Dive Report : Um El Faroud

The Dive Teams

Steve, Topper and Jack were doing a simulated 60m deco dive, i.e. the deco profile for 25 minutes at 60m. In my team there was Lee, Alia, Yves and myself.

Steve, Topper and Jack would be doing their own dive to pass the deco time.

Dive Commentary

Once in the water I did my bubble check with Lee. When we bubble check each other we are looking for bubbles coming from anywhere they shouldn't be. It takes someone else to check your manifold but we can check our own stages (although if you have three or more its nice to just let someone else rummage through your gear and let them check it for you! Not that I've had someone do that for me because I couldn't be bothered ....).

I spotted bubbles from Yves left post and tried to fix it. I shut the post down and tried to purge the back up reg but the gas never stopped, so I concluded he had some different regulator configuration and not wanting to risk shutting the post he's breathing I left it be. The bubbles were tiny and he felt OK to continue.

Steve and crew headed along the bottom to get the deco racking up whilst we swam at about 15m out to the wreck. Including the faffing with Yves's post it took us 15 minutes to hit the wreck - a moderate current was running.

Alia at 15m with the rebreather and trimix team below.

 Arriving on the stern, Lee lead us along the port deck passage. At this point, Lee was leading, I was second, Alia third and Yves at the back in four. Swimming forward we passed an entrance into a cabin that lead to the engine room on our right.

Swimming along the port deck.

Arriving in front of the super structure we met with Steve and co. Jack led the way heading downwards and towards the forward tanker section of the ship.

Jumping the void to the forward section.

Dropping down to the bottom of the cargo bays we passed through the bulkhead through a compartment door.

Passing through the compartment bulkhead

Now in one of the huge compartments you can either keep going through another bulkhead into a compartment that is completely closed in (Lee and I went in here on our check out dive on day 1, there are lots of holes that a sidemount diver could get into however) or head up through a crack in the decking which is what we did.

Inside the first compartment

"Surfacing" on the deck we then turned around to head back to the stern. I personally would have been happy to spend the entire dive in the engine room, but it was a good call to go see a bit of the ship. So now we were heading back to the engine room for a nosey.

Jumping the gap and heading aft

Returning to the superstructure you need to pass over some pipework, perhaps this was a fuel or liquid carrying vessel? Yves led into the engine room, I was second, Alia was third and Lee took the rear at 4.

Just entered the engine room.

From this entry, there is a gap as soon as you enter to drop straight down a level, but we continued in at this level at a depth of about 25m. Approximately half way back the engine room opens up into a wider space where you can drop down a level more easily. In the picture below, you can see to the left of the image, the starboard entry point and at the back is the funnel for the exhaust.

Yves descending into the engine room.

Mid-engine upwards steps and port exit.

Dropping down into the next level down, Yves is waiting for us to catch up. This is now the middle level. There is a deck running around the perimeter of the engine room with rooms shooting off. I've not explored any of these. I dropped down and moved to one side and used the railing as my reference while I got set. Using the GoPro was a challenge I found, its extremely small so I was paranoid of dropping it!

Looking back to make sure Alia and Lee were following us and all is OK - I can see their torches. I look back and indicate to Yves to continue penetrating. He drops to the third and lowest level and continues aft.

Yves on Engine Room Level 3

Following carefully and getting neutrally buoyant (there is a very thick layer of rust in here - a silt out could be easily done), I quickly checked my bottom timer to see that we are at 32m in here. All the gauges and machinery is still in here. On my right I see gauges.

Machinery guages.

It is unfortunately a dead end to continue further back. Turning around I am faced with the gigantic engine straight in front of me and I can see the lights of Alia and Lee coming down. So I headed down the starboard side of the engine down a small passage before coming back up to Level 2 where Yves had waited for me.

Yves came up behind me, with Lee and Alia just behind him. Lee led heading further aft at this level towards the exhaust stack. I found a Moray Eel hiding inside a pipe, I tried to point it out to Yves, but it just re-treating in the pipe. Ascending up the exhaust stack takes us up to about 22m.

At 48 minutes, at an average depth of 22m we were just entering deco so we moved to the starboard side of the ship and we met Steve. Steve was trying to advise Lee to keep swimming at the 24m level and not move up to avoid the currents. We left at about 22m towards the reef. I had taken a bearing and fixed my compass on the way out so I could clearly see the return route. The current was mostly head on.

We were gradually ascending as we swam, at about 52 minutes we had reached 21m. Looking back to Yves we switched each other to our 50% deco gas and continued on. I did the maths in my head. I didn't actually believe the 22m average depth my computer was telling me, I thought we had been deeper than that (in the engine room) for longer, so I rounded down my average depth not to 24m, but to 27m which gave me a deco of about 13 minutes which was overly conservative in my mind. But there's no harm in doing too much. Working our way back we are in the bay at about 12m, I ask Yves about deco, he says he has 13 minutes. Crickey! Oh well, 13 minutes left isn't too bad, I was about 6 about this point - I was hoping to be surfacing at about 72 minutes. Yves went off to find sea horses and I had to follow him because he was heading a long way out. He then started heading back because he realised his deco was growing!

At this point my canister light decides to fall off! The halcyon cinch system means that the light isn't on your waist belt its on a shorter seperate peice. I thought I wouldn't ask anyone to help because I didn't want to bother them, so I found a ledge at about 6-7m to rest the canister on, got neutral and just rested. The swells were no where near as bad as the previous trip so whilst I was still going around in circles due to the current, it was manageable.

I was quite content and quite relaxed at this point and then I got my bum molested! Two big hands groping me! Scared the hell out of me and then I thought "Jack!", I grab my canister, roll over and I DON'T see Jack! I see Steve and Topper! So I just gave them a finger in jest.

Asking Yves about deco he has cleared, so I gave him the thumbs up, and got a no. He still had to do his 3 minute safety stop. By this point we are at 82 minutes! Alia and Lee had already got out the water and I was watching Steve, Topper and Jack getting out - no harm in us just waiting about for a bit.

Yves had cleared and out we got. No assistance needed other than Steve taking my cannister light while I climbed out - THIS was what a dive was supposed to be - brilliantly relaxed and a doddle to get in and out of!!