SHARM EL SHEIKH www.EmperorDivers.com

Based out of Bay View Hotel Sharm El Sheikh, they do have an ideal pool type for training and have a lad there doing his best at training folk.

Above is a Dive looking at/for? wildlife at a Location referred to as 'the Garden' all those divers found just one Moray Eel in 2 Dives over a wide area.

Plus a Tech Diving lady called Sarah who is good at and loves her tasks too.

Peter tries his P.R. best & is just right for moving things along there.

Sharm El Sheikh, as a Diving Location is an absolutely disappointing COMPARATIVELY BARREN & LIFELESS location, perhaps I over expected actual wildlife presence? Emperor Divers?, not really bad, they are trying their best.

After spending my younger days working out of Dale & Milford Haven from Share fishing vessels which provided the earning of Divers which dived alone plus earned catch related percentage for those vessels Captains & owners, watching divers on jollies making signs describing fish they had seen seemed better placed as part of a pantomime.

A 'Share Captain' had to find & reachable mark as part of good reachable reef surfaces from land to the Islands roughly 26 miles offshore along with Islands en route including Lundy Island which was where the Gulf Stream first brought Crawfish in the earliest part of a working season shortly after Padstow's 'Obby 'Oss mayday.

Finding solo divers often out of sight of land in UK also a needed to have sharp witted Captains & ANY error hampered catches times for all & earnings wd suffer, circling Gannets was the reliable sign of bubbles reaching surface.

Vessels such as Aquarius, Transit, Vigilant, worked from western outlet whilst the Quo Vadis & other Cornwall craft worked out of Solva.

Divers had to ‘read’ their working ground & coverage stemmed from fitness too, I eventually had my own vessel, MV Lady Carol doing the same sort of work plus accepting bookings from Diving Clubs to hire the vessel at early plus late seasonal times.

During one February, (1977) I needed to have a ‘wad of cash’ to cover dry docking MV Lady Carol ready for the approaching season & after borrowing £30 from my dad & taking a slow train to Aberdeen, I went on a walk around Dyce, to be hired by Hydrospace Int.

Being hired by a American Corp at ‘Aberdeen’s offshore Base brought me that chance to fly to work using gas Mixes at Dubai, ( I was rigged out in donkey jacket, wellies, fisherman polo necked jumper & a long fisherman’s type beard! now more commonly adorning Islamic fundamentalists, getting my jabs at the Medical Centre whilst changing planes at Heathrow.

Hydrospace was an interesting Company having been assembled by Commander Jack Tomsky & Jay Myers who had been main controllers of NASA cum USN associated Sealab trials for human survival existence underwater.

Being just 'a Taff' I did not even know what or where Dubai was & became launched straight into what to ‘Scooby doos’ now call Tech Diving, then, without pony bottles or kit other than standard USD twinsets & Scuba Diving equipments at a time long prior to the rules of Associated Offshore Diving Co’s. stipulating using mixed gas for depths beyond 165 ft, plus Bells etc.

Our expected, daily & normal TriMix ops. were around the 240ft TABLES DEPTHS & for a couple of years this was virtually the daily requirement whilst the Kirby Morgan Band Mask plus hard helmets from Dulam USD Savoie became encountered by me.

Little bits of info such as Heliox cooling the body from inside to outside gradually dawned upon me to take care of myself a little.

To hit around 200 ft. plus to attach to a job normally wd befall a air dive, since within the 12 hrs or so that guy cd go again as a 'repet' dive to unshackle downlined gear from the worksite.

Mixed gas Divers were limited to one dip per day & did not 'do repets'. .. the snag wd be that at the end of day the Air diver wd get tired & very often become susceptible to finding himself narcose, good talking from surface cd. keep him stable & when going down when tired, a diver always following the downline & not letting his gaze wander away cd keep him stable. Narcotic confusion was checked for fm surface to diver throughout & if/when suspected the dip wd be aborted, or the diver raised a few feet & returned to he descent to job source ONLY if dive time allowed.

Deeper or longer bottom times had us using Heliox gas mixes with some regular deep stops schedules plus Oxygen only Stops after 40ft prior to a race to surface chamber stops with pure O2 & scheduled mix stops, sheer cussedness wd allow me to doze off in the long chamber O2 stops periods, very naughty since good deep breathing is a very real 'bllod flush' requirement.

