Diving the Deep, Technical Wrecks of the Red Sea
Red Sea, Egypt | rEvo CCR Hypoxic Trimix | 65 – 86m | 2025
Descending into blue water with no land masses in sight, Al-Qamar Al-Saudi Al-Misr appears like the shadows of a giant, emerging from the dark waters in the blue.
Sitting at a depth of 86 meters and lying on her port side, the ship that became the Al-Qamar Al-Saudi Al-Misr (“Al-Qamar”) wreck, started her journey as a Roll On/Roll Off Passenger Ferry, serving routes in the Mediterranean before she succumbed to the ocean while serving three national ports in the Red Sea.
This dive was as much about the dive as it was about the wreck. Not only was the creeping sight of this long forgotten behemoth emerging from the darkness overwhelming, but so were the dives ahead of us.
Spending between 45 and 57 minutes at an average depth of 75 meters meant the team had between three and a half and four hours of decompression, before we could break the surface, get warm, eat, and rest, continuing to off-gas through the night that followed.
Carrying three to four bail out stages and decompression gases each, a diver propulsion vehicle or DPV in one hand, and for me, a full underwater camera rig in the other, meant there was no margin for error whatsoever. A straight ascent from those depths with those times simply isn’t an option.
There is then the wreck itself. I was still deciding how I felt about shipwrecks at the time. Human-built wreckage in the ocean is pollution. It isn’t meant for that environment. Shipwrecks pose an interesting paradox - they are degrading, leaking pollutants as all of its components degrade, and also leak fuel, as I imagine it is rare for a ship to be completely devoid of fuel if not sunk intentionally.
As Leigh Bishop, legendary wreck explorer, put it at a talk I attended recently, “the best time to dive wrecks is right now; soon, they will all be nothing more than iron ore deposits on the ocean floor”. At the same technical diving conference I attended, Matt Carter, marine archaeologist, talked about projects being done to: assess the fuel load of sunken wrecks, determine the imminence of leakage with surveys and sampling, and finally, plan big, complex missions to extract this fuel so it does not impact coastal communities and marine ecosystems at risk.
While shipwrecks are pollutants, they turn into artificial reefs and refuges for marine life. At the shallowest point of Al-Qamar, sparse but present corals and hydroids seemed to feed by way of their tentacles, surrounded by schools of small and larger fish grouping together to create the illusion of size.
Within the vehicle hold of Al-Qamar, the only one of seven levels that appears to have been explored, there were more corals. I wondered how these corals existed in almost complete darkness, and what the lion fish present were hunting, as they patrolled this large corridor. With six other levels, I was intrigued by what marine life may be seeking refuge within this vessel that once ferried over 700 people across the Red Sea.
It is worth mentioning that this wreck is surrounded by nothingness. The sediment it rests upon is soft, silty, and sinking, with a texture I imagine is akin to quicksand. There were no land masses or reefs in the vicinity. Thus, this wreck, while a pollutant indeed, has provided a home - for small marine ecosystems to build homes, seek refuge, and feed, amidst the blue, seemingly infinite water.
Lastly, there is the goal of the dive, which is to film the wreck, and the journey there and back. Having already many minutes of decompression the moment we reached 86m, every moment at those depths accumulated long stops for our way back. Minutes at the bottom felt like seconds, and when filming with one hand, and alternating between scootering and ensuring your life-support keeps you alive with the other, the adrenaline is pumping.
The journey back was “simply” a matter of - your mind mustn’t be the master of you, you must be the master of your mind. With over 90 minutes to spend at six and three meters, and nothing to observe, the test was one of mental resilience. As I grappled with a sore back from being in trim for hours, and from starting to feel cold without much movement, I could see those standing on the dive platform of our boat. The surface was so close, but felt so distant. It was imperative to block out thoughts of hunger, rest, and wanting to be dry and warm.
Four to five hours we descended, the team returned; with darkness quickly swallowing light even on the surface, I had to fight the urge to move quickly and aggressively, eager to get dry and warm. My body, still off-gassing, needed me to be gentle, and measured.
This was the very beginning of my journey into, and fascination with diving deep, technical wrecks; it is nascent still, and I have only just scratched the surface, but it is enduring.
