Chilly Bradfordians are making a last-minute dash for some sun.
Passenger numbers at Leeds-Bradford Airport are climbing as temperatures here are plunging.
In the last few days between Christmas and the New Year more than 30,000 passengers passed through the airport, said its commercial director Tony Hallwood. The top hot spots for people seeking winter sunshine are the Canary Island resorts of Tenerife and Lanzarote and Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh resort, he said. Snow-sport enthusiasts are heading for the French Alps, taking advantage of heavy snow.
Mr Hallwood said: “We’re not quite as busy as just before Christmas but people are still heading off for a well-earned break before going back to work. There’s no doubt the bad weather we’ve been having here has driven lots of that demand.”
He also said post-festive short-break flights to Paris and Amsterdam had taken off with people booking last-minute escape destinations before getting back to work.
According to Travelsupermarket.com internet inquiries have soared in the past few days as fed-up Britons look for a way out from the big freeze.
Meanwhile, holiday companies are competing for hard-to-bag early bookings for 2010 summer holidays with some slashing prices by up to 50 per cent.
“If you are stuck on dates and you are fairly certain where you want to go, then sniff out the good deal now and book,” said a spokesman for Travelsupermarket.
Source: Telegraph and Argus (http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/4827831.Passengers_take_off_for_winter_sun/)
Tags: Leeds Bradford Airport
A prestige new winter destination has been announced for South West travellers seeking guaranteed sunshine. In a deal with Thomson and First Choice, Exeter International Airport will offer flights to Sharm El Sheikh and holidays in Red Sea resorts from November 2010.
The series of flights to Egypt, which are the first in the airport’s history, will depart weekly on a Thursday from November until April next winter and South West customers will have all the benefits of departing from their nearby local airport.
This new destination for the airport was agreed with Thomson and First Choice whose airline, Thomson Airways, operates from Exeter. As well as offering land-based package holidays on the Sinai Peninsula, Thomson will also offer Red Sea cruises from Sharm El Sheikh so that passengers will be able to gain easy access to the Thomson winter cruise fleet.
Commenting on the launch of the new route, Exeter International Airport’s managing director, Jamie Christon said: “This has been on the wish-list for some time. For sun-seekers and water-lovers this is a must-do destination. The incredible coral reefs and marine life make this one of the world’s blockbuster scuba spots and as someone who is particularly interested in this water sport, I am especially pleased about the new flights. There is however something to suit every mood and holiday style and the ‘Red Sea Riviera’ caters for a vast array of tastes.”
Mr Christon continued: “The Red Sea cruise ship bookings may be made from today (17 December) and from mid-February the full 2010/11 winter programme will be on sale. We feel that this new Sharm El Sheikh destination will be a great success especially throughout the winter months when spirits may be low.”
Neil Morris, Planning Director for Thomson and First Choice, said: “We are delighted to be operating an additional route from Exeter to Sharm El Sheikh next winter and this decision demonstrates our commitment to the local airport.”
He added: “This new route reflects the high level of demand from those wishing to fly from a regional airport and will offer our customers a wider range of destinations from Exeter.”
Source: Exeter Airport (http://www.exeter-airport.co.uk/airport-news?item=226)
Tags: Thomson
At approximately 16:30 hrs on 16th December Red Sea liveaboard, Emperor Fraser, was moored at Dunraven near Sharm el Sheikh. While the 11 guests on board, from the UK, Australia, Finland and Holland, were doing their second dive of the day the wind direction changed suddenly causing the rear mooring lines to break free. With divers underwater the captain was unable to start the engines in order to prevent the boat from colliding with the reef, causing a breach in the hull.
The crew immediately recalled the divers and attempted to plug the rupture. However, this proved impossible and the captain took the decision to abandon ship onto the zodiacs.
Emperor Fleet headquarters helped coordinated the rescue, which included the Egyptian Navy and other dive boats. All guests, guides and crew were picked up by the Egyptian Navy and taken to the nearest port, Sharm el Sheikh, where they were met by Emperor staff, provided with new clothes and taken to the Hilton Dreams Hotel.
Emperor Divers would like to express their thanks to the Egyptian Navy and CDWS for their assistance.
