Wreck
When I got to Sharm, the first thing I did was go to the dive center to set up a Thistlegorm dive. The response was that they could only do dives if there were at least six divers interested and so far that week they only had three. Not good. This is a wreck mecca and I was dying to dive it, even though I’m really a big girl’s blouse and petrified of wreck penetration. And anyway, I had bounced around my dive club crowing about the Thistlegorm all last week, and knew that if I didn’t actually dive it, it would cost me a fortune in drinks.
I dived Shark & Jolande reefs (gorgeous) and Gordon & Jackson reefs (stunning) and really enjoyed the local house reef in spite of the damage done to the close-in corals, but in the back of my mind was still the lust for the wreck.Long story short, on the last possible day of my diving holiday (given pre-flight deco penalties), I got the pleasure of catching a bus at 4 am, paying out 200 of my hard-earned dollars, and watching folks get seasick on the four-hours-out and four-hours-back trip, all for a total of 65 minutes on a WWII wreck rusting a
way in 30 meters of water at the bottom of the Red Sea. And it was worth it.
posted by Mme Cyn at 2:13 AM
12 Comments:
Excellent! Pretty good viz too!
gorgeous pics. and glad your skull didn't stop you from seeing that
Well, it is photoshopped a wee bit, nzm...
That 'auto-balance' tool is excellent for cutting through the silt. Can I have one for my dive mask?
And a red filter too - although while underwater, the human eye does a wonderful job of removing most of the cyan-blue!
Good for you! I wondered what Thistlegorm was. Perhaps you were planning a week in Scotland? Diving?! Mystery solved, but why this particular wreck?
Mme Cyn: wonderful pics, well done!
Any good pix of the railway locomotives? Can be sent c/o Goat.
LGoC -- Unfortunately, the locomotive engines were thrown off the wreck when she was torpedoed. On the day we dived her the current was too strong to go out the thirty or so meters away from the wreck to the train parts. However, there is always a next time... ;^)
Mama Duck -- I guess the Thistlegorm is so special for a couple of reasons: first, it is a very large wreck that is lying shallow enough for sports divers to see. It's also in very clear water and the boat itself is fairly open, so it's not a nightmare to actually go into it. Second, it is mostly intact, and the cargo is quite interesting. There are guns, winches, train parts, trucks, minis, motorcycles, ammo cases -- even a bunch of Wellington boots that were put aboard to trick the enemy into thinking the boat was just carrying general supplies.
We have little wrecks in Fujeirah, but none half as interesting as the Thistlegorm!
Pls email me keefieboy[at]gmail[dot]com
hello, just wanted to ask whats a cheap place to learn divng in the UAE any ideas?
DR: you might like to try a diving club. The alternative, one of the commercial outfits dotted along Dubai sea front, may get you trained quicker (and possibly at more expense) but after qualifying you might like some buddies to dive with.
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