Reflections on a Red Sea Adventure
28 March 2004
Trip report by Bob Rodgers, photos by Joe Hesketh
First published in London Diver, May/June 2004
It was an October evening at the Percy when we gathered to celebrate the BSAC's 50th Anniversary. A lot of the "old" crowd were there including me, who likes to stay in touch with the Branch and what a great atmosphere—just like the old days. Little did I know that before the evening was out I would be committed to a unique experience with TJ's Magical Mystery Tours Inc. and half way to parting with the best value for £450 I have seen in years.
A bit of background. Another October evening in 1973 I was walking past the pool from my office, which was in Baker Street, when I espied a Mk10 Jaguar with the boot lid open. Inside was a very interesting sight—diving cylinders… I paused, having lived on a diet of Lloyd Bridges and Sea Wolf from an early age and anything vaguely "diving" was of great interest to me.
Those days diving as a sport was barely known about apart from the select "few" who did dive but little was known in the public domain—so a boot full of diving cylinders was a great curiosity. Within moments I was approached by an energetic, smiling individual . "Are you a diver mister?" he said with an infectious smile (yes you know who this was). "Well, err, I was just looking, err sorry", I replied". "Well do you want to be a diver?". "Well, err, yes", I replied. I had taken an immediate liking to this man.
He gave me two cylinders to carry (aha that was the reason) and told me to follow him to the "equipment room". Twenty minutes later I was in the pool doing an "A" test. This individual was—in case you hadn't guessed—our very own TJ and we have been friends ever since.
By the way an "A" test then was 200m free style + 100m backstroke (all without a stop) + 50m with 5 kg weight belt on—phew—tread water with hands above head for 1 minute—flipping hell—and collecting six objects from the bottom of the deep end (big pool)—gasp/splutter.
I had joined the famous London No.1 Branch and my life was literally transformed as the underwater world unfolded, new friends were made and new skills acquired.
Reel forward to October 2003—having a beer and laughing over those old times and I was just in the middle of, "do you remember that underwater explosives course when Keith G nearly dropped the....", when TJ nabbed me, plied me with beer and persuaded me to get my name down for something called Sharm el-Sheikh which seemed like a good idea after a few beers. Not so in the cold light of day but TJ was determined, "You have put your name down on this ere paper and that's it, no backing out now". So I was committed.
My first port of call was the shed - my faithful dry suit of many dives "Fred" was in a sorry state. After much rummaging I unearthed the rest of my kit and presented myself to the equipment room with my valve. Keith diplomatically suggested that my "pool" valve go in the junk bin and my treasured US Diver valve rig be downgraded to "pool use only". However, my jet fins still worked so I was on my way.
Eventually the 21st of March arrived and we gathered at Gatwick for our epic voyage of discovery at the crack of dawn. The ace "Team" comprised Gina & Bob, Keith, Joe, James, Alex, Tobias, Pete Morris and our irrepressible leader TJ.
The flight was surprisingly civilised for a "cheapo" and the arrival at Sharm went smoothly, the hotel a very pleasant surprise being clean, comfortable, freshwater swimming pool six strides from the sliding bedroom door and only a short walk from the boat jetty—how far does £450 stretch. We quickly got settled in with a cold beer in our hands and registered with the Camel Dive Centre which is part of the Camel Hotel.
The next day we were introduced to our guide Charlotte, dive boat and crew and off for a gentle warm up dive to check gear, buoyancy (and for those of us a bit out of practice, generally get back up to speed). This dive, though the easiest, was an incredibly pretty reef called Ras Katy managing a 35 minute dive with a max depth of 21 m.
We all got along fine apart from my stab which was sneakily self inflating and caused me a bit of head scratching (where is my ABLJ) and Charlotte quickly got the measure of this London Branch Crew. I found the water much colder than it looked and I quickly scrounged a hood to go with the natty (or is that tatty) wetsuit I had hired.
The dive boat was spacious, with a good open dive platform. We had unlimited water, tea, coffee and the crew experienced and helpful. Charlotte our guide who has been with Camel for three years really knew her stuff and the good sites. Her dad was DO of Hastings BSAC so she has quite a diving pedigree and I think we were very lucky to have her to run our trip.
The next dive was at the rum sounding Ras Umm Sid (Sids Head?) where we clocked up another 35 minutes of mind-boggling scenery, marine growth and exotic fish life - but no sign of Sid himself.
Notwithstanding that most of my diving experience has been in Britain, I have dived a few other places including the Med, Florida and more recently the Caribbean, I have never seen such prolific fish life. The whole peninsular of Sharm is now a protected national Park with ALL fishing banned. Clearly recognition that divers bring more revenue than a few fishing boats and the whole economic structure of the area dependant on tourism driven by diving at its focal point was realised some time ago. The legacy for us today is that the reefs are literally teeming with life of all types and sizes despite a lot of divers.
That evening we all had big smiles from ear to ear and fell into bed exhausted. Even Keith's melodious snoring could not interrupt my well earned sleep in Room 109.
Day 2 dawned with a 06:00 hrs kick off with a more adventurous trip in the direction of the Gulf of Aqaba to Tiran, to dive sites including Jackson Reef (with 800 m drop off walls), Woodhouse Reef and the exotic sounding Ras Nasrani with interesting above water views of shallow reefs and stranded rusting shipwrecks as well as the below surface exotica.
As the week progressed we dived walls, reef platforms, drifts and wrecks, all providing breathtaking scenery and a heady mix of adventure and anticipation.
