wrecked

after taking a few days off from diving, i was itching to get back in the water. one of the most exciting dives in this area was the thistlegorm dive. the Thistlegorm was a british navy ship that was bombed by the germans during WWII while it was anchored in the red sea. it’s probably one of the most famous wreck dives in the whole world. while most other wrecks dives are on passenger boats where the most exciting things to see are random civilian supplies etc, this one was loaded down w/ military equipment like army jeeps, ammunition, etc. this would definitely be a unique experience.

since the dive site was so far away, we had to get everything ready the day before. we packed our gear, and set out on a 1.5 hour drive over the mountains to sharm el sheik which is the southermost point on the sinai peninsula. once we got there, we all boarded a boat, set up our scuba gear, and went to sleep while the boat went out to the dive site. the boat cruised all night long, and i got one of the worst night’s sleep ever. the boat was constantly rocking, which made the door to our room swing open and shut, and we would hear the loud slam every 30 seconds or so. ugh!!

the next morning, we were woken up at 7am, and groggily got up to eat breakfast. by 8:15 we were in the water. diving here was divided into 2 dives. the first dive we went down 30 meters (100 feet) and just swam around the wreck, and on the second dive we actually got to swim inside the wreckage. being down there was so crazy! as soon as we got in the water, we could see the humongous damaged ship looming below us. the bomb had blown a huge hole in the middle of the ship, but most of the front and back were intact. as soon as we got near the bottom, we started seeing random bits of cargo. huge rounds of ammunition. military jeeps laying upside down and corroding on the ocean floor. random wheels, tires, steering wheels, and other odds and ends strewn all about.

the whole time down there, i was snapping away w/ my camera like crazy, but unfortunately most of my shots didnt come out too good. it was rather dark down there, visibility wasn’t too great due to the murkiness, and the pictures just didnt do that good of a job capturing the eerie scene. after a while, as we circled the ship, we came across the ship’s huge gun. this thing was massive, and quite a sight 30 meters underwater.

a couple other really cool things that we got to see on the first dive was the ship’s propeller and a huge (4 feet) barracuda.

after spending a bout an hour resting, we dove back down for our second dive. this one was inside the ship, and we swam through all sorts of dark corridors and passages. it was so dark down there that we had to use high powered flashlights to see. i really felt like this was some crazy tv special on “discoveries of the deep” or something. swimming through pitch black rooms, you could just see the sweeping flashlight beams crisscrossing in the dark. with the lights we’d see all sort of stuff in the cargo holds. one room had a long row of 10 or so motorcycles lined up together. another room had a bunch of army jeeps. all of this stuff was still intact. you could look down inside the jeeps and see the steering wheels, ignition, everything!! eventually we made our way up to the captains quarters where there was a small pocket of air. the dive master had us take out our air regulator for a second to tell him how much air we still had. it was so bizarre to be there swimming 100 feet underwater and be in a little air space and *talking*!

unfortunately, pretty much all my pictures from that part of the dive totally sucked. it was sooo dark, and if you used the flash, it would just reflect off all the silt floating around. damn! once done w/ that dive we climbed back aboard and had our lunch, while the ship cruised towards ras mohhamed, an underwater national park. there we did our final dive of the day. due to strong currents, we weren’t allowed to bring our cameras (since we needed to pay lots of attention and be careful not to damage any coral in the national park). this dive was fun and chill. actually we got to see 3 HUGE eels. everytime i’ve seen an eel before, it’s just been the eel’s head poking out from some rocks, but here i actually saw one of the eels swimming around the water. it was really really cool.

after this dive, we were completely exhausted and all i wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. unfortunately though, to get back to dahab, we had to go over a mountain range, and it’s unsafe to go to high altitudes directly after diving. so we had to sit there and wait for like 5 hours until we could go back. what a day!!

here’s the link to all my thistlegorm photos for the day.

*v