This expedition targeted two areas on South Africa’s, KwaZulu Natal coastline and our primary objective was to try to find and film the Sand tiger shark.

These beautiful animals are know around the word by different names, like Blue-Nurse Sand Tiger, Spotted Ragged Tooth Shark or Grey Nurse Shark. Here in South Africa, we have affectionately named them,

Raggies!

…. and while they may look aggressive and extremely dangerous, like many of the other 500+ Shark species in our Oceans, we found them to be more like docile puppies, very interested in us, and our camera rigs.

These beauties can grow up to 3.2m (10.5 ft) in length and may weigh up to 159kg (351 lb)

There were two or three very large females in the group that appeared to be near the end of their 12 month gestation and were very pregnant indeed. They will soon give birth to one or two, fully independent 1 meter long live pups.

Our first stop was Protea banks, where we chose to dive with African dive Adventures and stayed at Afri Dive's diver village which was very comfortable and highly recommended. We wish to thank Roland and his team for an unforgettable experience.

Not only did we film the Raggies up close, in their mating caves, but we also got to film a school of Scalloped Hammerhead sharks and saw Bull sharks, Oceanic black Tip and Tiger sharks.

Thanks for a great dive trip. We will return.

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Big SHOUT OUT and enormous thanks again to NauticamSA, KeldanSA and Dive Action Cape Town for all the help

in getting our gear ready for this expedition, not to mention the generous loan of lights while ours were in for upgrading. Amazing service as usual.

Our second port of call was Aliwal Shoal. Here, we choose to dive with Aliwal Dive Centre and lodge. Thanks to Basie, Keith, Mariaane and the rest of their wonderful team, for being so accommodating and seeing to ALL our needs. Fantastic diving and great accommodation too.

Once again, loads of Raggies, in their mating caves and on the reef, Oceanic Blacktip Sharks and a Bull Bhark. Thanks to all for a very successful dive trip.

What a privilege to dive and film these absolute beauties.

AND

They are right on our doorstep!

All images below, are uncropped frame grabs from our 6K and 4K film stock footage, unless otherwise noted.

(Please note: Active words are linked to more information and trip adviser/other reviews.)

2020 and COVID-19, a year of unprecedented change.

While this 'Pandemic' has had many negative effects on life as we knew it, the positive spin-off of the huge reduction in numbers of global travelers, seems to be that nature has had a chance to take a breath, to regain a little silence and possibly even recover, just a little. Once again, COVID-19 and the strict social and health protocols, that the world has put in place, has resulted in there being no better time for the exploration of our oceans, COVID risk aside, naturally.

Diving in the Red Sea has not been this tranquil since the 1970's, with so few people traveling and a 50% occupancy restriction on resorts and liveaboards, there were fewer divers and bubbles in the water than we could ever have thought possible. Divers, this is the time to get to the Red Sea.

We had three main objectives for this expedition:

The first, was to get some alone time on the 1941 wreck of SS Thistlegorm, with no other divers, torches or bubbles in the shot, to film, what is arguably one of the most dived wreck in the world.

The second, was to find and film one of the oceans most intriguing vegetarian mammals, currently vulnerable to Extinction, the Dugong.
The third and final objective was to dive with and film the Carcharhinus Longimanus or Oceanic Whitetip Shark.

Filming with our 6K RED and 4K Black Magic Cameras in their Nauticam dive housings, our Dive and Sea monitors and, of course, our robust Keldan lights, we decided, considering all the travel issues and restrictions, to incorporate three separate legs to the journey so that we had 22 days of almost unlimited diving to achieving our goals.

Our journey started from Hurghada, on the Emperor divers liveaboard named 'Emperor Superior', with only 11 other divers. We were so fortunate to have our dear friend, Sonia as our dive guide. Yahooo! The itinerary was called “The Famous Five” and included our first objective, the SS Thistlegorm.

(These are Cellphone images)

We saw very few other boats on the water and almost no day boats at all. In stark contrast to reports over the past few years, of 35+ boats, being moored on this wreck at one time, 35 boats, with an average of 20 divers on each, can you imagine? However, due to COVID-19, we were the only ones there. How lucky were we? In all this tranquility, we managed 4 dives on this magnificent wreck, one of which was a night dive, with only our handful of divers in the water.

