Welcome All, 

​Though I’ve been away, the diving has continued.

My thanks Cara and Nick for the following, also for Brian’s notes on the WhatsApp group. Video footage will be available soon. 

First Cara:

Divers: Cara, Allen, Brian, Hans, Nick, Polly
Dive site: Victoria Star and then Nasteran 

Thanks to Brian for the wake-up call (and fine), Allen and I were actually able to make the dive. Upon arriving at the club, we soon got ourselves down to Al Khan Port to embark upon the Vic Star. Hooked on the first attempt, we all had an enjoyable dive with little current and OK vis (we have had much worse conditions on this site in the past). Within the cargo hold the current was nil and there was the best viz that I’ve ever seen in there, which meant we were able to explore around the concrete blocks more than we had done in the past. 
Fish life was the norm, with Black Spotted Snappers, Arabian spine cheeks and Goat fish. Plus the occasional curious, yet scared, Yellow Bar Angel fish. For the newest member of the BSAC 406 club, Hans, he did very well as Brian managed to enjoy a 50 minute dive with him. Kudos to him for good air consumption and braving the waters in only skins whilst the rest of us were donning 3 or 5 mm neoprene. However he did spend a few minutes looking for a dive computer which was already on his wrist. As a newcomer, we decided not to fine him for this.

The second dive on the Nasteran was a more enjoyable one, as the viz was a little better and there were some nice swim throughs to be done. Allen secured the anchor in hole in the wreck, exactly where I was I pointing at a lovely big crab… I presume the crab moved. Again there was the same fish life, but our keenest interest was in seeing the infamous mummy Octopus and her eggs which Brian had discovered on last weeks’ dives. As Allen and I excitedly and expectantly lifted the rock, to our disappointment, there was no octopus or eggs. I can only hope that the eggs hatched rather than becoming fish food for some of the goat fish which I’ve seen lifting rocks and looking for morsels of food before.
Allen and I continued our dive, and as we went to turn around the stern of the wreck, came face to face with a beautiful Stingray. Usually when this happens, you get spotted and they scarper – on this occasion it seemed completely unaware or unbothered of our presence, so we got to have a good look at it, but did not get too close as thoughts of Steve Irvine were close to mind. The rest of the dive was relaxing and uneventful until the end when the anchor was no longer secured in the hole (I think the crab moved it)  We had heard some chain clanging and boat engines and had wondered what was happening on the surface. 
Not to worry, a free ascent on a DSMB is always a nice skill to practice. Upon boarding the boat, Brian spotted a pod of Dolphins hunting. So we sat and ate lunch whist watching the Dolphins. Unfortunately for Nick and Polly, they had gone by the time they had surfaced, but they did see the Ray on the wreck. Newbie Hans got another open water wreck experience first, as he and Brian sent up the anchor on SMBs, but seemed to take a while to ascend after that. 

Eid Al Adha
The proposed Eid trip to Mafia is not now going to happen. Perhaps we got over-ambitious but there were too many who couldn’t make or were doing other things. A thought for next year:
With the newly generous public holidays, we could do it at Eid Al Fitr rather than Eid Al Adha, which would bring it into May rather than August. Get in touch if you would like to join the club on our dive excursions. 
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DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
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The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar. 
See you there!

Dear All,

Thank you to Cara and Nick for the following dive log. 

Divers: Cara, Allen, Rayan, Nick, Polly, Denis
Dive site: MV Dara 

This day’s diving marked a first – Allen’s first as a licensed boat driver. It was also the first time we had ever been diving with BSAC 406 without Ian, Brian or Mike to guide the newbies. As Nick put it, it was the first adventures of BSAC 406 next generation. Upon arriving at the club, we worked together to make sure we did everything was done correctly, as per the written instructions, and away we went to Hamriya Port with the MV Dara in mind.
 
After successfully getting past the coastguard checks, we went to turn on the boat’s GPS and sonar device, but to no avail. Not to be deterred we had the idea to look up the GPS coordinates for the Dara and enter the coordinates into Google Maps and use our mobile phone to find the location of the wreck. After 20 minutes of boat driving getting the blue dot (us) closer to the red pin (Dara), we arrived at our dive site. We hoped. The next problem to overcome was hooking the wreck. Without sonar we were unable to use the fish finder to locate it, but the viz was so good, we decided to do a surface circular search, trying to keep the blue dot on the red pin, with me hanging over the bow shouting back as to when I saw wreck and fish.  The next problem was knowing whether we had actually hooked the wreck, as without a speedometer, we had no real idea of our movement except for said blue dot/red dot, coupled with the fact there was no real current to speak of. 
Thankfully there is a buoy near the Dara, so with some two point trig, we determined we were not moving and sent the first two divers in. For those of little faith on the boat, there was some reticence to go in the water only to find sand, but Polly and Nick went down first with the aim of doing a circular search and securing the anchor if the wreck was there. After 50 minutes Polly and Nick surfaced and we were informed we were hooked on the rope of a fishing pod, which was very secure (thanks to circular searching) and there was a line going off to the wreck. 

