Big Brother

A day at Big Brother is built from four approaches, and the current and the hour decide which one you get. The south plateau is entered straight off the moored liveaboard: you follow the reef wall south to a ridge near 30 m, where the cleaning station sits, for a dive of about 35 to 40 minutes. Stay close to the reef on the way, because guides warn that the current will otherwise sweep you out into the ocean.

The northern side is run as a drift. You drop onto a wall thick with gorgonians, table coral and clouds of anthias and let the flow carry you along the face while you watch the open water for oceanic whitetips, which come in curious and close. The northwest reef is a plateau about 300 m long that slants up to roughly 10 m before the seafloor falls away, a coral-rich, fish-busy finish and a comfortable place for the safety stop.

The Numidia lies off the northern tip and the Aida on the same reef; each is dived on its own plan [see numidia-wreck] [see aida-wreck].

Big Brother is a steep cone of rock rising from deep open water, and it carries nearly everything a Brothers trip is built around: coral walls running straight down, oceanic whitetips patrolling the blue, a thresher cleaning station on the south plateau and a lighthouse still working above it all. Two wrecks lie on the same reef, so a wall drift, a plateau shark-watch and a wreck can share a day off one boat.

It is the busy island of the pair. Some divers report a dozen or more liveaboards moored here on a peak day, and the crowd shapes the water: groups arrive in waves, and the sharks keep their distance when too many divers pile into the blue.

The lighthouse was completed in 1883 to warn ships off a lone reef in open sea, built from stone cut on the island itself, as an old quarry in the north attests. Guides put its height anywhere from 24 to 32 m. It still works, run by the Egyptian navy, whose crews serve three to four months at a time. The warning was not enough: the reef took the cargo steamer Numidia in 1901 and the supply ship Aida in 1957, and both now lie encrusted into the wall [see numidia-wreck] [see aida-wreck].

The current is what sets the terms, and the principal hazard is a downwelling on the sheer wall. Keep a little buoyancy in hand and stay with the reef; divers have been carried into open water here, which is why night diving is barred. Negative entries are standard, so be ready to roll in and descend at once, and expect a zodiac pickup in chop. An SMB is essential, and surfacing with the group keeps oceanic whitetips in view and your position known.

Set a computer depth alarm before you roll in: the wall keeps falling long after the dive plan ends.