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Missing divers in Sharm el Sheikh
- Thread starter matgiani
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---------- Post Merged at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:11 AM ----------
Having stayed At the savoy for a week returned Home on monday morning, took a check up dive At white Knight beach tuesday 22 october.
Was the worst dive i ever took, visability was terrible( to say the least) i was supprissed that somebody(our gide) took the dive with us, we were with 4 people.
The water was so troubled i thought i was diving the north sea, we were told that it was caused by extreme wheater conditions that ocure by the change of the sesaon around november-never saw something like this before
on my stays(4) At the red sea.
On Wednesday and thursday conditions seemed to improve but bottom conditons were still troubled, i didn't feel like diving the " white Knight reef " again because by snorkling it was obvious visability was far From clear.
The only place i wanted to go to was ras Mohamed, so i went on fryday 28 october with "Steve hinton".
Had a couple of dives At ras Mohamed on that fryday witch were absolutly perfect.
On sundaymorning(21 october) we took a little snorkel dive and saw 2 divers under the jeti From savoy entering the canyon of the reef at About 10 meters, there is no telling who that couple were but visability was reasonable and there was no current etc?
It seemed like the best Dive conditions of the whole week, but the stangest is that we never ever had any notice of any rescue operation during that sunday(28 october) eventhough we stayed At the seaside(for lunch) From 2 till 4.
I Spoke a diver who's dive was canceled for that afternoon without explenation no i know why.
Somehow i feel like i could have done something that morning.........
Was the worst dive i ever took, visability was terrible( to say the least) i was supprissed that somebody(our gide) took the dive with us, we were with 4 people.
The water was so troubled i thought i was diving the north sea, we were told that it was caused by extreme wheater conditions that ocure by the change of the sesaon around november-never saw something like this before
on my stays(4) At the red sea.
On Wednesday and thursday conditions seemed to improve but bottom conditons were still troubled, i didn't feel like diving the " white Knight reef " again because by snorkling it was obvious visability was far From clear.
The only place i wanted to go to was ras Mohamed, so i went on fryday 28 october with "Steve hinton".
Had a couple of dives At ras Mohamed on that fryday witch were absolutly perfect.
On sundaymorning(21 october) we took a little snorkel dive and saw 2 divers under the jeti From savoy entering the canyon of the reef at About 10 meters, there is no telling who that couple were but visability was reasonable and there was no current etc?
It seemed like the best Dive conditions of the whole week, but the stangest is that we never ever had any notice of any rescue operation during that sunday(28 october) eventhough we stayed At the seaside(for lunch) From 2 till 4.
I Spoke a diver who's dive was canceled for that afternoon without explenation no i know why.
Somehow i feel like i could have done something that morning.........
Tigerman
Contributor
Did Steve bring out his shark for you? 
The conditions does get a bit less inviting down there this time of the year. It was starting to be windy and choppy when I was down there 4-5 weeks ago as well. The visibility was not great back then either. Not for the red sea anyways.
The conditions does get a bit less inviting down there this time of the year. It was starting to be windy and choppy when I was down there 4-5 weeks ago as well. The visibility was not great back then either. Not for the red sea anyways.
The Cod Father
New
Is someone able to PM me the name of the dive company? I have dived with an Italian company the last 4 years that I have been out there and am just wondering if the instructor is someone I know. I am going out there next week.
Thoughts are with the families.
Thoughts are with the families.
NOC40
New
I can only reiterate that this is very sheltered, very easy dive site. I took many students there even during their open water course (but obviously exited the gulley at shallow depths). From what I remember the caves are more like small indents and overhangs, there aren't any actual caves you can go into (please correct me if i'm wrong). The main risk on the dive is following the gulley down and not watching your depth. But where the gulley opens out is only just deeper than 30m, and then there's a small drop to just shallower than 40m: deep enough to start getting narked, but an experienced instructor should have no trouble at this depth. If you were to keep swimming out into the blue then like a lot of the coastline there the slope is at least 45 degrees, so you would quickly get into trouble. All of this is of course easy in the normally excellent visibility. But in very low vis its actually a very good site to choose, because you spend a lot of time in the gulley so very close to features and fish.
I wish I could help more, but for now it's all conjecture.
PS Is it just me or does anyone else find gianaameri's comments unhelpful and potentially insensitive? It's not really helpful to comment if you haven't even dived the site.
I wish I could help more, but for now it's all conjecture.
PS Is it just me or does anyone else find gianaameri's comments unhelpful and potentially insensitive? It's not really helpful to comment if you haven't even dived the site.
gianaameri
Contributor
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largeweapons
New
:depressed: I rerurned from Sharm in October and we made several dives with Costantino, he was exceptionally professional and as already stated would never endanger a students life. This is very very sad news indeed.
