A pretty simple check dive to start us off. Nothing too exciting to see which worked out relatively well cos it meant I could concentrate on my rebreather. Felt pretty strange being in salt water…. I think I seemed to associate the unit with fresh water instead! Took me a bit of getting used to the buoyancy especially as it was such a shallow dive. Was surprised at how the 12 litre bailout didn’t seem to impede at all and I barely noticed it during the dive. Saw a blue spotted ray, a few box fish and a couple of the puffer fish that Nessa loves. At the end, we had a “balloon party” by testing out DSMBs. Using the easy-fill adapter from my bailout worked reasonably well but not perfect. Will try to practice again throughout the week.

Nice dive with Ross on this wreck that has merged well with the surrounding reef. Dropped down onto the stern section and took some video as we worked our way around the prop and to the stern. A family of Nemo-fish protected an anemone off the prop. Lots of other classic Red Sea fish about, which hopefully I picked up on my camera. We made our way forward amazed by how many other divers there seemed to be in the water…. having been first in it felt like they were spoiling our dive a little ;-) Ducked back inside the stern section behind the lattice decking work. When we were coming back out I spotted a parrot fish being groomed by a cleaner wrasse…. was a little perturbed at first as I wondered what the parrotfish was throwing up! Into the broken midsection when Ross spotted a bit grouper hiding under the funnel. Didn’t manage to see too much of it in the open but at least I had a laugh when Ross tonked his tank into the bit of wreckage he swam under. Ken pointed out a nice looking nudibranch before we made our way up past the bow section, taking in the view through the hole at the bow. Ross was running low on NDL time and gas so we swam fairly shallow back to the down line and making sure to enjoy the view of the little antheas swimming around the coral on the starboard side of the wreck. On the shot line Helen and Liam played rock, paper, scissors whilst we watched a lovely shoal of blue fusiliers. Nice first wreck dive out here on the trip. Let’s hope the forecast is proved wrong and we get to dive some of the other great wrecks of Abu Nuhas.

Nice night dive with Clare… my first on a rebreather. Was a little bit difficult keeping buoyancy, avoiding the shoal of lion fish that decided to follow us around for half of the dive and keep track of what was going on. Some disappointing video footage sadly but there was good range of wildlife for us to see. 3 big moray eels, some wacky walking coral thing and lots of sleeping fish. Had plenty of fun poking around looking for critters. Was a nice dive seeing all the torch beams in the distance and seeming like people floating around space.

Great drift dive with Ken. Didn’t really need to go down to 40m but felt like a good opportunity to test the unit a little bit. Saw plenty of antheas, parrot fish, moorish idols and even a grouper getting a clean from a cleaner wrasse. As well as a nemo fish and his wife. Best part of the dive was definitely when we got up to the toilets. A bit congregation of crocodile fish hanging around together. Spotted the BMW too although you can pretty much just make out the tyres and not too much else of the chassis sadly. At this point, Ken was testing his feet up on the surface as he was far too light with empty ali tanks.

About a perfect speed for a drift dive- slow enough to look at stuff but just about no finning required. Anthony and I certainly enjoyed ourselves pootling along and taking in the. Some lovely soft fan corals about. Clown fish always seem to entice me to video them. Took lots of comparison photos to see the effect of the red filter and whether it would be worth keeping it on for photos. After the later dive I think the answer is to make sure that there is plenty of white stuff like sand in the picture so that it can balance okay.

Turned from being a reasonable dive into a great dive by the presence of a school of barracuda! They were following a group of blue fusiliers around (seemingly being lead by a solo batfish). Earlier in the dive had spotted a nice masked puffer fish which I took some video of. There was a really sweet little clown fish who was obviously very protective of a soft coral as opposed to the usual anemones…. assumed he must be getting in some practice for when he’s grown up with a mate. Much better success with the camera on this dive having changed the settings to 1080p at 30 fps. The filter really picking out the colours in the shallows (> 15m). On our way back into the main reef to ascend, Liam spotted a great big stone fish sitting on the sand. Making our way back along the mooring line I spotted a squid about 10 metres in front. Was too faint to get any video of it even if I had got my camera ready in time. Was so happy with the barracuda, especially when they returned so that Liam could see them! Didn’t find the “road” and therefore missed the other pinnacle but a cracking dive.

