Two groups ventured to the Red Sea again this year, one in July, and one in September, exploring the wrecks of North.
This was the first time on a Red Sea Trip that we did five dives on the famous Thistlegorm, and four dives (including a night dive) on the Rosalie Moller.
Click on the pictures link to view Mike Rountree's photos, and read on to hear
about Sue & Mikes exploits on the Giannis D!!! “Oil de Giannis D” The trip was going well, the boat
was superb, food too good and the company onboard a hoot!!! Mike and I had been looking forward
to diving The Giannis D again, last time we dived this wreck we had found a huge
air pocket in the engine room,
As soon as we were dropped off by the zodiac we dropped straight down to the seabed, and headed straight for the entrance to the engine room. The visibility was excellent, and we had a good look around, we ventured further into the engine room seeking out the air pocket.
When we found it, we both stuck our heads up into the stale air, the size of the pocket had reduced considerably since we were last there, and we could only just stick our heads up through the water. We had a good giggle, but did not fancy taking out our regs to sample the lovely stale air. After Mike had taken a few pictures we dropped back down into the water. It was then that I looked at my nice yellow torch. Yellow had turned to black!!!
What was going on?????
I then looked at Mike, now I know that Mike tans very easily but this was ridiculous, his lovely tan had turned to all out Black. I started laughing, and it took a while for the penny to drop as to what had happened. I then shined my torch up to look at the top of the water only to discover that it was covered oil!!!
Had Mike taken down on the dive his faithful old Swiss army knife, and intended to do some tinkering!!! We were both covered from our shoulders up in the ‘Oil de Giannis D’, at least we did not have to do anymore sunbathing!!!.
We made our way out of the darkness of the engine room, and cleaned off our masks so we could see ourselves in full glory. We both burst our laughing, I was pointing at Mike, and he was pointing at me. The oil was everywhere, in our hair, on the top half of our jackets, on our regs and all over our torches. As soon as we could see we carried on with the dive!
After
about fifty minutes we decided to surface, the zodiac was there waiting for us,
but the boatman looked at us in horror!!! We tried to be as careful as possible
in passing up our gear to go into the boat, and not anywhere else, but that did
not happen. Then the questions came, one in particular from Peter Collings:
“Where the f**k have you too been????” We explained where we ended up and that
we had decided to do an oil change while we were there!!!
Once back on board MY Excel we spent the next hour scrubbing down our kit, and then ourselves!!! I have to say I think it was one of the best dives that I have done on the Giannis D, definitely one that I shall not forget in a hurry.
But that goes for the whole trip as well, some of the best diving I have ever done in the Red Sea. It’s not very often that you get to do five dives on the Thistlegorm, and four on the Rosalie Moller.
And what can I say about the company!!!! Everyone got on like a house of fire, had a real hoot and not a fox in sight. (That’s for Claire and Rob!!).
Thanks to Mike for organising the trip and we all can’t wait until next September.
Sue Rountree
Red Sea 2004 - North, Maldives,
The Scilly Isles - 2003, Red Sea 2003 - North, Red Sea 2003 - South
Scapa Flow 2002,
Red Sea 2002,
Weymouth 2002,
Australia,
Red Sea 2001,
Red Sea 2000,
Brixham,
Weymouth,
Key Largo,
Red Sea 1999,
Diving Down Under.
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