Given the increasing popularity of liveaboard trips, many divers have come to realize that the most spectacular diving often lies on the reefs of faraway islands. Such remote islands, located in high seas, are constantly swept by strong currents; the abundance of fish on deep water banks is a well-known fact amongst fishermen.

This is true for a number of tropical destinations, which have become legendary for the extraordinary encounters they guarantee: the unbelievable volcanic pinnacle of Sipadan in the Celebes Sea, in Malaysian Borneo; the Gordo Banks in the Sea of Cortez, Baja California; the Isla del Coco in Costarica; the Burma Banks in the Andaman Sea, in Thailand and, in the reefs of the most secluded islands of the Red Sea, the legendary “two brothers”. In Arabic they are known as “Al Akhawein” but in the international language of divers they simply are “The Brothers” and they stand out for their beauty as well as their inaccessibility.

The “two brothers” are just two bare, sun-scorched rocks belonging to Egypt: Big Brother, with a lighthouse at its top, is almost one hundred metres wide and less than half kilometre long from east to west; Little Brother, situated less than one kilometre east from the other one, is considerably smaller. Both are military areas and the big island hosts a garrison where one has to to get a permit for mooring. This is not a big problem, as the real difficulty lies in reaching it due to its peculiar position in relation to the north-west wind. This combination makes mooring very dangerous and consequently the island is not often included in liveaboard trip programs.

The Brothers are volcanic in origin and are located some two hundreds chilometers south of the famous Ras Mohammed promontory, in the middle of the Red Sea, smack between the Egyptian and the Arabic coasts; they represent the ideal “border” where divers go to discover the wonders of Fury Shoal, Daedalus, Rocky Island and Zabargad, destinations which have become as famous as the legendary reefs of Sudan.

Theoretically it is possible to reach them from May to September but in fact the very unstable weather conditions (the Red Sea is subject to vigorous swells coming from the south) should be a warning for the wise: better go only from July to August. A number of skippers also refuse to spend the night at the mooring. This means that most of the times one is forced to do four or five dives in just one day, starting early in the morning, right after arrival, until late evening before departure.

Is it worth it? Those who have dived the amazing walls of the Brothers already know the answer. The peculiar exposure of the sites guarantees extraordinary encounters with the most unexpected specimens of pelagic fauna, so difficult to find anywhere else. The Brothers are suspended on an abyss more than three hundred metres deep. The crystal clear water boasts almost fifty metres horizontal visibility and divers often encounter common and spinner dolphins, mantas, eagle rays, shoals of jacks and trevallies, turtles, droves of barracudas, packs of grey reef and whitetip sharks: and if you’re really lucky you will also be able to spot great and scalloped hammerheads, silvertips, whale sharks and even oceanic whitetips.

We will never forget our unexpected encounter with a four meter giant hammerhead Sphyrna mokarran, the repeated buzzing of a squadron of enormous dogtooth tunas Gymnosarda unicolor and the forty-five minutes carrousel with three huge (and dangerous!) oceanic whitetipsCarcharinus longimanus, each two to four meters long.

All that in just three dives, in which we also had a number of “normal” sightings of reef whitetips Triaendon obesus and Eretmochelys imbricata hawksbill turtles. Other divers have even encountered pods of killer and pilot whales, but this kind of sighting quite rare. The richness of this unbelievably clear waters - together with the strong currents hitting the vertical walls of the two islands - gives the place a fairy-tale aura: everywhere, bright pink, purple, carmine, violet and lemon-yellow soft corals light up like neon signs against the dark blue of the open sea.

The vertical walls host enormous sea fans and forests of soft corals among which an immense variety of fish can be observed: groupers, angelfish, parrotfish, stingrays, octopi, morays, butterflyfish, nudibranchs are everywhere in all sorts of color and shape. At shallower depth, delicate laces of Acropora give shelter to literally million of bright orange Anthias, pulsing thick in dense, vertigo-inducing shoals.

Such diving requires experience. The Brothers are not a suitable destination for absolute beginners, given their distance from the main land and the constant presence of currents. In the northern part of the Big Island lies the relict of “Aida II” a military ship sank in 1957 while transporting troops from Alexandria to all the Red Sea Egyptian Lighthouses. Today its remains rest at a depth of thirty metres, mute witness to these treacherous seas.

The islands are also quite difficult to reach, considering their isolated position; sometimes they represent the only destination for two week long liveaboard trips. Several boats go back north immediately after having been here, dedicating the second part of the trip to the diving of easier sites along the “wreck route” (Alternatives, Stingray Station, Gubal, Tawila, Ras Mohammed, the Tiran strait and what’s left of the “Dunraven” and the “Carnatic”, with a bit of luck you will be able to to call on the “Thistlegorm”, the magnificent relict of a British armed cargo ship sunk by the Luftwaffe).

Some of the bigger boats with a longer range keep going south. Most charters sail from Sharm El Sheikh or Marsa Alam and from here it takes almost twelve hours by sea to reach the Brothers: it is possible to cover the distance in one night but some skippers prefer to make a midway stop and spend the first night by the gorgeous Careless Reef. Considering the beauty of the dives there, most passengers are quite happy to agree!