So Allen and I kitted up. The viz was great, so we decided to stay at the Dara for the second dive (HAHAHA) The viz was excellent, as was the fish life. As well as the usual fish, there was a Ray (spotted only by Nick and Polly) and lots of Reef fish usually associated with an East coast dive including Yellow Spotted Box fish, Parrotfish, Thick Lipped Wrasse, Crescent Tail Wrasse, Angel fish, Clown fish and I even spotted one of my favourites, a Porcupine fish. We got to do some lovely swim throughs of the cathedral and freed many fish from certain death in ghost fish pods. Retrieving the anchor was a bit of a mission, but we managed it and were soon heading back to port on a south east bearing of 155O, we had a well-deserved beverage beside the pool. 
A successful mission for the intrepid “next generation” of BSAC 406 and with thanks to Ian, remembered to put the bungs in the boat – apparently, they are important.
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Nick had a slightly different take on the Dara dive:
Fridays’ dive was a triumph for hope over probability. With all of the old guard being busy, BSAC 406, the new generation, decided to put out a boat.

Captain Allen successfully towed the boat out of the yard without demolishing any walls and we headed off to Ajman. Our second victory of the day came courtesy of Rayan with some arabic interpretation. 

This victory however was short-lived, as we then noticed that we didn’t have a functioning GPS. Faced with the possibility of turning back, we had a quick huddle, and decided to “try and blag it” – The Dara – biggest ship and greatest chance of hooking it blind- and shallowest, so best chance of spotting it from the top- was our choice. We put the coordinates into Cara’s phone. Instead of sonar, we had me with an anchor in one hand and me head over the bow, spotting fish (we saw a Leopard Ray).
Once over fish, in range of the GPS and the marker buoy, we put down the anchor and circled around. Once established that we had hooked something so myself and Polly went down first. I was amazed by the viz 15m+. In a combination of looking at the lines of the fishing pods and “Enimimainimo”, we reeled off and found the wreck about 20m off from the pod.
We secured the reel on a block. The next job was to identify the block/anchor point in relation to the ship. We swam into the current. The current was running bow to stern.  After a complete circumnavigation, it turned out that the block was 15m from the stern.

Swimming around the Dara, we spotted lots of fish we normally associate with the East coast, Parrot fish, Box fish, Angel fish and a Leopard Ray hanging around the stern.
Given the circumstances, we decided to stay on the Dara for a second dive. The circumstances, like the viz., were awesome. Each diver had been given the mandate of “you’re diving, today, plus one”, and each diver rose to the day.

It goes to show that a dive club, like a band, is so much greater than the sum of its parts, when we work together.

Once all divers were safely on tera firma, myself and Allen felt a distinct, ‘Beef o’fu++ing clock” moment………..
That justifiable moment continued into the night with great company.
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Eid Al Adha
The proposed Eid trip to Mafia is not now going to happen. Perhaps we got over-ambitious but there were too many who couldn’t make or were doing other things. A thought for next year:
With the newly generous public holidays, we could do it at Eid Al Fitr rather than Eid Al Adha, which would bring it into May rather than August. What do people think?
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DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
----------------------------------
The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar. 
See you there!

Hi all
We had an almost full boat at the weekend which was very gratifying. The main reason for this was the return to the fold of those that for some strange reason, prefer to go hiking or fishing during the winter months. Anyway, the initial target was the Sea King 5 but it quickly became obvious that the sea state wasn’t going to allow this, so we diverted to the much closer Nasteran. This proved very interesting in a number of ways, so much so that we stayed for two dives on the site rather than moving on elsewhere for the second dive.

First a word about the wreck: the Nasteran is an upside-down landing craft in about 22m of water, almost directly offshore from Ajman. Once little more than a metal box and hence not much dived, it became much more interesting when the sides started to corrode and break up, allowing us access inside the wreck. It was here that Uwe discovered the spare propeller that now adorns the outside of the Dive Club office. There are two levels for exploration: the cargo deck which being upside-down represents the space between the deck and the seabed and the lower (upper) deck which was the living accommodation.

