Discovery II, Red Sea, Egypt: Undercurrent 09/2025

Discovery II, Red Sea, Egypt

great safe diving, priced right

from the September, 2025 issue of Undercurrent

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Dear Fellow Diver,

Sweet words toward the end of our diving briefing: "Since this is an easy dive, if you want to go unguided as a buddy team, you can leave now." Five minutes later, my buddy and I stepped off the stern of Discovery II. Finning in zero current and 81°F water with 80-foot visibility, we reached the reef where a cloud of anthias surrounded healthy pillar coral. An octopus pretended to be one more pillar and watched me with a calm eye. Below, a minefield of orange-lined triggerfish competed for nesting space, performing their elaborate dance. Pairs of Red Sea bannerfish and masked butterflyfish cruised the reef, and I spotted an occasional nudibranch on the sloping wall. Juvenile and adult lyretail hawkfish hovered around coral heads, staying safe from the constant stream of larger predators. After a leisurely 75 minutes, we were back on Discovery II, ready for lunch.

I had initially booked my trip on the Tillis, but shortly after the Sea Story capsized and sank in November, Dive Pro Liveaboard, which operated both boats, canceled my booking. Having had a good trip previously on Discovery I, I chose its sister ship, the 37-meter Discovery II, which offered a similar itinerary in June and took fewer divers than most other liveaboards.

Our first dive was a checkout at Small Gifton, about two hours from Hurghada. It was an easy dive to 60 feet on a sloping reef wall with lots of hard and some soft corals. Six-foot morays were plentiful, as were anemonefish and lionfish. Unlike Caribbean lionfish, these were out hunting during the day, making for a more dramatic display. At the end of the checkout, we were all required to shoot our SMBs, but snorkelers had invaded the surface, making the exercise less about proving we could operate our SMBs and more about target practice, hitting snorkelers instead. While we saw boats with snorkelers and divers at several sites during our trip, the sites were generally uncrowded. But to ensure we would climb aboard the right boat, Discovery II had a drop line to 5 meters, with the boat's flag on it so we could easily find it....

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