Before Christmas we went on a cruise round the Red Sea .We stopped in Port Safaga for two days and the excursions list offered diving .
I spoke to the dive guide on the ship he told me that the dive centre was Emperor Divers and I could either do a shore dive or a “speedboat dive “ on a “wreck “ .The wreck sounded ok so off I went not knowing what to expect .
We got to the centre which has not been open long the boat was a six seater with two big outboards. At the time the centre had only 12 l cylinders and no Nitrox
The wreck was the M/S El Tor Arish I had never heard of this one but it was a lot bigger than I expected .
There was just myself one other diver and the tour guide on the dive. The wreck is about 10 min away from the centre .
The wreck is buoyed and we descended a line to the hull
It lies on its side in about 38 m of water .The viz was not to hot for the Red Sea about 7 -8 m but it was good enough to see that this was going to be an excellent dive.
The guide took us from the bows along the middle of the wreck The ship looks pretty much intact with a fair amount of coral growth .
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There was also a fair amount of fish life .
We swam to towards the stern to see two large propellers.
Coming back along the top side the light improved and I got some better pictures .
The ship can’t have been dived much as there are still bits of kit lying about.
We didn’t make any attempt to get inside but the potential for exploring inside must be good. According to the guide the ship went down without any loss of life.
I think from what they told me that the ship went down in 2002 . I am sure that some of YD s wreck experts will be able to fill in the details .I would be interested to hear the full story.
For the second dive we did a local reef ,quite a good dive just me and a guide . We saw lion fish stingrays and a big moray. The ride back was fun when they crank up the engines on the boat you can feel the skin on your cheeks being drawn back by the airflow. We passed another big wreck half out the water and according to the staff there are two more nearby
Cheers Graham