The Brothers Islands are two small coral outcrops seventy kilometres offshore from the Egyptian coast in the central Red Sea, the Big Brother and the Little Brother, each with the lighthouse that the Egyptian maritime authority maintains and the specific underwater topography of the sheer coral wall that drops from the surface to four hundred metres and that the sea bass and the hammerhead sharks and the thresher sharks patrol in the early morning current.
Discovery anchors at the Brothers on the mooring buoy that the Egyptian authority provides and does not leave for two days, the two dive days that the Brothers Islands warrant and that the offshore vessel that carried its own fuel and its own water and its own anchor can take because it is not on the liveaboard schedule that returns to Hurghada on the third evening.
The sea bass from the Aqaba market made the passage south to the Brothers Islands in the cold storage of the Discovery’s seawater-cooled refrigeration. The whole fish, two kilos each, three fish for twelve people — marinated for the afternoon in the za’atar and the lemon and the olive oil and the garlic.
Za’atar is the Levantine herb blend of the dried thyme and the sumac and the sesame seed and the salt that the Arab kitchen has been using on the fish and the bread and the vegetables of the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea coast for centuries, the spice blend that the Jordanian market in Aqaba provided and that belongs to the Red Sea geography as much as the hammerhead that Céline photographed at forty metres this morning.
After the Dive
The fish comes off the grill with the za’atar crust and the lemon char and is served with the pomegranate seeds scattered over the top, the jewelled fruit of the Levantine kitchen that the Jordanian market provided by the bag and that the red acid sweetness of the seeds gives as the contrast to the za’atar savoury and the charred lemon of the grill.
The flatbread from the morning and the hummus from the Aqaba provisions and the cold tomato and cucumber salad with the sumac dressing. Twelve people who spent the day at the Brothers Islands wall, the hammerheads, the threshers, the napoleon wrasse, the soft coral in the current — eating the Red Sea fish at the Red Sea site with the Red Sea kitchen’s spices on the plate. The Brothers Islands are behind the boat. The dinner is in front of it. The dive and the meal are both the Brothers Islands delivered in different forms.
