Terry Forster
1984. The Sharm beach, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, Saudi Arabia.
The temperature this Thursday morning was topping 100* as I prepared my four wheel drive Nissan patrol for the beach run. I had stripped down my two 150 HP Mercury outboard engines during the past weeks for their yearly service and was looking forward to the test run. I had four air tanks on board, these should last me for almost six hours diving, providing my engines were ok of course.
I was picking Billy and his wife Mona up from his apartment in twenty minutes and all being well we would dive deep to the Dhow wreck I found a few weeks ago and the black coral growing there beside the wreck. I had finally received the paperwork from the coastguard last Tuesday allowing us to dive to the wreck and cut off one branch of black coral. .
We, my wife and I, picked up Billy and his wife at the roadside; he had his four tanks of compressed air and the cool box with Sandwiches, bottles of water, non alcoholic beers and an assortment of fizzy drinks and a fishing rod. We would most likely catch a few fish on our way and we had a barbecue buried on one of the small Islands not far from our dive site, so a barbecue would be in order. Everything was loaded and strapped down inside my boat and off we sped to the beach boat launch area of the Sharm.
The test run of the engines went very well, just a few minor adjustment were made to the carbs and off we went to the coast guard station to hand in our passports and receive our location certificate. Once in open water I opened up both engines, the hull of my British made Delkey Dory rose out of the water on its cathedral hull and sped at great speed towards our destination on the calm waters of the Red Sea.
I anchored my boat next to a coral reef with two anchors, one at the prow and one at the stern, making sure that we did not damage the reef and that the anchors were secure on the sea bed. The water was crystal clear so we could see right to the bottom of the reef, almost ninety feet below. I threw out my ‘Divers below buoy’ with the Red flag attached so the coast guard could see we were underwater should happen to pass bye. I attached the ladder to the lee of the boat and lifted the large sunshade into place to protect our wives from the hot sun.
Billy and I donned our scuba gear, double checked one another and ran through our normal safety checks and underwater signals. We were ready to dive.
‘How long will you be down there’ my wife asked.
‘About an hour’ I replied. ‘I will pop a signal balloon to the surface when we get to the Dhow so you know we are there. If the coast guard arrive they will ask you for my dive permit, its in the locker in a plastic cover, just make sure you put on your Kaftan s if you see them coming, don’t want you getting into trouble for not being dressed correctly.’
The Dhow was only about 70 feet from where I anchored my boat, the water was so clear that at ninety feet deep it was as clear as it was on the surface. We headed straight for the black coral and using a small hacksaw, I cut a piece about eight inches long from the tip of a branch and placed it in my waist pouch. I signalled to Billy with thumbs up and then pointed to the sunken Dhow. The decking wood had rotted away and allowed us easy access to the ships hold, we swam into the hold with our flash-lights lighting the way that would hopefully identify any danger lurking there before we started our search. All clear Billy signalled with his thumbs up sign. We searched the hold hoping to find some kind of artefact that might be hidden away under the sand covered interior, but we found nothing at all.
Time to surface I noted as I checked by watch, almost an hour since we entered the water. We would have to wait for two minutes every thirty feet to de-compress as we had been down below sixty feet, not such a long time to wait.
Our wives were reading when we broke the surface not far from the boat, I looked around to see if there was any other boat in the area, all clear and no visitors to be seen.
Once back on board we had a sandwich and couple of beers while our wives went into the water for a swim. Suddenly, three heads appeared on the surface of the water, three divers, but where had they come from, there was no other boat in sight anywhere. They were waving at us and signalled to ask if they could come aboard. I signalled back to them OK.
I noticed as they swam nearer to us that they were using self breathing apparatus; there exhaled air was purified and re-circulated back into their breathing tank, who in hell are these guys?
Once aboard they explained they were living underwater for two months in an underwater observatory on the other side of the Islands about two kilometres away, one of these islands was where we had the barbecue buried. They were with Jacques Cousteau on a fact finding expedition on the Whale Sharks that had been spotted here in the Red Sea and had been here for just over three weeks. They had a beer each and asked if we would like to visit their underwater observatory and possibly see the three Whale Sharks of which one was a baby. We all readily agreed so we pulled up the anchors and sped off to the other side of the Islands.
It was unbelievable; the plastic observatory was entered from below the main sphere into a pressurised room. There were four arms stretching outward from this sphere in the shape of a cross. Each outer sphere had a window for viewing the ocean life, we had to crawl along the walkway to get to the observation sphere but we could almost stand upright once inside.
There were no signs of the Whale Sharks and the guys said they had not seen them for the last three days and may have left the area.
There was a pleasant surprise when we returned to the central sphere, Jacques Cousteau was there with his assistant Andrea Shipley and were just removing their breathing apparatus as we entered. He was a short man and very thin but had a look in his eyes that immediately told everything you wished to know about him.
