Wreck description
The vessel suffered structural deformation and, following inspection and survey, was considered a total write-off. She occupied the dock in the harbour of Valletta for three years until it was decided that the best option to utilize her remaining value was to tow her to sea and scuttle her as an artificial reef in 1998.
An excellent visualisation of the wreck is available as a 3D model by Fourth Element : http://www.fourthelement.com/adventures/3d_um_el_faroud_wreck_map.php
Dive Commentary
We had been planning to dive P29 and Rozi today but the weather was against us and the other truck arrived at Cirkewwa before us and phoned to Sarah to relocate to Zurrieq to dive the Um El Faroud. The swells were still fairly considerable here, probably 1.5m, so whilst entering the water was easy you still wanted to time it so that you were caught in the swell. I was in twin-12 with an Al80 as a deco bottle with 50% as my deco gas. With the swell I did struggle to get down a little but I managed it, I was diving in a 7mm wetsuit so it takes a few metres to compress it.
We set off with Steve in the lead and I was at the back with my HID light working nicely. The direct route is to take a bearing of 240 degrees and that will lead you to the wreck, but an easier route is to follow the reef along at about 6m (this helps to preserve your gas), then as the reef bends around and you come across a crack, this is the point at which you head off to the wreck. It took approximately 13 minutes from entering the water to arriving at the wreck. There was a considerable current running. Approximately half way to the wreck you pass a plinth with an old fashioned, surface-supplied divers helm on.
Arriving on the stern of the wreck we elected to do a complete tour of the wreck by heading to the bow. Dropping onto the stern we then headed along the starboard deck with Steve out front, Alia in front of me and Lee and Chris out mid-water doing a bit of filming.
Continuing forward we bridged the gap between the two sections of the ship. There is about a 2-3m difference in deck height and this is down to the weight of the engines keeping the aft section down.We dropped down and passed through the bulkhead doors into the next storage tank.
On the deck we headed towards the bow, there is a short tunnel that ends in a ladder that leads upwards - Steve explained later that this allows crew to get to the bow deck without being hammered by waves quite as much. Alia had got half way down and bottled it. Lee and Chris went along and up with Steve. On the bow deck all the machinery for driving the anchors is still in tact and is home to many small fish so it was interesting to look about, while I was ferreting about in the machinery I noticed Chris standing on the bow. Straight away I thought "you numpty, he's going to do the Titanic thing ..." and unsurprisngly he held his arms out. But what happened next surprised me.
I saw him bend his knees and then duck-dived off the bow of the Um El Faroud, mean while Steve was hovering out mid-water and was recording Chris has he made his slow descent to the sea bed! Seeing Chris duck-dive was funny, but I must admit, I quitely chuckled when I saw Steve belly-flop into the sea bed with a big thump and waves of silt emanating from him!
At this point I was at 110 bar and was feeling edgy. We are at the very bow and have a long way to go signalling this to Steve we start heading back. There was a noticeable current here - you have no sheilding from the super structure that you have at the stern so it makes a massive difference. Most of us moved over to the port railing and used a pull-and-glide technique, reaching the breach between the two section we had to do it the old fashioned way.
Dropping back down onto the deck of the aft section we then entered the engine room from underneath the superstructure.I was the last to enter and when I looked down through the grilling I could see many lights below me and silt stirring up. There was also one extreme light that looked like a football stadium lamp! That would be Ty!
I made the choice not to drop down. I had hoped that we would just be swimming straight through and not ferreting about. Check the SPG - 70 bar. Hmm not feeling good about this - anxiety was building. I then saw three rebreathers below me - Sarah and Jack were on Mk6s and could see them, I found Ty with his beasty Sentinel and the bright green lights.
It was absolute chaos in there - I didn't know who was who and even where I was trying to hover soon became an entanglement - another separate group of divers then arrived - it was chaos. Me and another twinsetted diver exited on our left to the starboard side, I didn't know at the time that it was Lee. Looking at my SPG : 60 bar - this is getting unnerving now. We hovered there for a while, SPG : 50 bar.
Swimming back through the wreck and outside the back we re-grouped - I found Steve and said I'm running low and need to end the dive. So Alia, Steve and I grouped up and left, while Chris, Lee and Yves grouped up and were told that they can stay if they wanted.
The stern is at about 24m, I'm carrying 50% nitrox in my Al80 which is only breathable at 21m, I'm looking at my bottom timer and thinking "come on guys lets start ascending", but we were heading straight back at 24m. Steve later advised that its best to do this, whilst heading up and doing a normal profile you are subjected to stronger currents. So its worth staying that little bit deeper, doing more deco deep and knocking it off shallow.
