Life on board

Living on the Red Sea, Solo

What made this trip different for me wasn’t just the diving. It was the first time I actually lived on a boat in the middle of the sea. For several days, the boat became home — wake up surrounded by the Red Sea, dive, come back, eat, rest, get ready to dive again. Being away from land and having my days connected entirely to the ocean felt different from any dive trip I’d done before.

I woke up around sunrise for the first dive of the day, even though I’m not a morning person — I was always curious what we’d find underwater. Then breakfast, a nap, and the next dive, and the next. That was the whole rhythm of the week, and I loved it.

For most of the trip there was no phone signal. I’d packed books expecting to be bored. I never really opened them — I was always with the other divers, talking through what we’d just seen, eating, or napping before it was time to gear up again. Not being reachable wasn’t something to get through. It was the part of the week I needed most.

Reef life

The Reef Between the Big Encounters

Every dive had its own feel — early morning, sunset, night. Even diving several times a day, it never felt like we were repeating the same dive, because there was always something different waiting on the reef itself: a moray tucked into a crevice, a stingray settled on the sand, coral thick with the usual reef traffic.

Night dives added a different mood to the week — the reef looks nothing like it does at midday, and that’s where the moray and the stingray showed up. Diving at night, at sunset, and early in the morning all had their own character, which is part of what a liveaboard gives you that a single day boat can’t: the chance to be in the water at every hour, not just the convenient ones.

The highlight

The Hammerheads — and the Dive I Forgot My Camera

Seeing a hammerhead shark was already on my list before this trip, and it’s the reason I chose the Red Sea for my first liveaboard. Our guides briefed us before every dive on what we might encounter and how to behave around different species — including the chance of oceanic whitetip or thresher sharks, though we didn’t get those encounters on this trip. Knowing the guides understood the area made me feel more confident going into every dive.

I also added Nitrox to my booking, since we were diving several times a day. At certain depths, Nitrox gives a longer no-decompression limit than diving on air — I benefited from that on some of the deeper dives, especially when we were looking for hammerheads. I didn’t want to have to go up before I’d had enough time with them.

The best hammerhead encounter of the whole trip happened on the one dive I forgot my camera. A group of them didn’t just pass by — they stayed for a while, circling around us. I was thrilled and annoyed with myself in equal measure. After that dive, everyone on board kept telling me to forget my camera again, since that was apparently when the real encounters happened.

I never forgot my camera again after that. I still came home with footage from the rest of the trip — other hammerhead passes, whitetip sharks, octopuses, triggerfish, and a manta ray gliding low over the reef. If you want to see what a Red Sea liveaboard week built specifically around shark encounters looks like, our Daedalus Reef hammerhead trip report covers a different route with its own hammerhead and manta sightings.

Why BookDiveBoat

Why I Did This One Solo, With BookDiveBoat

As a female solo traveler, I usually think hard before choosing a destination. For this trip I was matched onto the JP Marine, and I was happy with the choice — traveling alone never felt like a burden once I was on board. It was the opposite. I felt like part of one big family of divers, all living in the same place, diving together, eating together, sharing the same days built around the same thing we all loved.

For a solo diver, that kind of matchmaking matters more than it does for a group trip — the right boat and the right group make the difference between a week that feels isolating and one that doesn’t. If you’re weighing up whether to travel alone, our going solo on a liveaboard guide goes into the logistics in more detail.

Good to know

Before You Book a Solo Liveaboard Week

Briefings before each dive covered local conditions and whatever had been showing up that week — the possibility of oceanic whitetip and thresher sharks came up alongside the usual hammerhead talk.

Nitrox was available to add to the booking, and worth it for anyone doing several dives a day at depth. If this is your first liveaboard rather than your first solo trip, our Egypt liveaboard for beginners guide covers what to expect on a more beginner-friendly route.

Keep reading

More on Egypt liveaboards