[Andy Phillips]

In light of all that has happened whilst we were away, I debated whether or not to do this, but then decided to do so.

As you know Mark and I went to Dahab for the New Year, same place as last year but with a different plan, we took the boxes and intended to get as many hours as possible. Things did not go entirely to plan but it was still a great trip. Poseidon Divers did us proud again, without there help, I for one would have not dived much at all.

We flew out on Boxing day, just, the flight was at stupid O’clock, so we all arrive at the airport, the trip was organised by Joe Davin of Joe Diver and there were various families there, some young, some old. All looking grumpy and wanting the journey to be over so we could relax and get ready to dive the next day. We boarded and sat there for 5 hours whilst they fixed our broken plane. Apparently the fire extinguisher in the hold was bust, they had to get a part in from Luton, sadly there first attempt failed as they had brought the wrong part. So, we were off loaded, then reloaded and set off ……….…………….… 9 hours late, not good.

The first day was due to be a two dive day, well, there was more faffing around than you can possibly imagine, so much so, we only did one dive. My kit worked, I was weighted OK, so I guess it was useful, this was on a site called the lighthouse, generally this is the site they use for the training dives so it is a bit beaten up. Nipped down to 50M and found a table and chair complete with vase of flowers and planter by the side of the table, no camera so an amusing photo opportunity was sadly lost – sorry

Went to the Canyon for the second day, the plan was to drop in with the others, then swim down to the end, pop out and turn right and back up the reef. It went a tad pear shaped at 30M, Marks VR3 was showing a PO2 of 2.05, so he did a dil flush. Between us we didn’t have a functioning brain cell down there so we came back out the top and Mark repeated the process. At this point I think my last brain cell called it a day and I spent the rest of the dive following Mark trying to work out what he was doing. Turns out he found the problem and decided to carry on the dive. C’est la Vie.

The 2nd dive was on the Islands, this is a great site for hard corals, Ling came with us so I just pootled about with the group, this is a great site for a nice shallow dive

Day 3, hmmmmmm. Went to kit up and could hear gas coming out of the AutoAir, thought I would give it a go and hopped in, seemed to work OK and stopped leaking at about 10M so went for a present dive on a site described as “South” . Towards the end, the flipping thing started to give up gas again. Back to the dive centre for a few running repairs. Turned out to be the high pressure seat in the dil first stage. 2nd dive was on a site called the Eel Gardens, lots of Eels, manage to get a bit of video done, actually, have to be honest and say I had a pretty good time.

Went to the blue hole for the fourth day, the cunning plan was to nip through the arch at about 52M, turn right and head around the outside to deco, pop over the saddle and home.

We were in the water with a chap who was also on an RB, there were a few bubbles coming out of it. At about 50M he came close to me, I could hear bubbles, thought nothing of it, as I could see them coming out of the top of his inflator. He then swam off, I could still hear bubbles so I start to check my kit, yup, sure enough, there is a fairly sizable stream leaving the AutoAir (this piece of kit is now offered for sale in KIT form). Checked the dil gauge and I have lost about 100Bar, can the idea of the arch and start to head up.

It stopped loosing gas at 30M so Mark and I decide to head over the saddle and have a bit of a dive on the outside. A happy hour or so later, and having missed the saddle to get back we arrive back at the entry / exit point to see a couple of people with stages and twins sitting there on deco.

Climb out, look at the blob sitting on the surface and notice it has Ainsley on it. We know the Ainsley was planning on doing the Arch at 100M so we hang about on the surface to say hi. Hi Ainsley, how’s it going mate, it was good to meet you.

Back to the centre for yet more running repairs, scrounge an inflator off the centre, find an inflation hose from somewhere, borrow an ATX50 off Mark, and voila, a reconstituted RB again.

Can’t remember where the second dive was, got a feeling I sat it out whilst re-building the RB

The next day was the Canyon again, it was a cracking dive, out thru the bottom at about 50, drop over the edge for a video opportunity at about 60M and off up the side of the reef, this is a great dive and I would recommend it to any one, the reef is pretty much un-dived below 40 and the corals are fantastic. Can’t remember what the next dive was, sorry.

The last dive ended up being on the site called The Huts (apparently there were some huts there once), it was billed as being like the Islands only deeper.

Mark and I had a plan to follow the group for a few minutes whilst Mark took some video of Ling and then head off on our own, this we duly did.

We swam at 45 degree’s to the shore, but, to be honest it was a bit uninteresting, and we couldn’t find the drop-off, so we kind of gave up and turned parallel for a bit. And, woof, the drop off, it was a fantastic sight!

There is a sandy floor with a coral island in the middle; I saw Mark go up and to the left a bit, from where I was I could see a canyon below us so I decided to take a look.

As it goes, there was nothing much to look at so I headed back up to where Mark had gone to be greeted by a somewhat excited Mark who had just found a Canyon with a cave off the back. We had a right royal hoot swimming into the cave, we could see light ahead so we wriggled through a hole and popped into a bit of a chamber, there was an exit point above and behind us, the cave carried on below and to the left and looked very dark. We decided to leave at the exit point since we were at 60+M on air dil and didn’t have a torch between us. As it goes, we followed the line of the cave and found another exit point about 100’ further on, but sometimes being careful is a good idea.

Turns out this is a possibly unknown cave, if it is, how proud are we!!!

That’s it, Mark will probably fill in some gaps.

Take care all,

Andrew