[Andy Phillips]

What you lot don't know is the ramifications for the whole diving community in Dahab, the Blue Hole will now be shut - totally for at least the next two weeks whilst the decision is made whether or not to recover the body, this will only be done if someone i.e. the family are willing to pay for it. If they are not then the diver will just be left there.


I have a couple of questions, the last four people to die there have all been russians, why?

The dive through the arch can be done comfortably between 60 and 70M, once you are through the bottom slopes away sharply to the left on a sandy base from 110 to somewhere very deep indeed, to get out you need to swim about 60M to the right, not a big issue but with your consumption at 100M on a single 12 you have about 5 mins to do it (allowing for getting to 100M in the first place) this is NOT enough time. Then you have to deco on the way back up, even if you bounce it you are not going to make it without triming off your deco. Even the most rudimentary grasp of math will allow you to work this out, why on earth would you try to do something that you simply can't acheive?

The dive is suicide, as demonstrated almost every single time someone attempts to do it this way.

What is ridiculous though, it is really not a hard dive to do, if you do it properly. The arch itself is only 10M from start to finish, the bottom of the arch is about 80M. Why on earth did someone try and do this on a single 12 - again. It is stupidity beyond belief. I have no sympathy for the person that dived, plenty for there family and a lot for the dive community in Dahab and the other holiday makers out there who will now not be able to experience a very beautiful dive site. And indeed sympathy for myself as Mark and I are due out there in January and it means we might not be able to do the dive ourselves without an immense amount of effort, and we will be there with our twin 12's with mix plus three 10L stages for deco.

Andrew