All's Quiet on the Western Front - 29/12/2014

I must confess, I fled the UK on Boxing Day for sunnier climes. I flew first to Istanbul, Turkey before skipping over to Aqaba, Jordon. Regular readers will know I had a few dives here earlier in the year, but I felt I had some unfinished business with the area in terms of diving. And, let's be honest who wouldn't swap Scottish winter for the mild weather of the Middle East? So, here I am.

Today we dived two new sites (to us) in the area:

• First Bay (including the Eel Garden)
• Black Rock

North Bay 1&2 was, for us, a drift dive that took us through a site called the Eel Garden. It was nice and comprised Gill.I.Am's deepest ever dive (30m) and her first proper drift dive. I think she enjoyed both aspects.

For me the highlights were the corals. In Scotland, Hugh MacDiarmid once penned the following verse in regard to the white rose commonly found in the country. *clears throat*

The rose of all the world is not for me.

I want for my part

Only the little white rose of Scotland

That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart.

How true! However, the corals of Aqaba must run it pretty close. I'll let the few decent pictures I took do most of the talking, but the second dive at Black Rock (recently featured in Diver magazine) it was just myself and Abood the DM who went in. We went to 40m, but a quarter twist and a drop of the wrist saw me clock 40.4m my deepest ever dive. :)

Lettuce Coral

Starry Puffer

Cornetfish

Worm

Coral

Coral

Coral

Cedar Pride Comes Before It All - 14/07/2014

When I first started diving my local dive shop, Aquatron, had a picture on the wall of a wreck. At the time I had no idea what the wreck was called, I just knew that I was breaking out of my comfort zone because I wanted to see cool stuff like that underwater. Today, together with legendary Glasgow Roller Derby skater Gill.I.Am, I dived the Cedar Pride from the shore here at Aqaba with Aqaba's Anchor.

The wreck, in a sense, is artificial in that it was sunk on purpose at the behestof the then Prince of Jordan, King Abdullah II for the purposes of dive tourism. Well it worked, because I'm here.

We dived from the shore as it is a well documentedfact that Gill doesn't like boats and I don't like stress. We were accompanied by the surprisingly international Isaac who is Jordano-Turk-Norweg-ish. :) Top bloke and ex-commercial diver who is trying to establish Aqaba's Anchor as the premier Aqaba based dive troop. We also had his intern (don't they always have an intern). I'll somewhat ignorantly call him Al, as I have no idea how to spell his actual name, though it began with Al.

Entering the water, we headed down over a sandy bottom, passing a pretty stunning Table Coral en route to the wreck. Being 80m long it slowly emerged into sight. Strangely, it was smaller than I expected and with slightly less life, although the corals in particular are really starting to make it their home.

Passing round the bow, the deck became visible with the large cargo holds open, but empty. We entered and headed up to the air pocket. I kept my reg in. As fun as air pockets are the air, while breathable, probably isn't the best.

Coming back round the stern we hit the edges of the coral reef that was to form the basis of our next dive. The coral formations were brilliant and more colourful than I remember in Egypt last year. Although, in Egypt's defence they had more, larger fish. I can't help but think I'm becoming a dive nerd when I was more interested in the feather stars and black sea urchins on the reef than the wreck itself. Though Gill particularly liked the wreck.

It's a nice wreck, I've dived better, but given its importance during my early diving days it's safe to say the Cedar Pride came before it all.

Table Coral

Under the Table Coral

Passing the bow

Swimming round the stern

Salad coral

Coral and fish