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Welcome to my website, dedicated to my love of diving and amateur underwater photography. I have been capturing images for several years now and have compiled them in one easy to find location. With my underwater photos and videos I try to showcase the beauty of the ocean and the incredible creatures that inhabit it. 

About me

 As an experienced diver with over 30 years of experience, I have explored the warm waters of places such as Mexico, The Bahamas, Malta, Sudan, Egypt, Indonesia , South Africa and Mozambique, but my main diving is most of the year round in the UK and the waters around Scotland, the West and the East Coast .

I have a particular interest in wrecks and large pelagic species and I am an aspiring amateur underwater photographer. I shoot mostly wide angle and am self taught mainly from YouTube tutorials, trying to create better images on every dive!

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Arriving on the Monday we were briefed on the week ahead by the dive guides, before sitting down to an evening meal and a chance to meet the other divers on board. Our itinerary was to change slightly on the trip due to forecasted high winds on the coming Friday , forcing us to head north earlier than planned to stay ahead of the wind.

 

In summary we dived in order , Little Brother, Big Brother, Daedalus ,Elphinstone. Not spending as long as planned at these sites before heading north due to the weather. Regardless of this there was some very bumpy travel time both during the day and night whilst heading back towards Hurghada.

 

We finished our last day on the Sunday with two dives . Panorama Reef , and also we dived the wreck of the Salem Express which I have dived twice before. This is the wreck of a roll on / roll off passenger ferry which met its demise in 1991. It was returning from Jeddah from Mecca having carried hundreds of passengers on board, and was heading for Safaga when it hit the reef. The Captain having taken a short cut, something he was unfortunately known for doing.

 

‘The official Lloyds Maritime Casualties Report claim there were 644 passengers in total - 180 survivors, 117 bodies recovered, out of 464 total victims. Another source gives the passengers as 650 persons - 578 passengers and 72 crew. A contemporary news report gives a slightly different total of 664 passengers, with 179 survivors and 485 missing at time of publication, with 71 crew members.

 

 The New York Times reported that only 10 out of 71 crew members had survived. However, other sources claim either the death toll, or the true total of bodies recovered was 850, and that the boat had been overloaded with passengers both on deck and stood in the car deck. The original source of this speculation is unclear. It has to be said though that there was a massive loss of live and many bodies not recovered.’

 

The wreck lays on its starboard side in around 30 metres of water , the port side being much shallower. It is a very eerie dive as when diving it you can’t help but think of the tragedy that befell those onboard when it hit the reef and sank in around 20 minutes. It was underwater in 11 mins, so fast in fact that only one of the lifeboats managed to launch and you can still see today a lifeboat sitting upright on the sea bed.

 

Over the week long trip we dived a total of 16 dives , having missed out on two dives due to the weather. The trip was a memorable one and I will for sure be travelling again on board the Ghazala Express, I have added some underwater images to my photo list from the trip for reference.

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