On exploring the wreck, we found significant changes due to last winter’s storms. The cargo deck has partially collapsed towards the seabed, effectively cutting this section in two although there seemed to be a route between them on the starboard side. Many of the holes allowing access into both upper and lower sections have become enlarged although the entrance near the bridge seems to be a lot tighter now. No doubt we’ll do a further visit or two to assess the wreck’s condition more thoroughly.

The viz was excellent and we saw the usual angelfish, snappers and shoals of jacks and barracuda. There were also a couple of large sweetlips. The highlight was just off the wreck where Brian turned over a rock to find a small octopus guarding a collection of eggs – young octopuses waiting to be born. I don’t ever remember seeing an octopus on the west coast before and in fact they’re not common on the east coast either. A memorable experience.

The sea state was pretty poor by this time and it was a slow journey back, but well driven by Cara and back at the club we were joined by Richard and Sharon, Richard having the weekend off from Saudi. A few refreshments followed. An excellent day.

From Angela:
Here are a few photos from the weekend.
If you zoom in on the octopus detail photo you can see the spotted body of the baby octopuses. Brian's eyesight was better than mine -he could see that underwater.
The flatworm has a nice reptilian pattern.
The anemone hermit crab has a symbiotic relationship with the anemone - the crab benefits from camouflage and protection and the anemone benefits from a ride and scraps of food. The symbiotic relationship with the plastic bag is yet to be determined.
 
Eid Al Adha
Response to this year’s Eid trip has so far been disappointing. At some point we will need to decide whether to proceed and I would greatly appreciate it if those who normally participate could indicate their intentions this year. See below logs for details about the trip. 
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DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
----------------------------------
The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
See you there!
 

Musandam Dhow Trip 05/19
​
''Only in the UAE." I thought as I passed a 110km/h speed limit sign, a cop car, and a white saloon at 125km/h and the saloon started following me and flashing its lights and waving arms out of the window. However, this turned out not to be an irate motorist who had forgotten about the buffer limit on the E611, but Denis, who in true Irish style, had been half-way to his destination when he realized that he didn't know where he was going to and his GPS was on the blink. After a brief roadside conference, we decided that Denis would follow me, following my (unblinking) GPS. 

Once arrived safely at Musandam border we went over, marveled at the ratio of cars to Musandam residents (about 4:1) and tried to park up, but were intercepted by Omani police. They directed us to the divers parking area and requested to see NOC insurance papers. Other drivers had their papers as they had checked out the situation and requested the needed documents from their hire companies/insurers. With some further to do......... I was back on the dive.

On the dhow it turned out that 10 divers had canceled last minute so we were only 8. We had plenty of space to spread out. Michelle gave me an instructor exam as a DM knowledge review. I went below deck and succeeded in both passing the exam and making myself mildly sea-sick. Then it was dive time.

The first dive was Lima Rock. I dived with Denis and Polly. On the surface there was so much algae and jellyfish that it actually affected buoyancy. I swan down with my arms to get out of it. Once on the bottom the vis was really good - 10m or so. We saw the usual suspects of Wrasse, Parrot Fish, Trumpets, Morays and a small Turtle at the end. 

For the second dive we were at Al Wahida Rock. Same buddy team. Denis wanted to cut down his gas consumption and after chatting with Michelle, Polly and me. decided to try exhaling through his nose and swimming in the tec position. 

Again the vis was dismal on the top but decent on the bottom. The overhang of the rock meant that it looked a bit dark and claustrophobic, so us 406ers were well at home. We saw the same fish as above and a Turtle again at the end of the dive as if to say "That's all folk!" Denis came up with 20bar more compared to me on the last dive so job done all round.

Denis then made his way back by speedboat relay as he was heading back to the Emirates. Some of us pushed on for the night-dive.This was a mistake! We'd chosen a shallow dive around Lima rock for the divers to make them comfortable about the depth at night. Unfortunately, the vis was dismal. Myself and Rotu lost the rock on the way down (vis zero), spent 20 minutes re-orientating ourselves before we decided to call it. Allan, Ying and Claudia called it 10 minutes later.
​
The next morning we started with Octopus Rock. A great dive, though you have to be careful with the current. Michelle saw a shark, Me and Polly saw a seahorse, so Polly was happy. There were also nudis and general fish.

We finished off with another dive on another rock. Again, the usual suspects. The food on this boat is exceptional. The guys put it together on a couple of hotplates even when they're fasting themselves! 
So top diving weekend and highly recommended!
 