Hi All,
Quick background - I have lived and worked in Sharm full time since May 2009. I didn't know the instructor (aka Kiko) however he was seeing a very good friend of mine for a while before she left Sharm. I only met him in passing but it's quite a small world here in Sharm. I've spoken to some of his friends and I also know one of the technical divers who has been involved in the search and recovery dives.
Firstly - just to clarify a few things about the dive site and the conditions that day. The Daily Mirror article suggests the reef plummets down to a mile deep - well, eventually it does, but not directly. White Knight is a series of "ledges" with the main feature being a small canyon a few metres wide that drops down to about 50 metres if you follow it all the way down. The missing divers were not found here, nor in the small cave at 20 metres.
Secondly - with respect to the weather and sea conditions that day, they were fine. I was diving in Ras Nasrani at around the same time the divers are said to have gone missing, and there was only very slight current with excellent visibility. White Knight is just to the south of Nasrani, and in a much more sheltered location, I would have expected tho conditions there to be very easy indeed. One poster mentions terrible visibility and poor conditions at White Knight at the time they visited on the 22nd October and this is true - we had a big storm and sea conditions meant we had to cancel all house reef diving and some boat trips - in Na'ama Bay... Conditions were very poor for 4 or 5 days but on the 27th and 28th, they were fine.
As of yesterday, to my knowledge, the divers have not been found. This raises some questions. With conditions as they were on the day, and the general topography, and the fact that Kiko was - according to people I have spoken with - not known for taking risks with students and the missing student himself is a family man and hardly likely to want to put himself in harm's way, why have they not been found?
Also - why are both of them missing? An incident where two divers should get into such difficulty that neither of them returns suggests some external influence rather than diver error. Buoyancy issues, closed tanks or whatever would have been dealt with after the shore entry. An uncontrolled descent from the jetty would have resulted in the very worst in ear squeeze and possible coral interaction. Kiko was a veteran of at least 8 years in Sharm, and you can't be here for that long without becoming very experienced indeed. Any of the "usual" causes of diver error either would not have been present or should have been dealt with early in the dive.
One line of speculation involves the fact that White Knight is visited by frequent boat traffic - from RIBs to dive boats, but as of this moment, it's pure speculation around the beer table, and so far, there is no other information. Should I hear anything I will of course post it here.
Crowley
Quick background - I have lived and worked in Sharm full time since May 2009. I didn't know the instructor (aka Kiko) however he was seeing a very good friend of mine for a while before she left Sharm. I only met him in passing but it's quite a small world here in Sharm. I've spoken to some of his friends and I also know one of the technical divers who has been involved in the search and recovery dives.
Firstly - just to clarify a few things about the dive site and the conditions that day. The Daily Mirror article suggests the reef plummets down to a mile deep - well, eventually it does, but not directly. White Knight is a series of "ledges" with the main feature being a small canyon a few metres wide that drops down to about 50 metres if you follow it all the way down. The missing divers were not found here, nor in the small cave at 20 metres.
Secondly - with respect to the weather and sea conditions that day, they were fine. I was diving in Ras Nasrani at around the same time the divers are said to have gone missing, and there was only very slight current with excellent visibility. White Knight is just to the south of Nasrani, and in a much more sheltered location, I would have expected tho conditions there to be very easy indeed. One poster mentions terrible visibility and poor conditions at White Knight at the time they visited on the 22nd October and this is true - we had a big storm and sea conditions meant we had to cancel all house reef diving and some boat trips - in Na'ama Bay... Conditions were very poor for 4 or 5 days but on the 27th and 28th, they were fine.
As of yesterday, to my knowledge, the divers have not been found. This raises some questions. With conditions as they were on the day, and the general topography, and the fact that Kiko was - according to people I have spoken with - not known for taking risks with students and the missing student himself is a family man and hardly likely to want to put himself in harm's way, why have they not been found?
Also - why are both of them missing? An incident where two divers should get into such difficulty that neither of them returns suggests some external influence rather than diver error. Buoyancy issues, closed tanks or whatever would have been dealt with after the shore entry. An uncontrolled descent from the jetty would have resulted in the very worst in ear squeeze and possible coral interaction. Kiko was a veteran of at least 8 years in Sharm, and you can't be here for that long without becoming very experienced indeed. Any of the "usual" causes of diver error either would not have been present or should have been dealt with early in the dive.
One line of speculation involves the fact that White Knight is visited by frequent boat traffic - from RIBs to dive boats, but as of this moment, it's pure speculation around the beer table, and so far, there is no other information. Should I hear anything I will of course post it here.
Crowley
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