Wreck X & East Coast

With the weather looking reasonable, dive marshall Mike Dalton decided to have a crack at Wreck X last Friday. Not a bad wreck this although we don’t go as often as we might because of the distance (45km) and depth (35m). We’ve had previous trips where we’ve decided half way out that we wouldn’t reach inside two hours and we’d be better off going somewhere close. This time though the weather co-operated – it was almost flat calm and we got there quickly. Getting there we found we weren’t alone – there was a boat called Sanaf already on station with some divers from another club not too far away – the name escapes me.

This made it easy to anchor – Mike A simply carried the anchor down the shot-line and parked it in the wreck. I’ve never yet managed to get a decent dive on Wreck X. This time true to form my mask starting leaking as soon as I was underwater and no amount of fiddling would make it stay dry. After about 10 minutes groping around I gave up and aborted. We did get to see some barracuda circling around the anchor line and those who did manage a respectable dive enjoyed themselves. The wreck itself is a fishing trawler, the like of which are theoretically banned in the Gulf. How this one got where it is one can only speculate.

En route to the second dive we saw some more dolphins – it must be the right season. This time it was only a brief sighting but it was still good to see. I’m not sure what the plan was for the second dive but heading back into the Neptune / Jumbo area we spotted a group of fishing buoys on the surface and investigated, getting quite excited when a big lump showed up on the echo-sounder. So had we found a new wreck? Sadly no – further investigation revealed that we’d just arrived at Mike’s Tug but we decided that having anchored it we might as well dive it.

The wreck was one of those that turned up on the Palm Island survey. It’s not large but it has a very big prop – as you’d expect from a tug – and it’s covered in attractive soft corals. There was a big grouper swimming in one of the compartments but he couldn’t be tempted out. Excursions inside the wreck are possible but the first person inside tends to destroy the viz for anyone following. After this it was back to the club. Ramadan restrictions preclude the use of the dive table for the moment but in July the a/c in the sports bar has a lot to be said for it.

So after lashings of lemonade our intrepid three musketeers headed for
the wilds of Dibba and Freestyle Divers as there was no room in the inn
on the big boat, We were met by Trevor who confirmed we were the "early
9:30 dive". So off to Inchcape 1 we headed on a rather bumpy ride, no
real current flowing though and there were two other boats tied on at
the fixed buoy. After a tie on and a snapped line we finally got wet,
thanks to Trevor dropping us off at the buoy we had no swimming prior to
diving.Rob had not dived in a while but it was not long before he
switched back in to his old self with his head in the wreck and
resisting the temptation to liberate anything brass as it would not be
the done thing. Rob managed to do his Honeycomb Moray tail tickling
trick (see photo 1351) and still had all digits in place. We saw enough
Lion fish to fill a circus, enough yellow snappers to fill a Japanese
press conference but no sea horses or balling catfish. The viz was
reasonable say 10 metres, with a lovely glow even at 28metres and the
current was low.

For the next dive it was back to Freestyle, where we picked up(?)
another diver called Carmen, a Romanian lady who knew about Transylvania and would not have looked out of place in a Hammer House of Horror movie. Rob had to go off and do some Real estate stuff so it was just Derek and Geoff with Trevor and Carmen buddying up. Off we went again courtesy of Max and we were dropped off on the NE corner were we drifted Eastward. Plenty of large File fish, pipe fish, Lion fish and a number
of Moray's, broom tail wrasse and numerous Mose's Soles on the sand. The usual depths of 12metres meant the light was pretty good.

After the dive there was time to partake of some special decompression
fluid, one from us and one from Freestyle so that was a suitable end to
a good days diving. We look forward to Trevor (and Max) coming on the
Dara/ Ajman Glory with us one day.