In July 2009, I spent a memorable week diving with Emperor Divers at Port Ghalib near Marsa Alam, staying at the Hotel Marina Lodge. 

I was made very welcome by the Emperor Divers crew, David "Dinky" Armstrong, Eva Kirsch, Flemming Moller, Sylvain Arnoul and Tracy Leverett and in particular Luke Atkinson who shared some great dives with me. This week was undoubtedly one of my best ever for underwater photography. I’m reluctant to say anything remotely nice about a Manchester United fan but will have to make an exception in Lukes’s case as I had such a great time with him.

Luke introduced me to numerous Green Turtles and some skittish Guitar Rays at Abu Dabab and after almost six hours of searching, covering all of the Abu Dabab site, we finally found a Dugong at Marsa Shuni. We had done so much finning that I rubbed some skin off my heels. 

Eva modelled for me during one dive and proved to be the most naturally gifted model I have had the pleasure to photograph. 

On my final days diving, Luke and I enjoyed three dives at Elphinstone Reef coming across a pair of large Tiger sharks at 40 metres. Back by our boat, Emperor Pegasus, we shared some Oceanic Whitetip sharks with fellow underwater photographer Derek Haslam while Flemming blew bubble rings so that we could photograph him.