With Oxygen cylinder under one arm and BSAC-88 tables under the other,
Frank made a 1-am high speed dash to hospital in Hurghada today after pal
Graham suffered a recurrence of possible DCI symptoms (you didn't really
think that Frank was the bent one, did you? - there was no chocolate involved
this time!)
Graham, whose symptoms of clammy sweats and the room going round seemed consistent with too much local fish and Stella beer, had also O-D'ed on sunshine and scary chat with a hairy arsed commercial diver, Pete, met in the bar, and bent more times than Uri Geller's spoons. Pete was sailing the world in company with one-legged Trevor and a mobile phone phreak. He had already narrowly escaped incarceration in an Egyptian jail after his passenger went ashore in a military zone to make a call, and now put the fear of God into Graham, with talk of "mini-strokes", loss of sphincter control and genital (or was it 'general') paralysis.
After breathing pure oxygen at a pp of 2.8 bars, Frank declared (between nervous twitches) that he had never felt fitter - then spat out the remains of his tongue. Maybe he said he had never had fits before - will we ever know?
The doctor's suggestion that Graham stop wearing his spectacles upside down, and buy a sun hat, was met with surprise and scepticism by the patient, but his attempt at growing a beard to match that of Berndt Pichetsrieder was also put on hold - at least for the first few days of his new job with BMW, due to start on his return to the UK.
At breakfast time, Adham, the owner of the "Sun Boat", our liveaboard, prescribed a massive dose of cholesterol in the form of fried eggs and highly spiced sausage, with raw onion and garlic as a side-dish. After consuming said menu (as we had done for 6 days), we got out the jack-hammers, broke up the massive blood clots in our arteries and started on the serious business of finishing the duty-free.
In truth, the alarums and excursions of these last 12 hours has just been
some headline material after a very successful week in the Gubal straits area.
Wreck diving took up 7 of our 17 dives, 3 of which were on the Thistlegorm.
(Click on the picture for a bigger
view and use 'back' button to return)
We had arrived there in the late afternoon after a bumpy crossing from Gubal,
but just in time to be alone with the wreck for our first view. A swirling
shoal of chevron barracuda met us as we descended the bows to the sandy sea
bed - Life was Wonderful! The next morning we were in the water at 7am and
had the whole vessel to ourselves again with perfect viz on the cargo decks
as well as all around the ship. 3 hours later, as we were getting ready for
our 3rd look, there were 12 large dive boats on the site each discharging divers
by the dozen from RIBs or directly onto the wreck down their bow lines. Time for
a change: we had lunch as we motored back the 15 miles to Abu Nuhas, where we
took a 100-year leap back in time to dive the beautiful P&O sailing steam-ship,
the Carnatic. We glided along the saloon deck, which was canted over at a 45°
angle, allowing the afternoon sunshine to stream through the deck beam lattice
work. My buddy Shane and I sat down on the sand 20m behind the ship for a
perfect view of the wide stern picture windows, with hard and soft coral
curtains, as well as the lower hull, huge 3-bladed prop and rudder: Oh for
an underwater camera at the right time!
We also saw our share of pristine reef, with several little-dived scenic sites that were hard for the Hurghada day-boats to access. One beautiful site had a glassfish-filled cave at 40m and 2m diameter "sea-fan" gorgonian corals all over the steep slope up to 10m. Ahmed, our comedian dive guide for the week, steered a turtle towards us, which we followed for 200m along the reef's coral gardens.
Night diving in the Red Sea is always a treat, with hunting lion-fish in
line abreast sweeping the reefs, and humungous morays more confident in leaving
their lairs. One particularly "hot" site was the barge at Bluff Point, where we
switched off our torches and cruised inside the shoals of ghostly lunar
fusiliers around the small wreck that concentrated the sealife. Frank was in
trouble again on this site, allowing himself to be abused by the trampling fins
and flailing arms of a long queue of Italian novices from a neighbouring boat -
and that was in the saloon after the dive!
With just 5 of us on Sun Boat, equipped for 12 or more, we had plenty of living
and sleeping space. However, the dive deck was completely open, which made kitting
up hazardous under lively sea conditions. Frank's buddy Ken executed a particularly
artistic arabesque after one dive - travelling the full width of the deck partly
in mid-air and partly "sur derriere", since he didn't quite getting the landing
right. Consistent 220-230 bar fills in new 12 litre tanks meant we got excellent
dive-times (80 mins was the record), while a responsible attitude to safe diving
practices on behalf of the owner, without the rigid application of the oft-quoted
Red Sea 30m depth rule, meant we could all dive to the depths and durations
appropriate to our experience and wishes. The on-board compressor was extremely
noisy, so we were glad there weren't another 20 tanks to blow each day, and 220v
was available during the evening only when the large generator was also running.
Not a place to listen to Mozart maybe! The food was sustaining but not inspiring,
with free bottled water and tea/nescafe ad lib. Value for money - good! I might
have felt differently with a full boat though. Sun Boat is moored at El Gouna,
the old marina at a new luxury resort developing 20 miles north of Hurghada, it
was a struggle to get into the fun of shore-based activities, which is why I'm
sat typing this instead of waterskiing or quadbiking! Sharm is better from that
point of view for sure.