This is quite a long account for reasons that will become apparent as you read it. Friday was not an experience that any of us will forget in a hurry and any lessons that can be learnt should be. Debutant Dive Marshall Peter begins:

With a full boat booked out for Friday, Mike was first to call off: going biking, Geoff was uncertain anyway and was to confirm, the Moores sms’d apologies for fatigue, and a call from Hennie suffering the runs. My marshalling was clearly a popular move! That then left Cathy, Ian, Derek and self to check out a new site indicated in a Notice to Mariners, followed by the Jumbo. Cathy had come along despite her bad back to enjoy a little winter sun and enjoy a dive after a spell off.                                                                             
We set off with blue skies, calm sea, with MetDxb predicting offshore 2-4ft waves with max.12 knot winds and no change for the next few days. Two large cruise ships crossed our bows in and out of Dubai across an almost mirror flat blue sea. Cathy and Ian shared the drive out, and in 40 minutes we were scanning the bottom for the new supposed wreck - “NEW18” on the GPS. Nothing, not a barnacle showed up. After several passes from different directions, we decided to head for Neptune and Jumbo in that order, Neptune being nearer and marginally deeper. Neptune proved most elusive, not showing at the GPS coordinates. We eventually located her 50m away, recorded the correct location, and securely snagged her with the anchor first time.                                               
Cathy and Ian’s dive on Neptune saw an eagle ray, and an electric torpedo ray, as well as friendly batfish, but with the water at 22ºC kept it short. Derek and I went over the side with our cameras, and were soon with the batfish on the inverted oilfields supply vessel. We made one penetration but I discovered my torch was dead, so generally swam around and over the hull. At the stern Derek was low, I was above, my head closely encircled by a shoal of barracuda swimming in opposite directions. After a couple of minutes with video I thought it wise to descend to join Derek, blissfully oblivious of this glorious sight! More batfish and the odd barracuda, before releasing the anchor, to ascend after 40 minutes.                                                                                                              
                                                       
We moved the 2km or so across to Jumbo, and it took a couple of attempts before we snagged it, but the second was good. The sun however had gone, and the overcast sky, reminded us of similar conditions the previous week. Cathy and Ian went over the side at 12.50. Five minutes later all hell broke loose. In just moments, gale force winds were upon us in violent gusts, as waves increased to what I judged to be 8-10ft, with horizontal sleet forcing us to shelter low behind the bridge, keeping an eye on distance and speed. Derek pulled out the life jackets for us to wear. The boat was violently rotated all around the wreck, stabilised only by the anchor, one reason I didn’t release it on the buoy – my mistake. After a few minutes the anchor was off the wreck and we were drifting rapidly with the NW squall, 80m, 100m, 200m, 300m from the Jumbo, knowing Ian and Cathy would be unaware of this, and enjoying their dive. I kept looking at my watch, judging that they would not stay down more than 30 minutes again.               
I shouted to Derek to haul the anchor, which he could only do on hands and knees, keeping his face down out of the sleet and spray, trying to keep his balance as the boat rolled and pitched. I had to remove the deck bungs, as the boat was quickly filling with water, and then started the engines, both catching first time, to be able to turn the boat both into the waves, and back towards the Jumbo. The anchor took some minutes, and when it came up, had Ian’s yellow line attached. I turned the boat so as not to catch this in the props, while Derek reeled it in – but there was no tension, and soon we had all his line on board. By now we were some 700-800m from the wreck. Derek managed to haul in the ladder, which was jammed into the side of the boat. The violence of the waves and the wind was spectacular, but the boat performed superbly. We both had the feeling we were in “The Perfect Storm”! It is impossible to describe one’s feelings during all this, knowing we had two divers down, and wondering how long we would take to find them – how long would the storm last? How far might they drift in these conditions? How long would our fuel last for a search? How close was the nearest help (we had seen a coastguard cutter earlier)? But there was far too much to deal with to allow negative thoughts. I gave up wearing my glasses, which in these conditions made vision impossible, and watching both waves and the arrow on the GPS, with Derek reading and shouting the distances out to me as we closed back in on the Jumbo, we scanned the waves all around us, especially when we were pushed up high.                                                 
I didn’t look at my watch when I glimpsed a tiny flash of yellow – a fin or SMB right in front of us, but lost as we descended a into a trough. Up on a crest again, then, SMB again briefly visible, while Derek moved to the bow to guide me onto them. The same gale that had blown us off the wreck was forcing them towards us! We were straight onto them, as first Cathy, then Ian caught onto the safety line. We dropped the ladder, which refused to lie anything but horizontal in these conditions. Cathy was dragged / pushed into the boat, Ian’s kit was heavy with weights and he was unable to climb the trailing ladder without also removing his BCD. One fin defiantly resisted removal, but then he too was on board. Despite the still awful sea condition, our mutual relief was palpable, with smiles and hugs all round.
While Derek stowed the ladder, Ian and Cathy put on life-vests as we pushed all our gear into the front, without any attempt at packing or clearing. Ian took over control of the boat and headed us back towards land. Let Ian now tell their story:

