Marsa Alam 25th Sept 2006
Day 4
We awoke after limited sleep due to the rough crossing, to shouts and screams, so scrambled up to the dive deck to find out what the commotion was all about. On getting there we found AG stripping off after a bet with Fiasal that he could not swim against the current from stern to bow of our boat.
Without further a doo, Andrew jumps in with shorts and mask and gets there……just! Once he reached the bow he stopped swimming and the current ripped him back to the stern and life ring in seconds. Clearly our diving would be today would be a challenge!
Dive 1 – 28m for 50mins – Big Brother Reef from Zodiac
Due to the way the current splits on the corner of Big Brother we had to drop in with negative buoyancy and fin like crazy until we hit 10m or so before regrouping. The brief was to get the reef on your left shoulder and tuck in otherwise you’d be swept off the reef and out to sea. On this happening you’d have to bag off and ascend to the awaiting Zodiac, which no-one wanted so tension was high pre-dive.
Once on-site we “bomb burst” from the RHIB and finned like crazy down to 10m. By the time I knew where I was, I was already 20m down the reef from my buddy’s and team!
I corrected my direction and began finning for all I was worth agains the current. Once into the reef I started gliding and pulling where I could but by this time I was still a long way off the rest of the guys. The rest of the gaggle were holding on for grim death on clear patches of reef waiting on me catching up. By the time I reached them I was almost hyper-ventilating with the sheer effort taken to catch up and make headway!
Once I reached them I wasn’t for stopping and almost climbed over the top of Andy Bryson and got myself into an eddy to recover. Dave Dowson also must have been pretty out of breath as when he reached the rock I was holding onto his eyes were bigger than his mask!! 
Anyway, once everyone had caught their breath we moved around the corner by the bow of the wreck Nimibia at approx 6m. Next thing we were on our way down to 20+ and just before we corrected the situation we were back up at 12m.
Once we were shaked out everyone handled it without a problem and began to enjoy the dive. We screamed past and just above the bow of the wreck Aida which starts at 30m. The currents started to tame off just after this and we had much more time to take a look out of the window instead of flying our gauges and keeping close tracks on each other.
We surfaced at the mooring ropes of all 4 liveaboards therefore didn’t need to deploy bags and no sooner had we surface next to the reef the Zodiacs were picking up the first load of us.
My plan was to do a technical dive next on the Nimibia but after this first experience of Big Brother I didn’t much fancy decoing in these up/down drafts so pondered the situation during breakfast.
By the time we had prepared for the next dive, the others who had not experienced the strong currents had returned from their dives to report, “It’s not that bad”. We all looked at each other and guess the tides had turned….GAME ON!
Dive 2 – 52m for 58mins – Big Brother, Aida, from Zodiac
As this would be our first tech dive of the trip, the guys at RSE had told us that one of them would escort us to monitor the conduct of the dive and our shadow for the dive would be AG.
My team for this dive was Andy Bryson and Owen Petchley and the guys had opted for a AL80 bottom stage of mix and an AL40 deco bottle; where I was happy to stick to the known for this dive, albeit I would be calling the dive first on rock bottom or minimum gas as it’s now known based on my backgas.
Again we boarded the Zodiac and had to perform a negative entry but we shook out at 6m as a team and carried out our checks on our way down. We were dropped in a perfect position and at 30m the wreck came into view. We had to fin down into the Lee side to shelter from the current, but we were all together!
We ventured down to the stern and had a shufty around then made our way mid-ships and popped up onto the decks. The current was pretty strong so a good look around was not possible on this dive, but what a beautiful wreck.
I thumbed the dive as expected and we began a really nice deco. We bagged off at 9m and eventually surfaced by the old pier which wasn’t that far from the wreck where the Zodiac was waiting for us.
Dive3 – 49m for 53mins – Big Brother – Nimibia, from Zodiac
This was another negative entry dive and once again I dropped down to 10m, checked on the team and began finning to find the wreck. After I lost my team mates light beam I turned round to find Owen about 20m away, Andy 10m away in hot pursuit and a huge sky-scraper of a wreck behind them…Enter Nimibia!
We re-grouped and began to wonder where to explore first. This really is a huge wreck and it took us some time to get our bearings but managed a good look in a cargo hold about the size of a house at 46m then proceeded onto the deck for an overall view of this mammoth wreck. If any of you have seen the HMS Victoria film shot by AG which depicts a massive wreck stood on it’s nose at 120m and shooting all the way up like a high raise flat yet also like the Zenobia with it’s huge cargo holds fit for articulated lorries etc. This dive reminded me just how small I really am in the grand scheme of things! My primary light failed due to a cord problem so I deployed my Heser but we still managed a good poke around before we thumbed the dive and headed for decoland.
Just after the switch we were joined by AG, Faisal and Tala (Faisal’s wife) who were monkey diving in T-Shirts, back plates and stages and AG had his pesky camera again which he stuck in our faces! J
(Nimibia pics to be added)
Back on the boat we prep’d our gas for the next day, grabbed some sunshine then a luxurious dinner as was the norm.