Until 1981 this was a regular type diving pattern, my photographic & reporting pattern had omehow been noted to be what they liked, required & I became quickly by their own requirement formally approved by Lloyds R S, NKK, ABS, DNV, BV, many more Classification Socs. along with my ‘vetting’ for USN related work best not referred to.

This led to becoming more often used on Technical Ship related work which thanks to horrifying war between Iran & Iraq, supported by far too many arms & missiles supply sources work volume zoomed to 4 Million DWT PER MONTH AVERAGE!!.

I became appointed to manage an a Division of Hydrospace after Houston Tex. Oceaneering int. bought it & War Damage in the Iran v Iraq war escalated & our attendance relating to Marine Survey In Lieu of Drydocking Surveys.
Trips worldwide relating to Maritime damage or matters followed & I specialised plus became provided with a Govt. Gratis (IRAN Govt.) Visa & even had to visit Baltic locations at short notices, not really what a guy who only wanted to be a diver had aimed at.

Marine growth & wildlife became an essential reference when forensic information became analysed to relate to vessels speed plus sea routes & paint toxicity or detachment levels or removals methods, all life related to water temperature & changes, along with mines plus missiles of all sorts signs of after effects.

By this time I had been placed to handle an ex USN Seal team on a permanently Diving support equipped vessel & some more for around 7 yrs plus became often more deskbound other than when required to zip to Survey, photograph then edit reportage.

After leaving the increasingly nasty warzone(by my own & wife's choice, as hostilities in the region became heavier) I was able to pick & choose diving work at a great many UK locations, particularly when the task was Maritime related, all the work I wd have loved to do when younger, including picking Clams at the Hebridean Islands.

I retired professionally from Diving around 15 years ago so when a surprise trip to Sharm El Sheikh was arranged by my good lady, Janet! I found the attraction immense.

After going there & diving, plus even to decline the final 2 days of a 5Days diving by someone who genuinely likes diving does indicate a lot.

Tons of Diving Concerns vying to provide diving trips plus equipment?, ‘looked great!.

When we got to Bay View Hotel, a place we saw poor reviews of online we were initially concerned, absolutely great though with a pool ideal for dive training in which a lad was training people carefully.

No problem for my wife Janet & self after 10 yrs in Dubai base our Arabic was a delight to use with Hotel staff, all of whom were helpful to an extreme.

I took my ancient Commercial Diving Cert to www.EmporerDivers.com desk, ‘got booked in for some needed equipment & a refresher dip from Kaztan Sea, a delightful vessel on which Cpt. Omar & crew were a delightfully humorous team.
Peter a Emperor Divers Guide had all the P.R. necessary & a multi origin & multilingual dive gang all had a great day out, Egyptians involved are absolutely helpful & great to be with.

What a change on the following day, on a vessel named Shourak a number of Scots seemed intent on trying to impress folk by letting people know they were Diving Instructors back home! probably seeking 'cred', (I never actually let on that I felt did not need their advice!) Emperor Divers chap, Matt, a guide, had great intentions & wd help all whilst his other guide, a 'considerably' portly type was chain smoking continuously & avoiding client P.R. ‘social discussions or queries.

Non smokers naturally avoided him very widely & communicatively plus physically he seemed not exactly what wd pass a Commercial Divers Medical or could be depended upon for a rescue if required as well as no real client info catalyst for customers on the MV Shorouk to enjoy the atmosphere too.

Third day, at Ras Mohammed using Shorouk seemed likely to at last provide a habitat with array of wildlife, the young lady Guide made every effort to get the divers around decent reef views, Captain Nasser & his Crew were exceptionally capable recovering divers & by now were well into discussions too with client divers, a change in the divers aboard pattern had seen communication change to a great jovial trip.

Detrimental on day 2 & 3 had been a French lady guide if such she was?, travelling along centrally within the divers party ing team with her son, at all times she occupied a central place to the moving divers making expansive gestures to her son, however being distractive continuously to all, perhaps involved in essential training of her son, however it distracted most who had hoped for a leisurely dive from start to finish & did not help enjoyments of others.