Emperor Divers is deeply regretful that this unfortunate accident has affected our guests’ holiday and is doing everything possible to provide them with diving in the Sharm and Hurghada areas before they fly home. Sadly the Emperor Fraser, a favoured boat for many divers over the past few years, is unsalvageable. Guests with a forward booking on Fraser will be contacted by Emperor Reservations to discuss alternatives.
Source: Emperor Divers (http://www.emperordivers.com/blog/2009/12/red-sea-liveaboard-emperor-fraser-sinks.html)
Emperor Divers is always looking at the quality of the service provided to their guests and it could not miss the opportunity to give their guides the chance to gain precious extra knowledge. The expanding and ever changing market requires dive centres to broaden their horizons, services offered and special needs for experienced divers and new professionals.
The Advanced Diver programme seemed to tailor very well on us (read dive guides) since it involves deepening the knowledge about meteorology, tidal movements, organizing trips on small and big boats, setting up emergency equipment and emergency procedures, and leading rescue teams in case of emergencies. The candidates have to be able to work with Admiralty Charts, undergo rescue workshops, lead diving trips and extend their depth limits learning how to perform decompression stops in the proper way.
Sophie Rennie was our BSAC National Instructor (highest level in BSAC). She has been diving for almost twenty years and has seven year’s experience in instructor assessment and high level diver training. In order to qualify more Advanced Divers in the future, we also trained two more guides as BSAC Advanced Instructor. This course is a complex path and a comprehensive study of how to improve your teaching skills, how to grab a teaching opportunity when it arises and how to infuse more knowledge and enthusiasm to the course takers and/or qualified divers. It covers small lectures, specific briefings, progressive teaching and broad study of diving related topics such as meteorology, tides, dive managing and rescue leading.
Another important aspect of the training was the boat handling and boat coxswain training. RIBS were the boats we learnt how to drive, to steer and to use to recover divers from the water. The qualification is the CDA (Combined Diving Agencies) BSAC ICC (International Certificate of Competence) and is widely regarded as the best training available.
These eight days together aboard Emperor Asmaa have been fantastic. The Emperor team made a big effort to dovetail all the puzzle pieces together, to encourage people that needed a nice word, to pat others on the shoulder and say “Well done” immediately after another tick fell in the box. We also had to face another hitch, which turned out to be very positive; we had to drive to Hurghada to board the boat and this made our training even more challenging and interesting because we were not in our usual comfort zone of known dive sites (Sharm El Sheikh). So we were forced to plan all of the days in dive sites we barely knew and we could really see the spirit of the Emperor team: everybody contributing to let the day run smoothly.
But probably the weirdest task was that we had to pretend to train or brief other instructors who are colleagues and friends and at the same level of knowledge. But guess what? Nobody neglected to be part of the audience and actively take part in all the activities.
New BSAC Advanced Instructors:
- Daniele Zanoni
- Steve Hinton
New BSAC Dive Leaders:
- Sarah Wright
- Simon Stanford
- Steve Parry
- Mat Cotton
New BSAC Advanced Divers:
- Sarah Wright
- Simon Stanford
- Steve Parry
- Mat Cotton
- Roger Jenkins
- Shaun Lambert
- Denis Durrant
- Peter Walsh
New boat handlers and coxswains:
- Daniele Zanoni
- Sarah Wright
- Simon Stanford
- Steve Parry
- Mat Cotton
- Roger Jenkins
- Shaun Lambert
- Denis Durrant
- Peter Walsh
Source: Emperor Divers blog (http://www.emperordivers.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/341 )
Tags: Emperor Divers
| Boat: Dates of safari: Dive guides: Route: Exit-Enter Harbor: Pax number: Guest nationality: |
Elite 20-27 Nov 2009 Sonia and Marc North Classic HRG 20 Spanish, UK, Austrian |
DAY DIVING ONE:
Dive one: Check dive at Poseidon Gardens, Shaab El Erg. Excellent schools of banner fish, masked butterfly fish, really nice, and large crocodile fish great!
Dive two: Carnatic at Abu Nuhas, not too much light on it, because late, but very beautiful soft corals and everybody happy. Very large moray eel at stern.
Night dive: Abu Nuhas ergs, very large Spanish dancer, everybody happy with it.
Weather: sunny
Wind: Indicate force and direction: 15 knots from north
Water Temperature and Visibility: 20-30m and 26C
DAY DIVING TWO:
Dive one: Chrisoula K with excellent visibility; really beautiful dive; all the garden eels far out, lots of Nemos and free-swimming lionfish, three large tuna, awesome.
