Day 2 – Wrecks and dolphins
Saturday, 20th May 2006 by Julie
We had about half an hour of peace and quiet after the boat moored up at its new site. As it was going 11h30, the bell roused us again and we headed indoors for the briefing for the next dive: a wreck. Down in the lounge area Steve had a laptop with wreck details and photos, wired up to a large plasma display for us.
Our first Red Sea wreck was to be the steamship Dunraven which was an early model of iron-hulled cargo ship, operating the “spice run” from England to India. Built in 1873, it went down in 1876.
The visibility below the water was great and we spotted the wreck almost as soon as we jumped in. She was lying upside down and as suggested by Steve, we were able to swim right inside from a hole in her stern.
The UK wrecks we dive are usually too broken up to venture inside so this was a first for us. The massive cavernous interior was very impressive; all the wooden partitioning had since rotted away – leaving just iron supporting girders lying around. Naturally there were quite a few other divers in the wreck with us; looking up we could see the shiny mirrored surface of pools of exhaled air trapped under the structure.
We had quite a long wide swim-through, then single-file past the ship’s massive boilers and out the other side. Swimming back over the hull the pockets of air we’d seen inside were slowly discharging themselves as tiny streams of bubbles wherever they could escape.
The boat’s underside (now the top of the wreck) was completely encrusted with hard corals – these looked as pretty and fragile as icing decorations on a wedding cake.
Once again we saw lots of fish. It was all I could do to remember the colours and patterns of all the unfamiliar ones so I could look them up later.
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We were lounging around on deck again after lunch when the call went out that dolphins had been spotted nearby. And anyone who was interested (everyone I think), could grab a mask, snorkel and fins and go out to swim with them. Our transport for this venture were the Cyclone’s two “Zodiacs” – small boats with an outboard motor.
Once we got over to where the pod had been spotted, it was just a case of plugging in the snorkel, jumping in and looking down.
There in the blue below us were 4 or 5 dolphins. It was amazing to watch them – I’d seen pairs of dolphins together, but never so many. This group spent a long time swimming as a huddle, which must be tricky without hands to keep all the bodies together. They swam in this synchronised form for quite a way, as if they were doing a full body nuzzle or just playing. When the pod drifted away, our snorkelling group followed like enthusiastic groupies, finning to the new spot with eyes glued to the bottom.
Eventually the dolphins decided to move on properly and left us all well behind. We clambered back into the Zodiacs and headed back to the boat for our next briefing.
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Our next dive was also a wreck – the Giannis D, a Greek cargo ship. The Abu Nuhas reef that had sunk her is on the southern edge of the Suez Canal and has claimed many ships over the years. Most notably, this would be one of the newest wrecks we’d ever dived as she only went down in 1983.
They were using the Zodiacs to ferry the groups of divers over to the wreck and once we were there we got to to practice our fully-kitted-up backwards roll – just like in the movies – over the sides of the Zodiac, which is quite fun.
The water was crystal clear as we descended and what struck me was how it was possible to see so much of the wreck’s structure at once. This really helps with appreciating the size and structure of the vessel, and is so often an aspect that is missing when visibility isn’t as good.
The Giannis D lies at a 45°+ angle on the sea bed giving everything a crazy slant that can do funny things to your head if you aren’t vigilant. After idling away some time on the sloping deck waiting for the entrance to be clear of divers, Tom and I made our way inside. The passage was narrow but easily swimmable, and we had lots of opportunity to peer into the various empty rooms as we passed. I did find the angle of everything to be very disorienting just as Steve had mentioned in the briefing. My brain kept trying to line up walls and doors with the vertical when in fact they were anything but!
Everything was so well preserved which I suppose is unsurprising given that it’s a 1980′s wreck. We moved on into an engine room area and were able to easily identify various tools lying around.
The wreck lies in two parts and the area in between (the bit that hit the reef) is just a massive litter of wood, pieces of carpet and other debris.
The fish life wasn’t prolific but it was widely varied. And we did see a massive specimen – about 40cm long – of one of my favourite fishes: the parrotfish. (So called because of their cute beaks which they use to nibble at the coral, and which I love because they always appear to be smiling. 
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Looking back, this was my personal favourite of all our wreck dives. It was a number of factors, but the water clarity and the brain-twisting experience of the angled rooms certainly made it stand out.
Back at the surface, we had the novel experience of getting back into the Zodiac after a dive – which we’d heard the theory of but never practised. The first trick is to get off one’s weight belt and pass that to the waiting hands without either dropping the belt or getting clubbed on the head. Then comes the jacket (and its attached cylinder), which although heavy fortunately floats quite nicely all by itself seeing as it’s full of air. Then lastly, you have to get yourself in. There’s a bit of a trick to this and sometimes I managed it better than others.
Worst case scenario, you jump up and cling to the ropes on the side, flailing valiantly at the water with your fins; and then the folk in the boat haul you over bodily, leaving you like a beached whale on the bottom of the boat with all the kit. At best, a winning combination of finning and the swell, and the boat’s edge resting low in the water, gets you right onto the edge without any help, and you just swing your legs over like a pro. I think I managed pretty well on that first occasion although sadly there wasn’t much of an audience to appreciate it!
From there it was back to the boat again to appreciate the sunset on deck before the last dive of the day and our first night dive…
