, for discussion of details of the trip and to agree which islands and National Parks should be visited. The dive masters and the birding guide will then begin the welcoming, until we can no longer keep our eyes open.

Days 2-6

Sailing days. Early morning on Day 2, we set sail from Marsa Alam marina, heading to the far south. For licensed divers, there are 3 dives daily (on a special charter, dives are unlimited); there is unlimited snorkelling and pelagic birding from the sundeck. Because the pattern of a day’s activity on the boat depends on the weather (eg wind and waves), we cannot predict in which order the islands and reefs will be visited. We therefore do not issue a fixed programme to avoid any possibility of confusion!

Mostly during the days birdwatching is easy even using a telescope on board, because the Red Sea is far calmer than the Pacific Ocean! The safari boats, being quite large, are very stable on the water. Every day, dozens of White-eyed Gulls will follow our boat, hoping to pick up any discarded fish offal. Dozens of terns will follow the gulls, making a quite unforgettable sight, their movements punctuated By a nonstop influx of pelagic species.

Day 7 - Saturday

Arrive at Marsa Alam marina is the excuse for a farewell party before transfers to the airport, or to a hotel for anyone who has requested an extension for cultural or birding reasons on the mainland. Note that it sometimes may be possible to combine the pelagic birding trip with a Nile cruise.