Page 97 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

1980s. In Sharm el Sheikh there was only one resort, and
it was divided between rooms in the hotel and tents on the
beach. Hurghada was even more primitive — nothing at all
like the tens of thousands of posh hotel rooms found there
today and a dive fleet with hundreds of liveaboards. What
was it like selling dive travel to the Red Sea in those days?
AN// Our first seafaris were aboard camels and Jeeps. I soon
realized this was too crude for the American market and
decided a liveaboard was the way to go. I found a suitable tourist
boat in Eilat and led the conversion of the boat for diving. That
became the Sunboat you chartered, with private cabins and
compressors onboard. We even had E-6 film processing on
board with a small Jobo system and a primitive darkroom.
Seeing that the end was near for an Israeli operating in
the Red Sea, we expanded to other destinations and by 1987
represented 15 liveaboards in places like Papua New Guinea,
Little Cayman, the Solomon Islands, Australia and the
Maldives.
Opposite, top: Beluga, White Sea, Russia
Opposite, bottom: Walrus mother nursing her young, Igloolik, Baffin Island
Leopard seal and penguin, Port Lockroy,
Antarctica — When hunting penguins, leopard
seals often play “catch and release” with
the penguin, eventually drowning it. The last
act is cutting the skin and violently shaking
the dead penguin out of the water to remove
the feathers before eating its prey.
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