We set sail from the Marriott hotel with the Aquarius Dive Club www.aquariusredsea.com at around 0730 with the hope of diving the Giannis D. Its position in the Red Sea makes it often not possible to dive, due to the strong currents and rough sea. We were the last people on the boat and everyone was waiting for us, not only were they waiting for us, they had also all set up their equipment. I had to set our equipment up whilst the boat was sailing in very rough sea, not fun.

We were in luck. After about 2.5 hours of sailing we approached the site of the Carnatic which was to be the first wreck dive of the day. I was surprised and glad we were still allowed to dive, the sea was rough, and especially rough to climb aboard a RIB. After an eventuful period of trying to put our equipment on we managed to all stumple to the rear of the boat and all safely managed to climb down into the RIB without falling into the water unexpectedly or on to one another. (You certainly don’t want a 10kg dive tank hitting you on the head!)

The Iron framed Carnatic wreck is one of the oldest in the Red Sea, sinking around 150 years ago. The Carnatic was a 90m P&O passenger boat, and laid at the bottom of the reef for over 100 years before it was joined by many others. The vessel struck the coral reef on Sept 12th 1869 and was stranded on the reef top. The captain made a bad decision and decided not to abandon the ship as he believed another P&O ship would be passing the next day in the opposite direction. Unfortunately the vessel never arrived and the ship broke in two and sank on Sept 14th 1869. 26 crew and 5 passengers died.