The first dive that morning was to be on the Rosalie Moller. This was to be a deep dive, so we switched to a lean 28% nitrox mix, to avoid any oxygen toxicity. I sensed at the briefing that something was wrong - we were told to stay with the guides at all times and not to enter deco. Some of us were a little annoyed about this - at the time I was one of the less experienced divers, and I had over 200 dives to my credit, with well over half of those at 30 meters or more! Deco diving is something I do most weeks, so we knew already that this was going to be a short dive. I'll come back to the reasons for this strange reaction later, as we found out that evening what the full story was.
So, let's get back to the wreck. The Rosalie Moller is a 110 meter steamer built in 1910. She went down to a Heinkel's bombs in October 1941 and is resting upright on the sea bed. The mast is still intact at around 17 meters, and the bows are the deepest point at close to 50 meters. Overall, the wreck is in remarkably good condition, with all the railings in place, the anchor retracted and the holds still full of the coal she was carrying as part of the war effort. Although the wooden decks have rotted, the portholes are all still in place and all still have glass in them.
There's an abundance of corals all over the wreck, and there is excellent sea life in the area, although visibility is unusually poor for The Red Sea at around 10 meters. There is a small swim through we were allowed to use, but we weren't allowed to visit the engine room due to time pressures. As I said before deco diving was not allowed, and we returned to the surface after just 28 minutes, and in my case with a maximum depth of 39 meters.
The second dive of the day was on the Ulysses - a 100 meter steam / sail ship which went down in 1887. The rear section is fascinating, with much of the planking rotted away, you can clearly see the whole construction of the ship. The maximum depth on this one was 28 meters, and visibility was good, although there was a strong current. Tremendous sea life on this one, with glass fish. butterfly fish and a big group of groupers, who were particularly nosy, living around the wreck. Because of the state of the timbers, this is an easy ship to swim through, with plenty of exit points.
Dive three was at our anchorage for the night, Bluff Point, and turned into a funny dive, after the event, and became the one and only time I have used the "F" word in my logbook! The plan was to be taken out in a rib, dropped off, and then to have a comfortable drift dive back to Whirlwind. I was in a group of three, and we were duly dropped off on a fabulous reef, full of corals and fish, and we went straight down to 35 meters for a good look around. At that point we realized that the current was going the wrong way! The result was that we finned like mad for the full 47 minutes of our dive, missed a lot of interesting stuff on the reef, but made it, exhausted, back to the big boat. My log entry reads "Drift dive from hell!! Current wrong way, finned like f*ck, knackered!"
So that completed our diving for the day and we settled into another pleasant evening aboard Whirlwind. During the evening, there was much debate about the fact that we hadn't been allowed to deco dive the Rosalie Moller, and eventually, under some pressure, the guides explained to us that a British Diver had tragically been lost the previous week on the vessel - this isn't the place for detail, but it seems he lost his buddy and was never found. Understandably the guiding team, who had been on duty the week before, were very cautious with us, and I have some sympathy with that. My view is that they should have been taken off duty for a couple of weeks to get over it, or that they should have explained the reasons for the restrictions during the briefing, but we all live and learn.
Next installment coming soon - and it's all about possibly the greatest wreck dive there is - The Thistlegorm.
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Scuba Mike's Red Sea Trip - Part One
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Sun, 18/01/2009 - 16:35.
I was lucky enough to be invited by a UK dive club last year to join them on a liveaboard trip to The Red Sea. Termed a “wrecker’s tour” we would be diving most of the best known shipwrecks in the northern part of the sea, based on Tornado Marine Fleet's flag vessel Whirlwind.
Scuba Mike's Red Sea Trip - Part Two
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Mon, 19/01/2009 - 19:27.
Six AM and we were heading to the check dive site in calm sea and already the temperature was up to 25 degrees. We assembled for the dive briefing, and were told that the main purpose was to check our weight for the salty water and get used to the conditions. With four dives a day available, we all elected to use Nitrox in order to keep our decompression times to a minimum and to help prevent fatigue. This would be my first time using enriched air in anger, as I had passed my PADI course shortly before the trip.
Scuba Mike's Red Sea Trip - Part Three
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Fri, 23/01/2009 - 16:10.
The following day dawned bright, clear and warm, as they all did during our trip. It is worth packing a light fleece though, as evenings and fast crossings can be cool.
I had started this trip determined to do every dive on offer, but this was the day I failed in that task. Even as someone who dives pretty much every week, I was feeling the pace of the four dives the day before. But here are the dives I did:
Scuba Mike's Red Sea Trip - Part Five - Thistlegorm!
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Thu, 12/02/2009 - 22:50.This was the big day - the day we were to dive the world renowned Thistlegorm, but first we headed for another wreck, The Kingston. She was an 80 meter long steamer which went down in 1881 on the delightfully named Shag Rock.
Scuba Mike's Red Sea Trip - Part Six
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Thu, 19/02/2009 - 19:05.This was our final day aboard Whirlwind, and I elected to do just one of the two dives on offer. This was because my right ear finally gave up after all the diving, and I was having problems with it. I finished on a good one though!
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