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Published: July 24th 2009
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Diving to see a ruined site - It’s something different. It gives diving another element and also gives ruined sites a completely new outlook. Removing the sand from a head of a statue, a neck is revealed, soon after a left ear. All of a sudden I’m feeling like an archaeologist. Diving in Alexandria is Egypt’s other lesser-known diving spot.
Remember the time when you were at school and you had to learn about the 7 wonders of the world? 6 of them were pretty cool but the 7th one just seemed rather plain. Well that one is here. The Lighthouse of Alexandria stood 152m tall and was built to give a reference point to sailors coming from the Mediterranean. The Egyptian coast lacks hills so it was felt fit to build a lighthouse to help navigate the ships.
Alexandria is one of the great ancient cities of the world. Named after Alexander the Great. It prospered and is still known as Egypt’s second city. The city is very congested now with the main promenade constantly filled with traffic. Walking along, it seems quite an attractive city especially towards the end of the day. Nice French architecture but its
spoilt by the traffic, the rubbish on the shore and the men and young kids urinating up against the cement dykes which have been positioned to prevent the water levels rising. Most of the ancient sites that people know about are underground but with water levels rising back in the day the lesser-known sites are stuck underwater.
Alexandria’s array of history is all in and around the bay. The big tourist promotion for diving is that Cleopatra’s Palace is here. But too are Napoleon’s fleet, Greek ships, WWII planes. Now all these sound nice and saying I saw Cleopatra’s Palace may get me more cred. But that’s not what I am all about. Instead I wanted to see the crappy 7th wonder!!
It took 15 years to complete (265BC) with 3 sections, at the bottom, a square base, a conical peak and topped off with a statue of Poseidon (The Greek God of the Sea). The Wonders list was made up in Alexandria, so I read and there were sceptics that it didn’t deserve to be included. So maybe it should have been 6 Wonders of the World? It stood for 1500 years and collapsed in 1303 from
an earthquake. It sat out on an island off the bay where in its place is Qaitbey Fort, which is now joined to the mainland.
There is only one Dive Company here so they have a monopoly on the diving. 2 dives cost around 105 euro!! (Too scared to convert.) No credit card facilities meant I had to cry poor. See to their knowledge I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to pay 105 euro and since they don’t have a credit card system then what am I suppose to do? I then asked is one dive possible?
Visibility here is renowned for being poor. Inside the bay where a lot of dives are has mostly 2m visibility (Cleopatra’s area). Whilst outside the bay is a better chance to see clearer. So with my cries of being poor I got one dive for 60 Euros’, still way too much but it meant no food and shithouse equipment. I was here for the experience and one dive would give me that.
I didn’t like the service here and if it didn’t have the monopoly I wouldn’t have gone with this company but perhaps that’s why they
were the way they were. I organised everything the day before and arrived in the morning. Late starters Egyptians so it took 3 hours to get into the water after going through typical Egyptian crap.
In the morning during the briefing my dive master started talking about what seemed to be Cleopatra. I catch him out so they try and bullshit me as to the reasons. It’s too rough, visibility is crap. I say “Look I am an advanced diver what’s the difference we will be under the water the whole time. It is the boat that is the problem isn’t it?” (Having a go at their pride with that one.)
He walked away twice coming back saying we can’t do it. I say “Well then why am I here? I am not paying 60 euro to see something I don’t want to see. If we don’t go to Pharos Island and see the lighthouse than I’m going. I would like my money back thanks” I stand up remove my wetsuit that was hanging around my waist, put it on the table, walk to the jetty, pick my gear up and plant them next to the table. “Okay,
okay, okay we can do it.” It’s one thing about Egypt - its unfair. After years of travel experience Egypt is like Federer vs. Mr. #156 in the world (with me being Federer.) You know they will play a few games against you but in the end you are always going to win.
So our boat goes around the bay and into the Mediterranean closing in on Fort Qaitbey. The lighthouse collapsed mostly to the Mediterranean side with the remains lying on average 6-7m below the surface. Descending down visibility was so bad we had to hold each other’s arms so we wouldn’t lose each other. But it cleared at the bottom.
The brochure promotes the Pharos Island as ‘Touch the sphinxes, part of the lighthouse with its windows, Obelisk, statues and old press wine, columns, …….’ For most of it, the dots at the end of the promo is more spot on. But knowing what the hell you are looking at is not the point here. It’s drifting with the current hovering over and around a bunch of rubble to eventually see what is mentioned above.
First up once on the seabed was an old press
The Lighthouse island
Under the water is where it remains wine. From almost 0m visibility descending it reached at best 5m briefly throughout the dive. At every significant landmark there would be a small scrape mark where divers are allowed to touch and see the marble. The rest is covered in a moss type look.
A school of fish with all beady eyes swim past and crabs cling onto the lower base of the lighthouse. The marble is still smooth and it seemed to be white and black. But there is not too much detail left. Scattered around are the bases of the columns and the grooves of the columns themselves. Than comes the sphinxes or is that sphinxis as a plural?
4 in all, with all their heads cut off, but the bodies remain. The feet with its toes finely defined. To the Sphinxes tail which wraps around the leg to the upper thigh. If it weren’t under water than you can easily say boring but not here.
The final site was what I hoped to be Poseidon? He was the statue at the top of the lighthouse. Approaching, my master indicates the back of the head. We than dig away, lightly sand blasting with our
hands waving back and forth in the water. Dust comes up to eventually disappear to the sight of the ear and neck. That is all you can see and it didn’t matter; the sense of discovery is thrilling.
It must be what archaeologists feel when they discover something that once in a museum seems ordinary. And that’s the beauty of diving here! What is normally just rubble at another tourist site is enhanced so much more underwater. Visibility may be terrible - I did lose my dive master briefly half way through but I ascended up later to be completely satisfied with just one dive. No more and no less is the way to do it here.
I am not going to say this is a must for any traveller but for me it mixes parts of JP4 in one go. 60 euro for one dive or 105 for 2 is really not worth it unless you are a keen diver. I probably should have spent that going to Thistlegorm a wreck in the Red Sea but I have no regrets because where else can you dive and explore an ancient 7 wonder of the world? You can’t even
do that with the modern ones!!
***** It needs to be noted that the dive company weren’t informative as to what the head is so its possible the head is something other than Poseidon.
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Rahul Mishra
non-member comment
VERY good
u have described all the things sooooooooooooo well... keep it up dude i found a site http://destinationindia.co.in .take a look. U may get sumthing important