>Almost as much as the descriptions of the traffic jams in the holds of the
>Thistlegorm in the Red Sea, with divers practically pushing each other out
>of the way to get past.  :-(

>Cheers,
>Huw

Been there,  seen that, done it, got the T-Shirt & the vid. The Thistlegorm
is a spectactular wreck, but it is also normally extremely crowded. One
thing that causes congestion is the 'sheep' following the 'leader' and they
all congregate at the entrance to just about anything and force the rest of
the divers (mostly who are more than capable of conducting their own dive)
to wait - sometimes an unacceptably long time. On a day trip you only get
two dives, to do the complete wreck the first is around the prop so is the
deepest (also includes the Steam Engine normally), then the second trip is
the penetration of the holds. By this stage you have to watch your deco
obligations 'cos you is normally only on a single 12l Al tank. Poncing
around waitng for a bunch of novices to join up & then enter a hold kicking
up spectacular amounts of crap
is not an option on my list, so I just go in ahead of them !!!
In contrast, last month dived the Carnatic & Ghiannis - D in the Red Sea
and nearly creamed my wet suit. We were one of two boats on the Carnatic,
but the only one on the Ghiannis - D. We had let the others on our boat go
first (we had hit about 10 mins deco on the Carnatic so wanted to extend
our SI) so when we got down we hardly saw anyone else. When it came to the
Engine Room there was one other diver in there & he was just coming out so
we had it all to ourselves. Stuff the Thistlegorm, I'll go for the Ghiannis
- D any day just to get a peaceful dive :-) .
Andy Johnson
Senior Product Support Specialist
UK HSC DASD
Basingstoke AL1C
Tel: 01256 34 1474 (Hunting Group)
Tel: 01256 34 1264 (Direct)
Mobile:07703 59 8282   Mobex:277 321
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