Our Sponsors
John Kean works at the Sinai Blues Diving and Water Sports Centre. Sinai Blues is providing many of the GPS, communication, video, motorcycle accessories and support systems for our trip, which allows us to update and record much of what we do above and below the water. It also keeps us safe and in touch with the outside world when in remote locations away from normal coverage areas. Sinai Blues are our lead sponsors and have been instrumental in both in financial support and enthusiastic commitment to our Coloured Seas Trip.
The Sinai Blues facility is located within the 5 star Four Seasons Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh and like the famous hotel itself, places an emphasis on service and customer care. Diving staff are hand-picked and have a unique range of skills and expertise in teaching, languages, recreational and technical diving, marine biology, shipwrecks and diving related media projects. The centre offers its guests scuba, swimming & snorkeling and water sports activities supported by an impressive range of vessels from high powered, large capacity zodiacs to luxury day boats reaching all areas of the Northern Red Sea.
The trip officially starts and ends at the Sinai Blues Centre!
The Four Seasons - Hotels and Resorts
The Four Seasons Hotel Group is 50 years old this year. It opened its first hotel in Toronto in March 1961 aimed at the travelling motorist. Most of our trip involves staying with the divers and bikers we meet in the many destinations we visit (or sleeping under a roadside tree!). However, for some of the Middle Eastern part of our journey, the Four Seasons has kindly offered us the use of their hotels in Amman, Istanbul, Alexandria and Cairo. Secure parking and the use of their business centre and communications facilities will allow us to update our media partners and meet the deadlines of the many magazines for which we are providing articles and photographic material. Of course, the occasional indulgence in luxury during our 70 days on the road will not be unwelcomed and gives us the chance to wash off the desert sand and have well earned rest before the big push north. Some of the senior managers and directors of the Four Seasons in Egypt are keen bikers and members of the legendary Cairo Harley Davidson Owners Club. We will be riding with them on our homeward leg in Alexandria and Cairo. It is not unusual to see over 150 glorious machines gliding into Sharm El Sheikh on one of their famous road trips. The Four Seasons of Sharm El Sheikh is home to The Sinai Blues diving and water sports centre, the lead sponsors of our trip.
O'Three - Drysuits
We have a long association with O’Three dating back to 2003 when they provided the new prototype custom suits which we used on a variety of Red Sea and world depth record projects. They were among the first to break away from the ‘big black bag’ era and design suits that actually resembled the outline of a human being! O’Three took this concept to whole new levels and the custom option makes a dry suit highly personal and one of the major necessities of any great diving project. Over time, they have proved very popular and versatile in multiple environments and purposes. O’Three has designed two suits specially made for the Coloured Seas Trip allowing us to dive in temperatures from 25c down to 5c. The soft boot option is reversible but for the trip it allows us to pack the suits into the minimal space we have on our bikes. In emergencies, the Ri 1-100 ccn suits doubles as a survival suit if we get caught out on the road in the Arctic Circle near Russia’s White Sea.
Sea Queen Fleet - Red Sea Liveaboards
Sea Queen Fleet was one of the original sponsors of our trip taking a keen interest as far back as March 2010. Their expertise in wreck safaris lends itself greatly to The Coloured Seas Trip, featuring many icon wrecks. It is Sea Queen who have designed and provided the official trip website DivingBikers.net thanks to Martin, their website designer. We are very grateful to Karim, Martin, Cristina and all the Sea Queen staff who have assisted in developing our contacts in the Ukraine and Russia and in providing ongoing support along the way.
Sea Queen Fleet is a safari boat operator in the Red Sea and has been running trips since 1993. They have extensive experience of not just the Red Sea itself but in the organising of trips for thousands of happy guests over nearly twenty years. Major attractions for guests are the numerous wreck dive sites and a variety of itineraries stretching Deep South to the major marine parks. From the wrecks of over 100 years old like the Dunraven and Carnatic to the WW2 wreck of Thistlegorm and more modern shipwrecks like the Salem Express, wreck diving in the Red Sea is world class. The Brothers Islands, Elphinstone and Daedalus reefs, not to mention the Northern Red Sea including Ras Mohammed and Tiran, may all be experienced on Sea Queen liveaboards.
Choice of regulators is a critical consideration for our trip which sees us venture from the sedate and warm waters of the Red Sea, through the Black Sea and then to the icy waters near Murmansk. Apeks have kindly provided us with XTX-200 DIN first stages fitted with the XTX-40 octopus. The 40 is a nice mid-ranged balanced second stage with an ergonomic diver-adjustable venturi control. Incorporating a very efficient heat exchanger we consider it ideal for warm and cold water diving conditions. The XTX-40 is also low profile and compact. Many of the big record diving projects that we have managed or supported have benefitted from Apeks regulators, often reaching depths exceeding 200m. The XTX-100 and 200 series is the most widely used regulator by the highly experienced Red Sea tech diving community.
Total has generously sponsored our fuel requirements for the trip with the provision of two fuel credit cards allowing us access to Total service stations and all its affiliate service stations along the route. These cards are available to individuals and professionals alike covering thousands of stations in several different countries. High Octane 98 is available throughout Europe but generally not for the first part of our trip through the Middle East. A small manual adjustment allows our KTM 990 bikes to run on benzine 80, which is the lowest grade of petrol available and more commonplace with farmyard vehicles ! With remote locations and long distances it is important to have all options available. Total have also provided us with an elctronic list of all the service stations where the card may be used. Many of their cards include breakdown services and insurance options which are popular among professional drivers such as HGV.
Our bikes are two KTM 990 Adventure S Dakar Models of 999cc. Both were imported directly from Austria in 2008 and are the only models of their kind in Egypt. KTM has been in existence since 1934 but more recently is a world leader in on and off-road motorcycle manufacturing. With the growth of motorcycling in Egypt, KTM now has dealerships in both Cairo and Sharm El Sheikh. Yann Vautrin has recently become a consultant to KTM Sharm and will run guided bike trips throughout Egypt. KTM Sharm is assisting us with the Coloured Seas Trip by importing all our additional accessory equipment at special rates exclusively for our project. We also have the use of their modern and fully equipped workshop in Naama Bay, Sharm where the off-road race track and maintenance facility is located. The two bikes will be fully serviced at KTM Sharm before the trip’s departure in May 2011.
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