1984. The Sharm beach, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, Saudi Arabia.
The temperature this Thursday morning was topping 100* as I prepared my four wheel drive Nissan patrol for the beach run. I had stripped down my two 150 HP Mercury outboard engines during the past weeks for their yearly service and was looking forward to the test run. I had four air tanks on board, these should last me for almost six hours diving, providing my engines were ok of course.
I was picking Billy and his wife Mona up from his apartment in twenty minutes and all being well we would dive deep to the Dhow wreck I found a few weeks ago and the black coral growing there beside the wreck. I had finally received the paperwork from the coastguard last Tuesday allowing us to dive to the wreck and cut off one branch of black coral. .
We, my wife and I, picked up Billy and his wife at the roadside; he had his four tanks of compressed air and the cool box with Sandwiches, bottles of water, non alcoholic beers and an assortment of fizzy drinks and a fishing rod. We would most likely catch a few fish on our way and we had a barbecue buried on one of the small Islands not far from our dive site, so a barbecue would be in order. Everything was loaded and strapped down inside my boat and off we sped to the beach boat launch area of the Sharm.
The test run of the engines went very well, just a few minor adjustment were made to the carbs and off we went to the coast guard station to hand in our passports and receive our location certificate. Once in open water I opened up both engines, the hull of my British made Delkey Dory rose out of the water on its cathedral hull and sped at great speed towards our destination on the calm waters of the Red Sea.
I anchored my boat next to a coral reef with two anchors, one at the prow and one at the stern, making sure that we did not damage the reef and that the anchors were secure on the sea bed. The water was crystal clear so we could see right to the bottom of the reef, almost ninety feet below. I threw out my ‘Divers below buoy’ with the Red flag attached so the coast guard could see we were underwater should happen to pass bye. I attached the ladder to the lee of the boat and lifted the large sunshade into place to protect our wives from the hot sun.
Billy and I donned our scuba gear, double checked one another and ran through our normal safety checks and underwater signals. We were ready to dive.
‘How long will you be down there’ my wife asked.
‘About an hour’ I replied. ‘I will pop a signal balloon to the surface when we get to the Dhow so you know we are there. If the coast guard arrive they will ask you for my dive permit, its in the locker in a plastic cover, just make sure you put on your Kaftan s if you see them coming, don’t want you getting into trouble for not being dressed correctly.’
The Dhow was only about 70 feet from where I anchored my boat, the water was so clear that at ninety feet deep it was as clear as it was on the surface. We headed straight for the black coral and using a small hacksaw, I cut a piece about eight inches long from the tip of a branch and placed it in my waist pouch. I signalled to Billy with thumbs up and then pointed to the sunken Dhow. The decking wood had rotted away and allowed us easy access to the ships hold, we swam into the hold with our flash-lights lighting the way that would hopefully identify any danger lurking there before we started our search. All clear Billy signalled with his thumbs up sign. We searched the hold hoping to find some kind of artefact that might be hidden away under the sand covered interior, but we found nothing at all.
Time to surface I noted as I checked by watch, almost an hour since we entered the water. We would have to wait for two minutes every thirty feet to de-compress as we had been down below sixty feet, not such a long time to wait.
Our wives were reading when we broke the surface not far from the boat, I looked around to see if there was any other boat in the area, all clear and no visitors to be seen.
Once back on board we had a sandwich and couple of beers while our wives went into the water for a swim. Suddenly, three heads appeared on the surface of the water, three divers, but where had they come from, there was no other boat in sight anywhere. They were waving at us and signalled to ask if they could come aboard. I signalled back to them OK.
I noticed as they swam nearer to us that they were using self breathing apparatus; there exhaled air was purified and re-circulated back into their breathing tank, who in hell are these guys?
Once aboard they explained they were living underwater for two months in an underwater observatory on the other side of the Islands about two kilometres away, one of these islands was where we had the barbecue buried. They were with Jacques Cousteau on a fact finding expedition on the Whale Sharks that had been spotted here in the Red Sea and had been here for just over three weeks. They had a beer each and asked if we would like to visit their underwater observatory and possibly see the three Whale Sharks of which one was a baby. We all readily agreed so we pulled up the anchors and sped off to the other side of the Islands.
It was unbelievable; the plastic observatory was entered from below the main sphere into a pressurised room. There were four arms stretching outward from this sphere in the shape of a cross. Each outer sphere had a window for viewing the ocean life, we had to crawl along the walkway to get to the observation sphere but we could almost stand upright once inside.
There were no signs of the Whale Sharks and the guys said they had not seen them for the last three days and may have left the area.
There was a pleasant surprise when we returned to the central sphere, Jacques Cousteau was there with his assistant Andrea Shipley and were just removing their breathing apparatus as we entered. He was a short man and very thin but had a look in his eyes that immediately told everything you wished to know about him.