Arriving at 21m on a steady and slow ascent as we swam it was time to switch. We didn't really do a team postive switch, we just switched individually - not my preferred thing, yes I know I've only got one bottle, but still. Once on the bottle at 21m I instantly felt my whole body relax. I've now got about 2000 litres of gas and I've only got about 15 mins of deco to get through and I'm almost back - no worries now.
Alia had a 7l but she had issues - her 2nd stage was bubbling and leaking slightly - not a full on free flow, but that constant stream of bubbles got her stressed. Steve was also swimming very quickly I found and Alia agreed, we were struggling to keep up. So we stuck close.
Arriving in the bay, I'm staying deep at 12m for a good few minutes and there is a large rock down here to look at, the current was strong here - it wasn't just a gentle back and forth, you were moving a good few metres each time!!! I didn't associate this to big swells.
I'd done a good stint at 9m so I needed to move up. I asked Alia about her deco and she had about 10 mins left and I had about 7 mins. Moving to 6m I truly felt like I was in a washing machine, I wasn't going back and forth I was really going around and around! It was horrid, with a twinset at 40 bar and an aluminium stage I was getting buoyant.
The whole team was at deco together - Jack and Ty too :
I had now cleared deco but buoyancy was an issue. I had vented the wing completely but I was still finning to keep down. Alia still had deco so I stayed with her. Her SPG showed she was down to about 70 bar. I decided we would swap stages - at least then she would have oodles of gas and could relax. But as I'm starting to unclip the stage I get a bit of an updraft so I stopped what I was doing and started finning downwards looking at Alia. I'm struggling to get down and then a very strong surge hits me and pulls me straight up to the surface, I went from 6m to the surface in about 10 seconds - hardly my planned ascent of 1m/min. But I had over deco-ed so I wasn't too fussed. That was until I saw the surface ....
I surface to see Lee and Chris de-kitted on the pier with arms out stretched to help - I look right to see a wave hit me. Swimming very slowly (not by plan, I was swimming hard!) to the ladder I get on it and start climbing. I get one step up and a wave hits me and pulls me off. I get back on and hang on. A new wave hits me and takes me off! I get on again and hang on by wrapping my arms right around it, Lee is also hanging on to me! Waves are hitting us every 10-15 seconds, the swells are up at 4-5m! First job : stage off. Chris is down behind me taking my fins off. My spool then decides to unwind itself and is tangling my feet - it gets cut. Waves are battering us and Lee is hanging on to my manifold helping me up. Eventually I'm on the pier and I rest my twinset on the ledge and breathe a second. But it quickly dawns on me we don't have time to rest, we have a team in the water to get out. So I de-kitted and pulled my gear back - wedging everything down under tanks - the water is right up here and anything will get pulled out!
Jumping back down with Lee and Chris we are stripping gear off each diver and hanging on to them to keep them on the ladder. We had an issue with one of Alias side mount bottles, the inflator hose wouldn't disconnect no matter what. I remember there was one point where the waves were hitting her and she was falling off the ladder, but I had one hand under her harness and the rest of me wrapped around the ladder trying to keep her on it. In the end I ended up carrying her and her stage up the ladder in order to get her out the water. Eventually we had our entire team out the water, but there was another team of divers from another school that had done a double deco-bottle dive. So Steve and myself stayed to help them out of the water.
At this point I saw Lee come past huffing. Carrying Tys Sentinel? Turned out Ty had a bad exit and ultimately got his leg seriously twisted - he couldn't dive for the rest of the week.
I was running up and down the stairs carrying stages to get them clear of the horrific waves that were sweeping kit away. I left my kit till last. I was pleasantly surprised to see that none of my smaller items like fins, hood and computers had been swept away!
We got two of the divers out, but the rest couldn't get to the ladder, there is a little bay that the boats use so we moved them around to there. I went to the truck to get the rope that we used for lashing gear down so that we could throw it to the divers to clip their gear off to and pull it in seperately so that they could get out the water as light as possible.
Another 30 minutes later and we had the other school out the water. And now we could all start to relax a bit. It was at this point it hit me how much work I had been doing. I was always one to avoid massive exertion post dive, especially post-deco dive. But I was completely exhausted at this point. My whole body was hurting - I was battered and bruised, in particular my right knee took a real pounding. Walking up the stairs to the road I dug out my deco bottle, turned it on and just sat on the wall, breathing ultra-slowly the enriched gas. Thinking I could be bent I just relaxed for about 15 minutes. I'd settled a little so I then started de-kitting and undressing whilst still breathing the deco gas.
