Diving In South Sudan
It was another good dive on a site maybe no one else had seen before, although being the only safe anchorage for some miles, I think not. Still, it was a good and thoroughly enjoyable relaxing late afternoon excursion.
The east wall was similar in look, but perhaps slightly more interesting. Starting at the northern edge the wall descended quickly into a steep slope full of sea whips and small coral outcrops. A massive globular formation followed, but apart from a crashed alien space craft overlooked for hundreds of years, I couldn't imagine what had formed it. It contained nothing but sand and encrustation, so I left perplexed. Immediately after, the reef returned to its normal routine of slopes, shelves and indentations. A host of coral species litter the sea floor all shrouded in antheas, butterflyfish, angelfish and groupers - the usual suspects as it were. A small group of barracuda flitted past, but again, there was nothing exceptional. Nothing to really get our socks off. The group was all very experienced divers who craved pelagics preferably with teeth, but they were eluding us.
At five metres we found one of the many small openings into the lagoon and I followed a pufferfish inside. It studied me suspiciously with a large eye and picked up the pace and hurried away in a fluster I've only ever observed in that particular group of fish. Inside, the coral gardens were pretty and well populated - good snorkelling territory - but very tame for what we wanted. In northern Egypt this one small place would be a good dive site in its own right, but we craved more. And boy did we get it. True expedition stuff is what we came for. An adventure, a voyage of discovery. However, I don't recall Indiana Jones having to endure a 50 minute boat ride across a rather choppy sea in a small inflatable full of other people. The south of Sha'ab Anbar though is not a place large liveaboards would care to hang around, the shallow reefs are a death trap for anything larger than a small dinghy. So there we sat in the lee of the reef kitting up all desperately hot in the relentless Sudanese sun wishing we were in the water.
"Don't worry there's probably nothing here anyway," came the sound of typical British optimism. Our destination was the south west point - the big toe that Sha'ab Anbar sticks out into the oceanic Red Sea. If Sha'ab Rumi and Sanganeb to the north can have stunning plateaus, we figured why not Anbar? Two metre high breakers pounded the shallow, 4m deep, plateau, but in front of that was another, deeper, horizontal piece of real-estate and in the ocean any land which is flat is more valuable that a studio flat in Fulham.
I rolled in and immediately headed down out of the surge which was threatening to alleviate me of my lunch. The plateau 24 metres beneath was sand, coral only visible at the rim where it rose up to form a crater-like look. Starting at the south side we headed deep passed the plateau and saw very little. Oh dear.
Coming back though I caught sight of a white-tip reef shark resting on the sand. These small sharks have the ability to pump water across their gills, thus they can 'rest' on the bottom. I came up over the lip carefully and caught sight of another and another and then another. Four sharks all resting on the sand. Things were looking up. We continued along the rim of coral looking out into the blue. Two grey reef sharks appeared swimming back and forth in the current. Although not particularly large or even dangerous, grey reefs look the part - quick as a jet fighter when they want a burst of speed and armed with the equivalent natural weaponry. The two were joined by another slightly larger individual and then a hammerhead appeared. For some unknown reason this species of shark holds a certain fascination among divers. Ask anyone which shark they wish to see most and it'll almost certainly be a hammerhead. At 2.5 metres long this individual wasn't exceptionally large, but its body was toned like a bodybuilder's and its distinctive scalloped hammer for a head ensured everyone stopped to watch. Further on, the coral rim merges into the wall of the main reef signalling the place to turn. As we did so, a spotted eagle ray descended the reef wall and glided ballerina-like over the plateau. Now my senses where feeling frayed and put upon. Calm down, calm down they screamed. There is only so much a person should see on a dive, but it wasn't over yet. Swimming back at 17m above the plateau towards the wall that leads to the 4m plateau, the water ahead glistened with the twisting bodies of barracuda. A shoal of maybe 50 individuals hung in a ragged line from 15m to near the surface. Passing by, I reached the wall and found myself surrounded. Spotted Grunts, or to give them their more apt name, spotted sweetlips, in numbers I have never seen before hung swishing in the surge. The shoal was immense and flanked by the larger giant sweetlips. Both species flicked in and out of the coral heads with the worried look impala have on the African planes, wary of what predator may be lurking ready for a mistake. What a wonderful finish to a sensory overloading dive I thought, and then a large male hawksbill turtle swam off the plateau top around the small group of divers left in the water descended and settled on the bottom. No more, my brain said - up now before I explode.
We couldn't leave Sha'ab Anbar without diving Jerrycan Point (so called because an old barnacle encrusted jerrycan was floating past when we first dived it) again and it still held surprises. And so the next morning we were again fighting the swells which kicked off somewhere to the north. The breakers over the shallow plateau would have surfers across the world salivating in anticipation, but divers looking on in fear. They were quite large to use the great British ability for understatement. But after 40 minutes in the harsh sun we were pretty keen and over the main plateau the water was calmish. In and down are the best rules for that sort of surface and once under you can drift slowly to the bottom. White-tip reef sharks again rested peacefully on the sand clearly visible as we made our way across the plateau to the coral rim where we descended to around 30 metres and looked into the blue. A large white-tip reef shark swam by saw the larger creatures and high tailed it away, but it was soon followed by a grey reef shark which was slightly more interested. It cruised passed at a respectable distance a couple of times and then found its way above us and swept.