Nice night dive with Michelle- just made our way around the reef that we had dived in the afternoon. Lots of little crabs and lobsters hidden away in the coral that kept us entertained. Also a neat little moray tucked into a coral too.

Started off heading down the line and on the bearing that the briefing had told us….. totally managing to miss the fact we were actually right over the lump of metal we were trying to find! However after a few minutes Fran managed to catch up with Ali and I, and put us back on track. Was a lovely dive when we got onto the wreck. Nice profile for gradually ascending - which suited me nicely on the rebreather. Towards the stern we entered and swam through along the prop shaft (on the ceiling) and up towards the boiler. I squeezed in to the starboard side of the boiler whilst Ali took the port side. Coming out in front of the boiler brought us to a wonderful shoal of glass fish, hope the video of which comes out well. Down through the debris field up to the bow section and a lovely vista up through the bow, which Ali dutifully swam through for a cheesy video shot. Coming off the wreck we ended up working our way around the beautiful reef, swimming in and out of the thermoclines that seemed to pervade the whole wall. Some stunning colours on both the fish and the coral across this reef - possibly the nicest we’ve dived so far. A large gorgonian fan with a clown-fish protected anemone took a lot of attention before we continued zig-zagging our way up to the safety stop depth. Here Michelle took a couple of photos of Ali, Nessa and I….. turns out close control buoyancy required for photo posing is much more difficult than on Open Circuit :-) Nice dive with lined us up well for what is hopefully to come next!

Lovely to be back on this wreck with Nessa. Fond memories of last time where we got a night dive on it to ourselves. Nice profile today where we came down on the line to the stern axle and then swam around the stern section, taking in the anti-aircraft gun and round to the propellor. Some absolutely massive shells in the debris field underneath the shotline. Made our way into the lower level at the back of the third hold and then swam through there with all the wonder of those trucks, guns, motorbikes and wellies. Once we’d covered both levels of the holds we came out onto deck level. Lots of batfish around the wreck. Most notable point of the dive was when a sweet little torpedo ray tried to sit on my head. He seemed to bump his way into my mask and then landed on Nessa’s fin before finally making it to the floor…. bumping into a plant and freaking himself out. Other good points involved seeing a stonefish near the rope room, lots of anthias around the winch, groupers, damselfish and other fishies. Heading up the shotline was funny with loads of people safety stopping. On the transfer line back to the stern, we spotted a …… mackerel, which most people initially thought/hoped was a shark due to it’s white tip.

A bit of a harder dive with more current. In with Nessa, Tony, Liam and Helen. Managed to achieve our dive objectives though but managed to run low on my dil so had to plumb in my bailout tank to get me through to the end. Was little bit grumpy in places when the current was blowing me around the place and into people. Took some nice video inside the holds though and also of the two tuna hunting fusiliers on the bow.

Nice night dive on the barge with Eric. Pleased to see an extremely large moray eel in the middle of the wreckage although I’m not entirely sure that it was the famous George. We drifted off a fair bit to see what else was about. Notable points included watching the feather star (like a fern) curling up when in the torch beam, finding a nice little octopus and a few other large moray eels dotted around. At the end of the dive we headed back in to the wreck where Ross was filming for Paparazzi Planet when he was chasing the moray around with his torch and camera.

Absolutely cracking dive on this wreck with Ken. Really is a good example of how wrecks merge into reefs over here. Took it really nice and slowly and getting close in to the macro life; Ken discovering a good few different nudibranchs. Started up on the starboard rail and looked down over the other divers before dropping down the hull side to investigate the prop. Then around past the bucket at the stern where a little family of clownfish were living. Worked our way up really gradually between the main wreckage and the funnel. Lots of great things to video record especially in the shallows. Ken spotted a nice little golden dotted flatworm which I recorded marching along. Found a big Scorpionfish and was visited by a little Napoleon wrasse when I was on my safety stop. Lots and lots of very nice things to look at framed in wonderful colours to make this a really great dive.