Sarah came over to me and we chatted a bit. I explained how those conditions were the worst that I've ever seen or dove in. Sarah comforted me by explaining it was pure adrenaline that was running through me.
That evening, it took about 3-4 hours for me to stop shaking and took me probably another 6 on top of that to finally "relax" about what had happened. It had really shaken me. Now we look back and laugh at it, it was certainly character building stuff!
Safe to say we, read: I, drank a bit that night!!! And I wasn't in the mood for diving the next day either!
From the backgas I consumed 2x12x(185-40) = 3,480 litres and from the stage I consumed 11x(210-100) = 1,210 litres.
Arriving on the stern of the wreck we elected to do a complete tour of the wreck by heading to the bow. Dropping onto the stern we then headed along the starboard deck with Steve out front, Alia in front of me and Lee and Chris out mid-water doing a bit of filming.
 |
| Image Courtesy of Tec Steve Wilkinson |
Continuing forward we bridged the gap between the two sections of the ship. There is about a 2-3m difference in deck height and this is down to the weight of the engines keeping the aft section down.We dropped down and passed through the bulkhead doors into the next storage tank.
On the deck we headed towards the bow, there is a short tunnel that ends in a ladder that leads upwards - Steve explained later that this allows crew to get to the bow deck without being hammered by waves quite as much. Alia had got half way down and bottled it. Lee and Chris went along and up with Steve. On the bow deck all the machinery for driving the anchors is still in tact and is home to many small fish so it was interesting to look about, while I was ferreting about in the machinery I noticed Chris standing on the bow. Straight away I thought "you numpty, he's going to do the Titanic thing ..." and unsurprisngly he held his arms out. But what happened next surprised me.
I saw him bend his knees and then duck-dived off the bow of the Um El Faroud, mean while Steve was hovering out mid-water and was recording Chris has he made his slow descent to the sea bed! Seeing Chris duck-dive was funny, but I must admit, I quitely chuckled when I saw Steve belly-flop into the sea bed with a big thump and waves of silt emanating from him!
At this point I was at 110 bar and was feeling edgy. We are at the very bow and have a long way to go signalling this to Steve we start heading back. There was a noticeable current here - you have no sheilding from the super structure that you have at the stern so it makes a massive difference. Most of us moved over to the port railing and used a pull-and-glide technique, reaching the breach between the two section we had to do it the old fashioned way.
 |
| Image Courtesy of Tec Steve Wilkinson |
I made the choice not to drop down. I had hoped that we would just be swimming straight through and not ferreting about. Check the SPG - 70 bar. Hmm not feeling good about this - anxiety was building. I then saw three rebreathers below me - Sarah and Jack were on Mk6s and could see them, I found Ty with his beasty Sentinel and the bright green lights.
It was absolute chaos in there - I didn't know who was who and even where I was trying to hover soon became an entanglement - another separate group of divers then arrived - it was chaos. Me and another twinsetted diver exited on our left to the starboard side, I didn't know at the time that it was Lee. Looking at my SPG : 60 bar - this is getting unnerving now. We hovered there for a while, SPG : 50 bar.
Swimming back through the wreck and outside the back we re-grouped - I found Steve and said I'm running low and need to end the dive. So Alia, Steve and I grouped up and left, while Chris, Lee and Yves grouped up and were told that they can stay if they wanted.
The stern is at about 24m, I'm carrying 50% nitrox in my Al80 which is only breathable at 21m, I'm looking at my bottom timer and thinking "come on guys lets start ascending", but we were heading straight back at 24m. Steve later advised that its best to do this, whilst heading up and doing a normal profile you are subjected to stronger currents. So its worth staying that little bit deeper, doing more deco deep and knocking it off shallow.
Arriving at 21m on a steady and slow ascent as we swam it was time to switch. We didn't really do a team postive switch, we just switched individually - not my preferred thing, yes I know I've only got one bottle, but still. Once on the bottle at 21m I instantly felt my whole body relax. I've now got about 2000 litres of gas and I've only got about 15 mins of deco to get through and I'm almost back - no worries now.
Alia had a 7l but she had issues - her 2nd stage was bubbling and leaking slightly - not a full on free flow, but that constant stream of bubbles got her stressed. Steve was also swimming very quickly I found and Alia agreed, we were struggling to keep up. So we stuck close.
Arriving in the bay, I'm staying deep at 12m for a good few minutes and there is a large rock down here to look at, the current was strong here - it wasn't just a gentle back and forth, you were moving a good few metres each time!!! I didn't associate this to big swells.
