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CORALREPUBLIC Djibouti
2006
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That awful ship |
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Trip
dates: |
26 October to 2 November 2006 |
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Boat
/ resort: |
MV MILA |
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Dive
centre: |
Liveaboard trip
arranged by the UK divetravel agent Regaldive. |
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Photo-friendly?: |
No |
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Number
of dives: |
11 over 5 days, 7 of them in Seven Brothers. 4 in Goubbet, with 4 snorkelling rounds with whale sharks |
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Diving
conditions: |
Clear skies but quite windy, 28oC water temperature.
Low visibility all-round (between 5 and 10 m). Particularly bad at El Goubbet. We had certainly expected better at Seven
Brothers. |
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Comments: |
I’ve heard other people’s wonderful stories about Djibouti, and
I believe them. But my luck was off for this trip. I would have too much bad
to say about it, so I’ll keep it short. Because of the liveaboard’s
awful, awful condition and the complete disastrous diving crew, it will take
me ages to be able to agree on coming back. Suffice it to say that Regaldive
easily agreed to re-fund part of the trip price (although not enough in my
view) and that this boat is no longer on offer. OK, I’ll give you a couple of hints as to why I am not a whining
idiot: fuel leaking below the flooring made it impossible to breathe in the
cabin. I got badly intoxicated and desperately sick. Had to sleep on the
dirty planks of the dive deck. Marine toilets backed up, with 4 cabins
flooded – this time we were lucky, not ours. Other people lost their iPods
and other gadgets in the incident, not to count on the filthy smell. The divemasters could barely speak English (lousy
arrangements for a charter group of all-UK divers plus the two of us), had
nothing to say anyway in terms of dive briefings, and often spent their
after-diving time complaining about our underwater behaviour, for some
reason. We had chosen this itinerary because it combined diving in the
Seven Brothers (not often dived) and whale shark encounters in the Gulf of Goubbet. The former was disappointing because of bad
visibility and inept dive organisation. We did have two good days of whale
shark encounters in Goubbet, but dives there were
really mucky. If you plan on going there, research your trip and boat
carefully. |
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