Diving Egypt’s Southern Solitude on Emperor Elite — Trip Report & Gear Test

Last week I joined Emperor Elite on the Southern Solitude itinerary, a route designed for divers who want to get a little further away from the usual traffic and experience some of the best offshore diving Egypt has to offer. Rather than following the more common pattern of slowly working south, Southern Solitude gets moving quickly from Port Ghalib, taking in big-name reefs like Elphinstone and Daedalus, before heading down towards the more remote sites around Rocky Island, Zabargad, St John’s and Fury Shoals.

For me, this was not just a dive trip. It was also a chance to properly test a full set of gear in the kind of conditions customers actually ask us about: repeated dives, long days on a liveaboard, reef walls, current, low-light swim-throughs, bright shallow coral gardens, and plenty of opportunities for photo and video.

I booked my trip with Dive Worldwide, and they were absolutely brilliant from start to finish. When you're spending this kind of money on a liveaboard, having someone who genuinely understands the destinations, boats and itineraries makes all the difference. A special shout-out goes to Phil North — quite simply one of the best dive travel agents out there. If you're planning a serious trip, he's the person you want in your corner.

The big appeal of Southern Solitude is the sense that you are doing a route built around diving, not simply ticking off a standard liveaboard schedule.

The itinerary is designed to get to Elphinstone early in the trip, rather than leaving it until the end, and then pushes further south towards reefs that many Red Sea divers still have not visited. Emperor describe Rocky and Zabargad as exceptionally remote and usually quiet, which is exactly the appeal of this route.

It is not really a “first liveaboard” style trip. This is a better fit for confident, experienced divers who are comfortable with deeper profiles, walls, negative entries, current and blue-water ascents. Emperor’s own itinerary guidance for these offshore reef systems notes that they suit experienced divers, with advanced or deep training often required, and that currents can be unpredictable.

That said, when the conditions line up, it is exactly why people keep coming back to the southern Red Sea: huge reef structures, colourful soft corals, excellent visibility, big walls, dramatic drop-offs and those wide-open blue-water moments that make liveaboard diving feel special.

Emperor Elite is a comfortable platform for this kind of trip. On a route like Southern Solitude, the boat matters because you are not just doing one or two nice dives a day — you are living around the dive deck, charging cameras, drying kit, eating, sleeping and doing it all again.

The routine quickly becomes familiar: briefing, kit up, dive, rinse, eat, charge batteries, check footage, sleep, repeat.
That is one of the things I love about liveaboards. You properly settle into diving. No vans, no long transfers, no faffing around with wet kit every morning. Just diving.

For this trip I used the Divevolk housing for my iPhone 17 Pro, paired with an Orca D710 MK2 video tray and two Orca D710 MK2 video lights, both with fluoro and red light options.

This was one of the setups I was most interested in testing because more and more divers are asking whether they really need a traditional camera system, or whether a modern phone housing can do the job.

The honest answer is: for a lot of divers, a good phone housing setup is now incredibly capable.

The Divevolk system made it easy to use the phone naturally underwater, and having two proper video lights made a huge difference. On the darker sections of reef, in swim-throughs, and anywhere deeper where the reds disappear quickly, the twin lights brought colour and detail back into the footage. 

The OrcaTorch D710V MK2 is not just a powerful video light — it's a three-mode creative tool. White, red, and UV modes give you everything from wide-angle flood illumination to marine-life-friendly approach lighting to full fluorescence without filters. Run two of them together with the Double D710V MK2 Combo Kit, and you've got a professional-grade twin-light rig at a price point that makes a lot of sense for serious recreational videographers and underwater photographers alike.

For buoyancy, I used the Scubapro Hydros Pro 2 BCD.

For this itinerary, where you might be doing multiple dives a day and spending plenty of time in the water, comfort really matters. A BCD might feel fine for one easy shore dive, but after a full week on a liveaboard, you know whether it works for you or not. The Hydros Pro 2 worked very well.

For computers, I went intentionally belt-and-braces.

My main setup was the Suunto Nautic with connected pod, with a Suunto Nautic S connected to the same pod as a backup. Alongside that, I also dived a Garmin Mk3i with T2 transmitter.

That might sound like overkill, but on a remote liveaboard itinerary, I like having redundancy. You are doing multiple dives a day, often far from shore, and a computer issue can seriously affect your week. Having a primary, a backup, and a second independent air-integrated system gave me a lot of confidence.

The Suunto Nautic setup was easy to read and worked well with the pod. The Garmin Mk3i and T2 transmitter also performed as expected, and I still think the Garmin is one of the most impressive all-round dive and lifestyle watches available.

For customers asking whether they need air integration: no, you do not need it. But once you have used it properly, especially on trips like this, it is very hard to go back. Being able to see gas information clearly on your wrist is convenient, reassuring and genuinely useful.

Elphinstone is one of those reefs that still feels dramatic, even if you have dived Egypt before. Long walls, colourful soft corals and that big blue-water feeling make it a brilliant way to start a serious Red Sea itinerary. Emperor describe it as a 300-metre-long reef with colourful pink and red soft coral walls, and the Southern Solitude route aims to visit it when fewer boats are around.

Daedalus is all about scale. Big walls, drop-offs and a real sense of being offshore. Emperor describe Daedalus as offering some of the most spectacular diving in the Red Sea, with deep walls and drop-offs.

These are the sites that give Southern Solitude its real “off the beaten track” feel. They are remote, less commonly dived, and exactly the kind of places that make a liveaboard worthwhile.

The move back north through St John’s and Fury Shoals brings a different style of diving: reef systems, coral gardens, swim-throughs and a huge amount of colour. Emperor also highlight Fury Shoals for marine life, including turtles and spinner dolphins.

Southern Solitude is not the softest Red Sea itinerary, and that is exactly why it is so good.

It is best suited to divers who already have a few trips under their belt and want something more adventurous than the standard northern wrecks or relaxed reef routes. You should be comfortable with drift diving, deeper profiles, wall diving and open-water ascents. If you are, it is a fantastic way to see a quieter and more dramatic side of the Red Sea.

From a gear point of view, it was also a brilliant test. The Scubapro Hydros Pro 2, Cressi regulator setup, Cressi Comfort 5mm, Mares Quattro 4X fins, Suunto Nautic system, Garmin Mk3i, and Divevolk / Orca video setup all had a proper workout over a week of real diving.

For me, that is always the best way to judge dive kit. Not in a showroom. Not from a spec sheet. But on a boat, doing multiple dives a day, in the conditions it was actually designed for.
And on that basis, this setup earned its place.