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. As an aside, it turned out to be a good decision, as I'm not sure how I would have got through all the diving on air!
The first dive was at a site called "The Alternatives". It was a moderately interesting coral reef, with a maximum depth of just 13 meters. This was the only compulsory dive of the trip, and all the guides were in the water checking us out. We must have all passed muster, because we were sent for breakfast and the boat headed away quickly from the reef.
This time we traveled across The Red Sea and it was a pretty rough trip - it can blow up a little out there. But as soon as we came close to land, the sea flattened out again, and we were ready for our second dive by mid morning.
This was the first of our wreck dives and we headed down the shot line to the Kimon M. She was a 100 meter long cargo ship which went down in 1978 carrying a cargo of lentils! The bow area is badly damaged, but there are extensive swim throughs of the holds. The sea life was amazing, with huge schools of damsel fish, and a number of scorpionfish, as well as the intriguing crocodile fish we were to see all over the Red Sea. The engine room was easily accessed and was a fascinating array of dials, pipes and valves. We had a good long dive here, and hit 30 meters with a total time of 56 minutes.
Between dives, we soon got into a routine of taking on as much water as possible, and relaxing in the sun. Before we knew it, we were ready for the Chrisoula K, which required a very rough rib ride around the same reef. Diving to 22 meters, we were able to see a similar sized ship which sank in 1981, whilst carrying a cargo of Italian floor tiles. Again there were quite ling swimthroughs in the stern holds and extensive damage in the bows. As the ship is on her side, engine room penetration is pretty tricky, and there is a real danger of silt causing a problem. On the seaward side of the reef, the ship is well colonized with corals, but we didn't see many fish, a swimming moray eel being the notable exception.
Next up, we headed for our night mooring on the Abu Nabas reef, and we did our final dive of the day as a night dive, swimming from a rib back towards Whirlwind. We saw some trumpet fish and a couple of big shapes in the distance and dived to a maximum of 17 meters. Whirlwind has a useful strobe under the dive platform, making it easy to find her from underwater.
So that concluded day one, and we were all pretty tired after the early start and four dives in the day. At this point I should mention the crew, who were superb. After every dive there were a couple of lads to help with the gear, a hot chocolate ready to drink, and it was simply a case of letting them know what mix you wanted for the next dive and they would do all the rest.
I think we were all in bed by 10, and thinking about the following day's diving! I started reading the excellent Chris Santella book - Fifty Places to Dive before you die. See below for more information.
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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 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 Four
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Thu, 05/02/2009 - 19:16.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.
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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