The anchor had hooked a piece of reef and we used my reel to locate the wreck which turned out to be about 10m away. We swam down to the prop and then back along towards the bow, checking the reel hadn’t moved as we passed it. The viz wasn’t great and at this time it became eerily dark down there – looking back, this was the first indication of what was going on above us. We’d been down 20 minutes when we passed the spot where the reel should have been and it was missing. I decided to abort at this point and we headed up. I didn’t do a safety stop, reasoning that after only 20 minutes on nitrox there was little risk – better to get visible on the surface.

On the surface we found driving rain, a heaving wall of water in front of us and no boat. There was no indication of direction and we couldn’t have moved in any case so we made sure our BCD’s were fully inflated, ditto the SMB and we had a firm grip of each other. We were probably about 15 minutes like this before we saw the boat moving towards us – a most welcome sight to say the least. Getting into the boat in these conditions wasn’t the easiest but we made it with a bit of assistance. Once inside the priority was to get the boat under control and headed in the right direction. The danger at this point was allowing the boat to turn sideways to a big wave. This achieved we set off for home. Fortunately we were running with the waves and for the first part of the journey made reasonable time, albeit slightly in the wrong direction. It was hard work having to constantly work the steering wheel and the throttles but progress was steady if uncomfortable.

Back to Peter:
Our return saw the Burj Khalifa silhouetted on the Dubai skyline (hugely reassuring to see land again), with dramatic rays of sunlight through the cloud starboard while a black sky to port as the storm continued provided an awesome contrast, with the waves unabated, but with the nor’westerly taking us towards Dubai, unable to hold a comfortable direct course to Al Khan. It was a phenomenal experience to see and feel the power of nature. On two occasions large vessels crossed in front of us, sod’s law, forcing us to slow against the sea driving from behind. Ian piloted the boat magnificently in these aggressive conditions.
We hoped that close to Palm Deira there would be some let-up in conditions, but this was not to be. Ian snuck in behind the outer ring on its southern Dubai side, only to find we were driving at an angle against strong waves. This stretch of the ride was seriously unpleasant, the boat crashing regularly into troughs, and tipping violently, though at no stage did we feel it would go over. We saw a potential gap, a shortcut between the islands, being taken by a small freighter. A few minutes later we observed it listing at 45 degrees port, grounded close to shore – so no, there wasn’t a gap there for us!
The waves didn’t let up any bit until we reached the mouth of Al Khan lagoon around 3pm. Sharjah Police were on board the Coastguard vessel, Al Ghagha, with the coastguard waiting for us, full of humour, anxious to know that we were all fine, as they handed us back our IDs. They were obviously counting the boats back in. We anchored in the calm of the lagoon, changed from our wetsuits into what would have been nice if they had been dry clothes, and packed our gear before landing, and loading onto the trailer. Dry land was very, very good – even though the sea facing sides of our vehicles had a healthy coating of sand from the shamal that had also hit the coast, with wind speeds up to 111km/hr.

Lessons to be learnt:          

1. Release anchor on buoy soonest  (Note - we keep a buoy tied to the end of the anchor line)
   
2. SMBs compulsory
   
3.  Communications equipment required
   
4. Flare to advise boats close by of a problem?
   
5. Lifejackets available for all to be compulsory
   
6. Teamwork works!  
   

Ian again:
The only thing I would add to that is to keep a close eye on the weather, whatever the forecast has told you. There were certainly darkish clouds on the horizon on what had been a sunny day up to that point and with hindsight, we might have scrapped the second dive and headed for home sooner. That said, I don’t think many people would have foreseen what occurred (and how quickly).

So how close a call was it? Hard to say really although it’s not something I would want to repeat in any circumstances. The important thing was that nobody panicked and everybody did the right things. In particular, Peter and Derek deserve huge credit for getting control of the boat when it drifted off-station and getting back into position to spot us in the water. I know from personal experience the relief they must have felt we they saw us.

After all that drama, anything else might seem anti-climatic but there are a couple of other things.
Firstly, many thanks to those who continue to send info regarding the artifacts in the Dive Bar. It’s all very useful and is finding its way into the spreadsheet. An updated version will go out before long.
Secondly, thanks to Simon and Jutta, that this new web-site is now published. It’s still a work in progress but will develop over time. The old google group is still there but can no longer be updated. 