Another nice dive on the Barge, this time with Ross. Saw one of the moray eels underneath the wreckage surrounded by a good number of squirrel-fish. Didn’t worry about staying near the boat even though the current wasn’t too strong at the start. However we decided just to trundle off with the current towards Bluff point. Loads of gorgonian fan coral and other corals oriented to the current. When we reached the point it dropped away very quickly, supposedly down to 55m. Practiced a dil flush and two OC bailouts including a bailed-out ascent…. worked well.

Buddied with Eric and guided by Fran. Was good being guided as she took us through all the swim-throughs that I think we might have missed at some point. Another boat had dumped a load of divers on the wreck so it was a little bit like Piccadilly Circus underwater. Nice big propellor still on it (as per all the other wrecks). Swam through the side of the holds and took some videos all the tiles (made in Italy for the Saudis but stamped with ‘Made In Italy’ on them). Fran was really testing my new buoyancy and ability to squeeze through narrow doors with my rebreather as she took us into the bridge and various other sections…. didn’t do too well up near the bow when it was shallow and had to squeeze through a tight gap. Nice light on the wreck about 12m and plenty of different varieties of coral and fishes.

Night dive on the Carnatic Had to bailout as seemed to have lost all of my o2 by the time I reached the bottom of the line. Think it must have leaked from the tank handle and also from having a high interstage pressure in the o2 reg. Had a bit of a swim with Helen until I could find someone I trusted to leave her with and then headed back on the Sad to have missed out on such a special dive but was a good exercise of practicing my bailout again and learnt a good lesson about checking my pressure gauges a little more on descents.

Weather was pretty rough - like the UK pretty much but we managed to get out onto this wonderful wreck (think it’s my favourite in the red sea). Bumpy ride on the zodiac that reminded me of diving in the UK. But once we’d dropped down onto the wreck there was no current or surge and was just a very good dive. Videoed a fair deal of the dive so just check out that footage. Took in the stern section including the engine room (through which Phil had the biggest smile on!), debris field, bow with the beautiful mast and then up onto the bridge. Such a brilliant wreck with some much more lovely colourful corals than the Thistlegorm.

Dolphins!!! Nothing else to say!

Expectations were high entering this dive that we may encounter some dolphins. Sadly it turned out that we didn’t but to make up for it we did find an octopus and nine squids. The dive was centred around a channel that supposedly dolphins come to hunt in. And there was a nice current to help drive us through however this meant it was too strong for us to swim against to get back into mooring point for the boat. Anthony and I decided to take the easy option (compared to Ross and Ken) and call a taxi aka the zodiac.

Nice little night dive with Lisa. Nothing too spectacular but a very hungry lionfish following us around. Saw a giant trevally hunting under the boat as we were coming back to the boat which kept me in the water a few extra minutes.

Great dive with Michelle and Nessa on these wrecks. Fairly easy swimming across to the fishing trawler- a fair bit more life on the wreck than last time I dived it. A school of glassfish buzzing around the engine room vent with three chunky looking lion fish sat next to them. Around the stern there was a lovely ringed chromodorid nudibranch (about 8-10cm long) white with yellow spots and purple rings around it’s tentacles. And then a ice little puffer fish sat on one of the rigging posts - letting everyone swim by. Over onto the minesweeper and there was lots of different things to see. Plenty of the pyjama chromodorids, which I have picked up relatively well with my GoPro. Also there was lots of cleaner shrimps all over the place- notably sharing an anemone with a little clownfish. Got within a minute of deco so headed up fairly soon after seeing the clownfish but then had cleared back to NDL 999 after only a few minutes ascent.

We all dived in together for a group splash around! As such I didn’t bother taking my stage with me which felt really nice and unrestrained on the boat and also a bit nicer in the water too. We had worked our way around a coral garden towards a little pinnacle that contained a little alcove. Inside were a few cleaner wrasse so I watched Michelle and Nessa take their regs out to get their teeth cleaned… very funny! Clare had spotted a nice octopus earlier on which kept us entertained for a fair while until Ross started poking it again :-( Ended up taking a different route back with Nessa, Clare and Ken around the first pinnacle so we had a bit longer in the water. Not an incredible dive site but a good one to finish on again. Plus it was funny to get a photo opportunity with a snorkel on my mask with the rebreather! Good end to a brilliant week.