With a small amount of planning, we had almost 4 hours of filming opportunity, around and inside the wreck, making the most of this unheard of opportunity, to get 'The Shot'.

Being the only two divers in the lower sections of the ships holds, surrounded by trucks, motorbikes, aircraft parts, all frozen in time for the last 75 years, we could almost hear the horrific explosions, sounds of tearing and buckling steel, screaming from crew members, the smell of discharging explosives, the scalding heat and blinding light from raging fires, the roar of cascading sea water rushing through passages, doorways and chambers, as the ship heaved and sank below the surface, in the dark of night and then just bubbles, until the thud of her 128 meter body landed on the sea bed 30 meters below. Quite surreal.

First objective Achieved, two to go.....

Our next step was onto 'Emperor Skye' another boat in the Emperor Divers fleet, but not a safari boat. 'Emperor Skye' is a day dive boat with 4 cabins and she is moored in Marsa Ghalib, about 60 km north of Marsa Alam. We were the only divers living on the boat and were treated like King and Queen.

(These are Cellphone images)

From this location we did shore and boat entry diving, looking for the allusive Dugongs. While 'Emperor Skye' is able to get out to a number of famous dive sites in the region, we were content with spending our 6 days just searching for Dugongs in the shallow sea grass beds of the region.

Our fantastic guide, Paul, patiently indulged our obsession, dive after dive, Green sea turtle after Green sea turtle, day after day and it all paid off.

DUGONG's!! Eating, sleeping, fighting off remoras, what a delight!

On one dive, while filming yet another Green sea turtle, we were approached by a large male Dugong called Dyson, who proceeded to swim through between us and grabbed the turtle that we had been filming, by the back of its shell. The turtle, startled by the sudden physical contact, tried to get away, but Dyson held on tight and carried the turtle off into the distance and all the way up to the surface. Why?........ No idea! (see below sequence)

This portion of the expedition was also a great success, with over 60 minutes of 6K and 4K Dugong footage now in our library.

Second objective Achieved, one to go.....

(This is a Cellphone image)

….. and so we moved onto our third and final objective, finding and filming the Oceanic Whitetip shark. For this we joined the 'Emperor Elite', yet another magnificent boat in the Emperor Divers fleet.

BUT! Before we proceed with the story, we wish to Congratulate Emperor Divers on their Safari boat 'Emperor Elite', winning the “BEST LIVEABOARDS” 2020 category in the UK Dive Magazine annual competition.

Well done guys!

(Image courtesy of Divemagazine.co.uk)

We boarded 'Emperor Elite' directly from 'Emperor Skye' in Marsa Ghalib and proceeded out to Brothers, Elphinstone and Deadalus, amongst others. Here again, we were grateful for the reduced number of boats in the water, which made it so much easier to film, without getting divers, fins and bubbles in the shot.

Mother nature was holding back a little here though, as the cold water, that brings the sharks, was not welling up from below as expected and the shark encounters had dropped from the previous week, but as we all know, there are no guarantees when you are out in the wild. This being said, we had a number of superb encounters with Thresher Shark, Scalloped Hamerheads, Whaleshark ….. AND..... LONGIMANUS, our intrepid and extremely inquisitive Oceanic Whitetip Shark

That's a wrap, all tree objectives Achieved.

Although, that being said, one must not forget all the other amazing creatures, corals and sights of the Red Sea. There are world class reefs, plenty of fish and majestic Dolphins.

What an incredible expedition this was, with Emperor Divers, ticking every box, not only from the filming and sighting perspective, but in absolutely every respect.

From the very first email to Emperor Divers, to all of our transfers and specific requirements, being vegetarian and traveling with so much camera and charging gear, (120kg+) and even helping with our exit COVID-19 testing in Hurghada on leaving Egypt, to finally stepping into the airport on our return home. Amazing service. Emperor Divers performed like a well oiled machine. Even in these very hard times, the office staff and boat crews eagerly performed their duties with competence, efficiency and a big smile. Thank you Sonia, for encouraging us to visit and dive the Red Sea again. THANK YOU SO MUCH to ALL the employees of Emperor divers, you exceeded all our expectations and made the trip a resounding success.

We look forward to our return to Emperor Divers, if not in the Red Sea, then to one of your other fleet vessels in the Maldives or Indonesia.

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