The plan for last Friday was to visit the last set of co-ordinates from the Notice to Mariners where there could be some interesting wreckage. The weather was marginal but we set off anyway. It soon became clear that 35km was too far in the conditions so we went to Karen’s Dhow instead. This is more or less the same direction but closer. 
PJ takes up the story from this point:

“Ten minutes out of Al Khan, we found a dolphin swimming along our port side, then beyond a larger pod, then another sizeable pod astern – not sure how many, but more than a dozen, maybe fifteen – just lovely to behold. Our target dive was a new site beyond Jumbo and Neptune, but on a very cool and very grey winter’s day, with wave height increasing as we progressed, and our speed halved as a result, it was agreed to change direction for one dive at Karen’s Dhow. Mike and visiting diver Hennie, Simon & Sarah in their matching kit, took the first wave. A large grouper in the engine hold, a large big-eye trevally featured, but a reef sea-snake swam close past Hennie’s ear much to his surprise, and was particularly inquisitive, as glassware from Karen’s was put to good use as a shield! It was Hennie’s first sea-snake so he was happy. With a water temperature of 23° the first dive was all complete in 30 minutes, so Ian and myself were soon descending the line.

Vis with no direct sunlight was adequate but not great. The usual suspects were present, shoals of yellow Dory snappers and monocle bream, small Arabian bannerfish, and a few yellow bar angelfish. We found the large hamour, the big-eye, and a handsome golden trevally, but also the largest (blue-barred) parrotfish that I have seen, just too shy to have a picture taken! Large yellow-tail barracuda circled above the wreck before body temperature determined that it was time to ascend!

On the surface our change into dry clothes was not surprisingly speedy. I told Hennie to look out for the snake surfacing, as they come up regularly to breathe – and a moment later it was on the surface in front of us! Soon after we were powering back to Al Khan lagoon, Simon noticed a flock of gulls on the surface behind us, with a pair of sharks apparently in feeding frenzy. Mike was too cold to go back, but for a one dive morning, action-packed, which didn’t end there, as we discovered a wheel hub on the trailer had collapsed, and subsequently suffered a puncture striking a kerb while manoeuvring past parked mosque traffic. Mike’s engineering skills were once again put to the test. Joined at Uwe’s table by Cathy, decompression fluid was then partaken in the rain, a suitable substitute for our missed second dive!”

Weather and trailer permitting, we’ll have another attempt next week.
Many thanks to those of you who responded to my request for information about the dive club artifacts. Lots of good stuff came pouring in and this is all being added to the spreadsheet. An updated version will go out shortly – in the meantime keep it coming!

This was a good start to 2011. We had both boats out – a total of 10 divers. It might have been 11 had PJ not pulled out with a touch of the “Brian’s” (of which more later). One reason for the enthusiasm was that Mike had obtained some co-ordinates from a recent Notice to Mariners that apparently had large obstructions under water. Apparently there was only 6m of water above them which would suggest some big wrecks if it turned out to be true.

At the first location we found nothing – this was not altogether surprising as we discovered later the wrong co-ordinates had been entered into the GPS. However a return visit a couple of hours later, this time to the right place also revealed nothing more exciting than smooth flat seabed.

At the second place there was definitely something to look at. This was a lot smaller than we’d been told to expect being 18m down but it was still solid and rectangular. It turned out to be a hopper barge maybe 50m long with a double storey wheel-house at the stern. Everything interesting had been stripped off which leads me to think it was probably sunk deliberately for the fishermen. There was a big cow-tailed ray at the bow and a family of batfish swimming round the wheel-house. Not spectacular but it will make a nice second dive after the Dara which is about 6km away. The wreck was christened “Cathy’s Barge” or CATHYB for short in the GPS.
 
The last new site we visited turned out to be a couple of steel workboats, some steel reinforcement and various assorted rubbish obviously thrown down as a fish nursery. Mike and Derek reported a 2m hammour but otherwise it was nothing to write home about. We didn’t name the site in the end as “Sarah’s Heap of Crap” didn’t seem quite right (well not to Sarah anyway).

While all this was going on, a new verb was being added to the English language: “to brian”. I don’t want to go into too much detail here – suffice it to say that a swift jump into the water was required to avoid unspeakable unpleasantness. This is a story that will just run and run. A bit embarrassing perhaps but as Brian himself said later: “Thus are legends made”.

Gourmet of the week goes to Derek. Back at the club and half way through his roast pork he commented that the apple sauce was a bit runny. This might have been fair comment except that it was actually vinegrette for Alissar’s side-salad. Gordon Ramsay obviously has nothing to worry about!
Welcome to 2011!