Dive two: Giannis D, many batfish, Napoleon fish, beautiful light inside going through engine room and adjacent rooms up to bridge. Many glassfish and copper sweepers in the engine room; beautiful. The bow mast and ropes covered in soft corals, very large moray eel.
Dive three: Dunraven with gorgeous visibility; school of 20 batfish by wreck, large Napoleon fish, hugest and very old moray eel, schooling goatfish, schooling sweetlips, cruising schools of jackfish, anthias mating by the reef, large barracuda getting cleaned by the reef and turtle cruising by, absolutely awesome dive and everybody loved it!
Night dive: Beacon rock with Spanish Dancer and moray eels
Weather: sunny
Wind: Indicate force and direction: 10-15 knots from north, good weather
Water Temperature and Visibility: 20-30m and 16C
DAY DIVING THREE:
Dive one: Shark Reef and Yolanda with very gentle current, which made for a stunning dive, with all the soft corals puffed up and clouds of anthias. Especially Yolanda was gorgeous, with schools of batfish, trumpet fish and Emperor fish, and tons of anthias as well as a huge amount of blue spotted stingrays and several monster moray eels. We toured around shark reef and around the whole of Yolanda, and had a turtle at the end, beautiful!
Dive two: Another stunning dive was on Anemone City as we slowly made our way around the pillars covered in soft corals, the huge table corals and admired the huge amount of baby black damselfish who inhabit the anemones with the anemone fish. We also visited the deep pinnacle, which is covered in glassfish chased around by a resident school of jackfish. Superb dive!
Dive three: Thistlegorm with no current again made for a very leisurely visit of the forward holds with all the goodies. The highlight was a large school of about 100 batfish hovering above the wreck, fantastic!
Night dive: Thistlegorm with large turtle, lots of lionfish, scorpionfish
Weather: sunny
Wind: Indicate force and direction: 10 knots from north, flat calm seas
Water Temperature and Visibility: 26C and 30m
DAY DIVING FOUR:
Dive one: Thistlegorm, school of batfish still hovering above the wreck, lots of other divers unfortunately but still nice as no current and good visibility, did stern this time.
Dive two: Kingston wreck at Shag Rock, good visibility and no current, really nice dive and lots of anthias and some goat fish, no yellow snapper schools. A turtle with us for the whole dive from the wreck and along the reef.
Dive three: Bluff Point, absolutely fantastic dive with 15 bottlenose dolphins coming in and playing with us for at least 5 minutes, including mothers and calves, awesome. Also spotted multibar pipefish and a comet fish, as well as scorpion fish and many lionfish.
Night dive: Barge with torpedo ray, crocodile fish, monster scorpionfish, giant moray eels and clouds of sergeant majors and rabbit fish.
Weather: sunny
Wind: Indicate force and direction: North 15 knots
Water Temperature and Visibility: 26C and 20-30m
DAY DIVING FIVE:
Dive one: Rosalie Moller
Dive two: Rosalie Moller with good visibility and lots of fish and predators chasing the little ones around. Many groupers and lionfish, and lots of cleaning action by cleaner shrimps in the anemones and in the vents around the ship, also small peppered and marble moray eels, plenty pajama nudibranchs and yellow striped dottybacks, beautiful dives!
Dive three: Siyul Kebir, WOW, the famous pinnacle was even better than normal today… as beside the usual fantastic inhabitants (yellowmouth morays, broad-banded and multibar pipefish, many different cleaner shrimp, anemones, clouds of glassfish, blennies, scorpionfish and pepper moray eel) we saw a giant painted frogfish…fantastic! What a dive…
Night dive: Um Qammar and everybody loved it. Saw red stonefish, moray eel eating a fish, lionfish eating fish, a cuttlefish, a crocodile fish, and 2 Spanish dancers and, of course, tons of shrimps and crabs…awesome!
Weather: sunny
Wind: Indicate force and direction: 15-20 knots from North
Water Temperature and Visibility: 23 – 26C and 20 to 30m
DAY DIVING SIX:
Dive one: Um Qammar Island, beautiful pinnacle with lots of soft corals and gorgonians fans, many fish, beautiful dive.
Dive two: Wreck of Belinda, many schooling fish, lots of nudibranchs, ideal for guests as flying next morning.
Weather: sunny