One particular safety point to raise is that DIN to A clamp conversion inserts for Pillar valves were not really in full supply on Shourouk, this meant continuous every other dive interchanging of the DIN inserts, not a practice I’d feel sensible, in fact in the 2 days on Shorouk a total of 4 different ‘blowoffs’ of those DIN inserts took place, unless they were jobsworths, whover ran the dives on those days shd have reported & helped avoid that continual interchanging of DIN/A clamp adaptors.

If that had happened on a hired commercial diving vessel, even a ‘bale out cylinder’ an inquiry wd have followed, recording each bringing such a failure level it to notice is something perhaps guides could be better advised upon.

By comparisons around the ‘Aden corner, Oman & Eastward foreshores off Fujeirah & Khor Fakkan as far as Straits of Hormuz, plus inside Persian Gulf to Abu Musa Island, Crescent Mubarak Offshore Sharjah Oilfield, would provide wildlife levels of up to 100
An hour dip at Khor Fakkan shallows would let you see Big Manta rays, Selection of a wide range of other Rays, Large Turtles, Dozens of Different Morays, Lobsters, variety of Crabs Urchins, Molluscs, Puffer Fish, Trigger Fish galore, Starfish of many sorts, Sea Snakes Tuna, Dorada, Barracuda, Garfish, Sharks etc etc.

After 3 days of Dipping at Sharm El Sheikh I did not even unpack my underwater Camera equipment, & actually forewent those last 2 days of the 5 days diving without any doubts or qualms, (far more life in a duckpond).

That extended water stretch to Aqaba does not leach or flush well enough to rid itself of residuals & the Salinity level (& Thermoclines) whilst not measured is rumoured to be a high salinity.

Onshore construction, cement debris & continuous laundering plus relative toxic discharge to the sea does have a continuously increasing effect, visits by divers do have dust coverage affecting coral polyps, frequency of occupant divers does affect residency of areas by fish & life.

Easily noted by absence is the common Black sea Urchin which proliferates further east, sublittoral zones, along Indian Ocean shores, a plentiful grazing animal which does not seem to have supporting fodder on which to thrive at Sharm el Sheik, a break in the food chain, one of several perhaps.

Coral itself seems not surviving, let us have studies of this?, molluscs are not there, minimal enough for only a few young rays to feed, Trigger fish? Rarities & yet where Coral is healthily present these happily chew bits off.

Oviparus Rays & Sharks have none of their “Mermaid’s Purses” present or visible at Ras Mohammad, not natural in such a zone.
On the wreckages in the shallows Green Enteromorphous Grass is common even on antifouling paint coated sunlit vertical ship sides & surface zones were absent, the brown Ectocarpus Grass is also not present on any, with Balanus Balanoides common Acorn Barnacle so present on Wreckage in adjacent regions is another simply not there.

Goose Barnacles? None seen, Tubeworms, Tubuluaria Hydroids, minimal, Polyzoa? Bryzoa, again not present where such a level sunlight and sea flow should maintain.

Pelagic surface to seabed planktonic life seemed hardly present, this may be disturbed by high level of boat activity after it's journey to surface plus no Jellyfish presence at all noted.

When a disaster strikes an area, first rush to the source is carnivorous starfish, I did not see one, or the long standing vegetarian starfish which wd eat fm Coral or Grasses etc, this suggests damage to Sharm El Sheikh wildlife has strted long ago & has gone too far to be rebuilt.
Crabs!, not too many there?, I saw one in 3 days, a small bunch of Barraccuda in Tirana ‘Canyon’ area, a couple of Lion Fish (some say Scorpion) smaller than usual with their red colour scheme far paler on each than is usual.

Hurrah! saw a Turtle at Ras Muhammad, a small one, but at least a start, since 1986 though a little more earnest research rquired.

Nudibranchs! hardly any whereas normally they exist where food supply does, Ascidians?, anemones similarly? very scarce. 'Hardly any.
Seeing divers communicating with each other using comic little actions defining what they had just seen seemed rather to be making something out of very little, subsequently noting recordings of what had been seen on a notice board made me think of why people can be so anxious to confirm anything at all seen.

Even at Umm Sheif & Zakum shallow oilfields off Abu Dhabi, marine growth per dive standard is far far higher than the comparatively barren Sharm El Sheikh.