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DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
----------------------------------
The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
See you there!
 

Welcome All, 

First of all, congratulations are due to Allen who as of last Wednesday, joins me on the main club committee. The Dive Club currently constitutes 33% of the Club Committee and 50% of the Trustees so our credit round here ought to be good. On behalf of all Club Members, thank you for the work that both Ian and Allen do for the club.

Now for the dive stuff, we had two parties out at the weekend. Michelle organized a trip up the Musandam, about which I have no reports, but I assume they had a good time. Meanwhile the rest of us took a boat out to sea on this coast, taking advantage of what was promised and indeed turned out to be almost flat seas.

The sea was so calm that Cara wound the boat up to some colossal speed causing her cap to go flying and a short trip back to pick it up. We proceeded more sedately from that point, though still making good time, and on the way saw some sea snakes and a breaching eagle ray.

First target was Mike’s Tug on the grounds that we hadn’t been there for a while. Although small, there is often some good sea life on the wreck, and this time we saw what looked like a Hermit crab conference, some big Yellow Tuna and some Dusky Sweetlips. There were the usual Snappers, Angelfish and Bannerfish and some Barracuda on the anchor line on the way up.

For the second dive, the Jumbo got the vote and it’s only a couple of km away. Had we but known it, DSDC had been there earlier but they’d gone by the time we arrived. Rayan spotted a shark on his dive although there’s no photographic evidence. We do have pictures of some rays and a sea bream was also spotted. Regrettably, most of this had vanished by the time Connie and I got down the line but we had a good dive nevertheless. The viz was good, the current was negligible and the water has started to warm up. We had to allow plenty of time to disentangle the line that Allen laid to the wreck (the anchor having fallen on sand). Such was the complexity, the line seemed to have entered a space-time continuum between the anchor and the wreck. We got it sorted out in the end. Thank you to Cara for the pictures. 

Eid Al Adha
Response to this year’s Eid trip has so far been disappointing. At some point we will need to decide whether to proceed and I would greatly appreciate it if those who normally participate could indicate their intentions this year.
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DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home ​

The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
See you there!
 

Welcome One and All, 

​I’m happy to report that we managed to go diving at the weekend as at last, both weather and circumstance conspired in our favour. We headed out to the Neptune on the basis that if we could get there, the visibility would be better further offshore.

The sea was a bit lumpy causing a journey time of an hour or so, but we anchored the wreck at the first time of asking and we were pleased to see that the current was virtually nil.

The viz was also very good, certainly compared to the horror stories from last weekend. The wreck was visible from about 4m depth downwards which translates into about 14m. This is pretty good for round here. There were some barracuda circling the line and plenty of snappers, angelfish and others on the way round. The wreck continues to break up giving plenty of scope for exploration although Denis and I didn’t do too much inside except for an easy swim through half way along.

The sea state was coming down so we decided to stay in the area and do a second dive on the Jumbo. The viz wasn’t as good this time but still more than adequate and along with the usual marine suspects, there was a large Leopard Ray which both Allen and I spotted as we were leading our dives but it didn’t hang around long enough to let the others take a look.

All in all, a good day. The sea is becoming warmer (around 24°C) although a wet suit is still a requirement and will be for a few weeks yet.

After that it was back to the club for a couple of beverages.

Pointless exercise of the day award goes to Polly who on borrowing a weight belt, took two 1kg weights off it and put two different 1kg weights back on. Ask her, not me.

Smarty pants comment of the day goes to Allen who when asked the anchor location replied: “on the end of the anchor line”. Ask a silly question I suppose…
 
DAN insurance website: https://www.daneurope.org/home
----------------------------------
The Dive Club meets every Tuesday night in the Dive Bar.
See you there!

Zanzibar Dive Trip information is below. Please go to early posts for information.  

The Plan is to dive Mafia island which is just south of Zanzibar.

Eid Al Adha this year is predicted as follows:
Saturday 10th August – Arafat Day
Sunday 11th August – Eid
Monday 12th August – Eid
Tuesday 13th August - Eid

Therefore logically, we are looking at flying out on Friday 9th August, 3 core days of diving on 10th, 11th and 12th with a return on Tuesday 13th August for those who want to keep the trip within the Eid holiday. Of course, the option exists to extend the trip either forwards or backwards. Taking Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th as leave would give the full week which is worth considering for those who can spare the time (and money). Those coming from outside the UAE will have their own calculations to make. Please see a member of the team if you are interested in joining us.