I'd done a good stint at 9m so I needed to move up. I asked Alia about her deco and she had about 10 mins left and I had about 7 mins. Moving to 6m I truly felt like I was in a washing machine, I wasn't going back and forth I was really going around and around! It was horrid, with a twinset at 40 bar and an aluminium stage I was getting buoyant.
The whole team was at deco together - Jack and Ty too :
 |
| Image courtesy of Tec Steve Wilkinson |
 |
| Image courtesy of Tec Steve Wilkinson |
I had now cleared deco but buoyancy was an issue. I had vented the wing completely but I was still finning to keep down. Alia still had deco so I stayed with her. Her SPG showed she was down to about 70 bar. I decided we would swap stages - at least then she would have oodles of gas and could relax. But as I'm starting to unclip the stage I get a bit of an updraft so I stopped what I was doing and started finning downwards looking at Alia. I'm struggling to get down and then a very strong surge hits me and pulls me straight up to the surface, I went from 6m to the surface in about 10 seconds - hardly my planned ascent of 1m/min. But I had over deco-ed so I wasn't too fussed. That was until I saw the surface ....
I surface to see Lee and Chris de-kitted on the pier with arms out stretched to help - I look right to see a wave hit me. Swimming very slowly (not by plan, I was swimming hard!) to the ladder I get on it and start climbing. I get one step up and a wave hits me and pulls me off. I get back on and hang on. A new wave hits me and takes me off! I get on again and hang on by wrapping my arms right around it, Lee is also hanging on to me! Waves are hitting us every 10-15 seconds, the swells are up at 4-5m! First job : stage off. Chris is down behind me taking my fins off. My spool then decides to unwind itself and is tangling my feet - it gets cut. Waves are battering us and Lee is hanging on to my manifold helping me up. Eventually I'm on the pier and I rest my twinset on the ledge and breathe a second. But it quickly dawns on me we don't have time to rest, we have a team in the water to get out. So I de-kitted and pulled my gear back - wedging everything down under tanks - the water is right up here and anything will get pulled out!
Jumping back down with Lee and Chris we are stripping gear off each diver and hanging on to them to keep them on the ladder. We had an issue with one of Alias side mount bottles, the inflator hose wouldn't disconnect no matter what. I remember there was one point where the waves were hitting her and she was falling off the ladder, but I had one hand under her harness and the rest of me wrapped around the ladder trying to keep her on it. In the end I ended up carrying her and her stage up the ladder in order to get her out the water. Eventually we had our entire team out the water, but there was another team of divers from another school that had done a double deco-bottle dive. So Steve and myself stayed to help them out of the water.
At this point I saw Lee come past huffing. Carrying Tys Sentinel? Turned out Ty had a bad exit and ultimately got his leg seriously twisted - he couldn't dive for the rest of the week.
I was running up and down the stairs carrying stages to get them clear of the horrific waves that were sweeping kit away. I left my kit till last. I was pleasantly surprised to see that none of my smaller items like fins, hood and computers had been swept away!
We got two of the divers out, but the rest couldn't get to the ladder, there is a little bay that the boats use so we moved them around to there. I went to the truck to get the rope that we used for lashing gear down so that we could throw it to the divers to clip their gear off to and pull it in seperately so that they could get out the water as light as possible.
Another 30 minutes later and we had the other school out the water. And now we could all start to relax a bit. It was at this point it hit me how much work I had been doing. I was always one to avoid massive exertion post dive, especially post-deco dive. But I was completely exhausted at this point. My whole body was hurting - I was battered and bruised, in particular my right knee took a real pounding. Walking up the stairs to the road I dug out my deco bottle, turned it on and just sat on the wall, breathing ultra-slowly the enriched gas. Thinking I could be bent I just relaxed for about 15 minutes. I'd settled a little so I then started de-kitting and undressing whilst still breathing the deco gas.
Sarah came over to me and we chatted a bit. I explained how those conditions were the worst that I've ever seen or dove in. Sarah comforted me by explaining it was pure adrenaline that was running through me.
That evening, it took about 3-4 hours for me to stop shaking and took me probably another 6 on top of that to finally "relax" about what had happened. It had really shaken me. Now we look back and laugh at it, it was certainly character building stuff!
Safe to say we, read: I, drank a bit that night!!! And I wasn't in the mood for diving the next day either!
Surface Air Consumption
Given that I know my SAC rate is about 18 l/min - I like to both sanity check it and update it based on the dive I've actually done and the gas actually consumed versus the plan.From the backgas I consumed 2x12x(185-40) = 3,480 litres and from the stage I consumed 11x(210-100) = 1,210 litres.
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