This is why loads of people come to the Red Sea - to see the wreck of the Thistlegorm.

The SS Thistlegorm was over 126 metres long and this photo shows one of the winches on board her deck.

She was launched on the 9th April 1940 in Sunderland and was sunk in in October 1941.

Hurghada is not as developed as Sharm El Sheikh but it is growing quite quickly. It was once a traditional fishing village and the old town is just north of the big hotels on the coast. Here you can visit local shops clothes and have a puff on some of the fragrantly flavoured shisha pipes.

Scuba diving in Hurghada on the MV Valerie is all about reefs, towers and pinnacles. Sha’ab Abu Nuhas has some great diving. The marine life is abundant and the hard and soft corals are improving since conservation began in the early 90's.

If you are a novice the conditions are perfect the water is warm and clear and there are plenty of wrecks within the safe recreational dive limit for PADI Open Water or Advanced divers. The wrecks on the north of Sha’ab Abu Nuhas Reef are really worth seeing and shallow enough for inexperienced divers to visit. From west to east these are the Giannis D, the Carnatic, the Chrisoula K and the Kimon M.

A lovely sunny day on the boat - we are all trying not to get too sunburnt. One of our fellow divers gets a text message from home saying that the temperature is minus five...that makes us even happier.

It looks quite calm now doesn't it?

Actually, he waters are about to get a bit choppy and the brave ones amongst us go up to the bow to ride the surf and spray. 

Always a good idea to make sure that you have enough air when you are diving...Here I am at 20 Metres (about 65 feet) and I've got plenty - about 150 bar... 

Here is the propeller of the Carnatic - we could swim through the gap between this and the rudder...

 

The Carnatic is our first wreck dive of this trip. This boat went down in 1879 and Amro tells us that it must be an English boat, because most of the boats around here were British.I wanted to say that was because most of the world's ships at the time were British, but Nigel beat me to it.

Anyway, this is a great wreck and is almost completely turned into a reef by years of decay and encroaching marine life.

The wreck ploughed into "Sha'ab Abu Nuhas"which in Arab means the Reef of the Father of Brass" this is because so much "brass" i.e brass fittings from ships was in the area.

Forget what you saw in Finding Nemo...These little clown fish are agressive little buggers when you get near their "manor"...One of them later headbutts Amro, our Divemaster before asking him outside for a fight...there...not so cute looking now is he?

Here's different type of Lionfish... I think it's a clear-fin...

A Lionfish! I've been waiting for ages to see one of these since the guy in Mexico last year told me about getting stung by one. Apparently they made half of his face go numb and he had "very bad dreams"

Crikey...I don't want to get "got" by one of these bad boys...

I photographed this one on the first night dive

Kate catches one staying still long enough to take a picture...here we see one of the reef fishes...he looks good doesn't he?

The problem with fast moving fish is that by the time your flash has gone off, they swim out of the way, leaving you with lots of photos of their backsides... 

Here we are everyone!

listen...nobody looks sexy in their scuba gear, OK? What is going on with the hair? I look like the bloke from the Proclaimers..in fact I'm wearing his glasses..."

 

First dive of 12.11.05

Here are some of the crew from the Valerie. Check out Freddie Mercury in the photo!

He seemed very pleased to answer to "Freddie" all week - all these guys are first class seamen, many of them from generations of fishermen. They certainly know these waters better then the British naval community - more about that later...

We are all getting our kit squared away and getting rather excited about something a bit nicer than 8 miles of Brighton in the English Channel in September!

The first dive of the trip and we are already impressed with the huge diversity of marine life in the Red Sea. Here is a Blue Spotted Ray...we were going to see loads of these over the next week and they are really cool

 

This is me on board the MV Valerie in November 2005.
We left the port of Hurghada for a week's tour of some of the popular dive sites of the Red Sea, with our Skipper and Divemaster, Amro Shehata.

Here is he is...in the blue uniform

 

 

This is Kate and I paying a visit to the London Hyperbaric Chamber with the crew from Newhaven Scuba. Chris Pascoe, second from the left in this photo organised the trip and Kate and I are the two at the back of the chamber giving the diver's universal greeting for all other divers. This sign means everything that a scuba diver needs to say underwater, "I'm OK", "are you OK?", "this is OK", "oooh, look at that fish...OK..I've seen it" etc (you get the idea)

Danny from the centre is ex-Royal Navy and apparently likes torturing Royal Marine Commandos...you can't see him - he's at the front in charge of the throttle and grinning as he "blows us down" (ooh, er missus, that sounds kinky...") to 40 metres on a Navy Table something or other.

Anyway, it makes your ears pop a little and gets very warm in there - your voice gets a bit squeaky like you are on helium and it feels like the Caribbean - Sara at the front definately starts feeling the Calypso spirt and is paralysed by an uncontrollable fit of the giggles.

We just hope that we dont need to do it for real - we are off to Egypt and could do without getting flown home by DAN -the scuba diver's sort of AA Breakdown - they fly you here on a plane if you have been a bit careless with your profiles.