Day 4 - The Day of Wrecks - 13/01/2016

With an itinerary that contained the Dunraven, two dives on the Thistlegorm and a night dive on the Barge, it was always going to be a wreckish day.

I like the Dunraven as a wreck. It's upside down which is unusual and strangely picturesque. The challenge for me is always to get back to the liveaboard from the wreck. I mean, how far can you make your air last? I reckon it is entirely doable, though I have now failed twice. I should say that we never failed because of low air, but rather we got bored of swimming along the Beacon Rock reef into a current.  As it was we no more than about 60m from the boat. Easily done with 80bar.

Like the Dunraven, I’d dived the Thistlegorm before. The last time I was with the Zookeeper and remember not particularly enjoying the current or the penetration into the wreck. On this occasion, I knew what to expect and so I was far more comfortable on both dives.

The Kingmaker had agreed to lead us in the penetration portion of the dive. It gave rise to one of my heartiest underwater chuckles as he headed into a block entrance and had to reverse out. In fairness to him, he actually did a pretty darn good job after that initial moment, but I still gave him a few metres head start throughout the dive in case it happened again.

The Barge at night was a mixed experience. It’s a good site with lots of Morays, Stonefish, Scorpionfish and nudis, but there were just too many people on it. Our little group of 4 got split up and I took the decision to swim with Trist out of the Barge and wait for it to clear. I think Hell's Kells & Royston did the same thing, but went the opposite way, as we all reassembled ten minutes later with no one else on it.

Dunraven

Thistlegorm Locomotive

Thistlegorm Gun

Kingmaker & The Thistlegorm

Fimbriated Maray

Stonefish

Day 2 - What Goes Down… - 19/11/2014

Today was always going to be a day of wrecks.  I like wrecks, I’ve done a few. I find them atmospheric.

Today’s wrecks in reverse order of fame and coincidentally diving order were:

• Dunraven
• Kingston
• Thistlegorm x2

Both Dunraven and Kingston were from rhibs, while the Thistlegorm (discovered by famed privateer and oceanographer,  Jacques Cousteau) was off the back of the live-aboard.

The Dunraven was nice enough without providing much excitement. By way of contrast, the Kingston was a negative entry (my first ever) into a seriously strong current that meant if you landed on the wrong side of the wreck you had very little chance of exploring it.  Knowing this I never took my camera, which I instantly regretted!

The life on the Kingston wasn't any more spectacular than anywhere else, but I did love the table corals on the neighboring reef and well, it was just a nice looking wreck.

However, the highlight of the day was meant to be the Thistlegorm. It’s the “most beautiful wreck in the Red Sea” apparently. It is certainly interesting with its assortment of wrecked cargo. The WW2 ruined cargo includes:

• Motorbikes
• Rifles
• Tanks
• Trucks

It was all interesting enough but for me the highlight was diving it at night. The Zookeeper who has dived it at least 5 or 6 times opted to stay on board. So my buddies for the evening were the Lawman and Bridget (also accompanied by Sergeant Chris, Smooth Criminal and Al-chemist (so named due to his inexhaustible supply of medicinal compounds).

We started at the rear working our way up the starboard side to the bow before heading back down the port side.

I was just bumbling about taking snaps of scorpionfish, a crocodile fish and some nudis when suddenly it went from being fairly quiet and atmospheric to being like Sauchiehall Street (for non Glasgow readers it’s a busy shopping street – you can really substitute in any busy street name).

We were in a melee of around 20-30 divers from three different groups. I laughed as I saw divers with some very expensive photographic toys bumping into chunks of metal, lose control of their buoyancy and all the stuff that you see – you know what I mean. I just kept low avoided being clattered and kept an eye on the Lawman’s fins. Eventually, we burst free from the crowd and encountered a really nice crocodile fish.

Reaching the line we went up. I pondered it the days events on the safety stop. What goes up must come down, but what goes down doesn’t need to go up. However, divers do, sadly.

Nudibranch

Motorcycle

Scorpionfish

Nudibranch

Crocodile Fish