We had two wrecks in our itinerary. The SS Dunraven is a spectacular and classic wreck dive. A steel hulled steam assisted sailing ship built in 1873, 85 m in length and displacing 1,800 tons, she is upside down in 30 m. It is about 2 hours cruise from Sharm.
En-route to India in April 1876 she struck the southern end of the fringing reef Sha'ab Mahmud. She was fatally holed in the bow section but sat on the reef for nearly a week before bad weather led to the break-up of the bows and the ship slipped slowly down the reef to her present position. We can assume that thankfully there was no loss of life on this occasion.
We dropped on the bow swam the length of the ship, round the rudder then inside through a convenient hole to explore the full internal length including the two boilers, exiting through the torn open bow section. The deepest part is around 30 m with the reef stretching up at a gentle gradient to about 5 m which gave us a gentle decompression profile with an overall dive time of around 40–50 minutes.
You can see some stunning photos, especially of the rudder and prop, taken by the team on the website. [er, well you might do eventually… Ed]
The second wreck demanded a 04:00 hrs start (yes 4 AM) and we saw dawn break over the desert as we steamed in a Westerly direction breakfasting on coffee and omelettes made by the crew. We were heading for the famous Thislegorm sunk by a German aircraft in 1940. The bomb ignited munitions in Hold No. 5 which almost blew the stern off. She lies in 30 m and is a spectacular dive. The windy conditions and heavy swell made entry and exit a bit of a challenge, but it was certainly worth the early start. Despite being a heavily dived wreck it was an experience not to be missed.
We dropped on the stern and swam over a massive wreckage field including vehicles and boxes of shells, then along the main deck where there are railway carriages strapped, marvelling at the completeness the size and the marine life. There was a moment when a school of fish zoomed past in a big hurry, attracting our attention (Alex and I). Sure enough a whopping tuna appeared in hot pursuit. Alex went for the camera but it was over in a flash—literally—but an exciting moment.
Dive 2 was spent dropping through the open hatches with penetration into the wreck examining jeeps, trucks, rows of motorcycles, and racks of rifles, exploring the full length of the vessel inside and at different levels. After what seemed a very short time, our planned bottom time was up and we made our way back to the shot line for a couple of minutes of chilly decompression stops.
This is probably the biggest complete wreck I have been on, and certainly "in", a bit like the James Egan Layne before it started to collapse on itself only much better viz, with door-to-door service and hot coffee at the end. I seem to remember we only ever "did" the Egan Layne in the depths of English winter, freezing cold, battering along in an old Zodiac inflatable with a miserly 40 bhp Mercury in full kit Force 4–5 gusting 6 (no RIBs then). It took over an hour to get there with a blasting Sou' westerly and about an hour to get back in the heavy sea. I seem to remember we didn't thaw out until about 10 pm after a few (few) pints of fine ale and a rousing chorus of Dina Dina in the Casement Bar at Fort Bovisand.
After lunch—again by the crew who worked wonders in the odious little galley—we snoozed and read our way back towards home base finishing off with a dive in a place called Jackfish Alley. I am convinced Charlotte had us dropped on the "reserved" part of the reef because she knew we would respect the coral and keep our fins to ourselves. Other boats were diving this area but much further along. This proved to be the best "shallow" dive of the week logging some 50–60 minutes in a max of 15 meters (most at 3-5 m) in a virtual fish tank with a huge range of colour, species and size of fish, caves, fissures and spectacular corals. This was the last dive of the trip and a fantastic way to finish.
But it wasn't over yet. Our leader had arranged yet another "treat", quad biking in the desert (at reduced price). We are all duly instructed in the quad bike operation and the discipline expected of us. "You will travel in a line and no acrobatics please", said the bike man. We of course were only following orders from one leader—TJ who looked like a cross between Rommel and an Arab terrorist—who had already instructed us into what to do. Off we went into a blizzard of sand and anarchy as the bike wheels spun and TJ was off, closely followed by a maniac who I think was James (couldn't really see for the dust cloud) all being chased by the bike man who kept waving his hands in despair.
The all up cost of £450 which included everything except lunch, dinner and beer was truly unbelievable. Lunch on the boat was excellent at EGP5 (about 50p), dinner out was typically about EGP 100 (about £9). Keith discovered a falafel shop, the equivalent of an Egyptian "greasy spoon" full of local building workers, and managed a full three course meal including fresh orange juice for about 75p—excellent. I got hooked on the hotel curry bar (Kashirmir) and I reckon this was some of the best curry to be had anywhere (appetite enhanced by some serious diving and a couple of beers = paradise) with the full monty for about £10.
Memorable moments…? Well err…
Charlotte's face when she met us all for the first time and saw Alex's "popeye" hat, James' jungle shirt and Peter's tee-shirt/shorts ensemble.
The king-sized napoleon fish which swam into the middle of our group and eyeballed everyone in turn before swimming off into the "Big Blue".
Tobias chucking everyone in the pool.
Alex's face when a huge Spanish dancer sailed by the shot line and his camera was switched off [though as anyone forced to watch it over and over will attest, he did manage some video footage of it – Ed]
Gina & Bob surfacing with more air than they went in with (OK well almost).
All in all, we had some memorable dives, an interesting environment, the hotel and organisation excellent, and Allan justly carrying the sobriquet of TJ "Top Johnny" for organising it all. This has to be a regular London Branch fixture, always providing you can get TJ's Mystery Tours to do it again—and maybe a few of the "old timers" out of diving retirement.
My thanks to London Branch and the 2004 Red Sea Team for making it such a pleasure for me and a special thanks to TJ.
Happy Diving
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
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Labels: photos, red sea, sharm el-sheikh, trip report
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