A London shop floor sends a father and son back to Sharm

Retail dive shops do not usually publish holiday diaries. Mike’s, on a London high street, did — because a staff member had just come back from Sharm with his son and wanted the floor to have a sentence for the next person who asked “is it open?” The piece is dated after a March 2026 week. The tone is a shop assistant talking to another diver, not a destination brochure.

The safety question sits in the first paragraph. Steve writes that they felt looked after from the airport to the boat. Camel is named because the family used that house, not because the shop is selling a package on the page. The compliment is operational: transfers, kit, briefing, food, and a staff manner that “never felt stiff.”

Breakfast as evidence

Travel copy often skips the morning. This one does not. Pomodoro is praised for coffee and a spread that runs from a full English to granola — the kind of detail a shop floor can repeat. The boats get the same treatment: crews, lunch, and the feeling that the day had been run before.

The Thistlegorm appears as a quieter wreck than the stories. That is a seasonal observation, not a promise. The writer is careful to say the Red Sea was still producing the dives people fly for. The close is a recommendation with a name on it: if a customer is sitting on the fence, Steve would send them to Camel.

We will not reprint the personal asides or the full food list. The original is a staff letter. What belongs here is the frame: a retailer using a family week to answer the only question the counter actually gets — is Sharm worth the ticket, and who runs the boats.