Day Three
There are some more photographs of the members of the expedition on the
members page. You might be particularly interested in big Mike who is 16 and
playing truant from school. NOT TRUE he has the schools permission and is taking
lots of notes in the lecture which will help him feedback information to his
schoolmates when he returns next week.
We were up at 6:00 this morning and went diving before breakfast. We must
be insane. It was on a wreck of a boat called the Chrisola K which was carrying
tiles and sunk in 1954. On the same dive we also visited the wreck of a ship
which sunk in the 19th century called the Carnatic. Unfortunately, or
fortunately, wrecks are great places for fish life and coral growth. The
Chrosola K was on its side in 20 metres of water so the main mast protruded at
least 10 metres over the sea bed, horizontal to it. Some of th different corals
that were growing on it are shown in the photographs below. We have had some
interesting lectures on the reproduction of the coral polyp and ones wonders
about the chances of a coral medusa (I?m learning some new words ? it?s the name
given to the larvae form of the coral which moves freely in the sea) coming
across a convenient stopping place on the mast of a sunken ship.
After another dive on a wreck in the same area we moved across the
Red Sea for a dive just west of Sharm. The
objective was to look at the different varieties of corals and after several
lectures most of us were seeing and noting the following corals:
Branching
Encrusting
Massive
Submassive
Foliose
Mushroom
-or at least trying. All of these corals are ?hard corals?. We will now
be introduced to soft corals.
The food continues to be glorious. There is still no storm so the seas
are quite calm. Most of the expedition members now sleep on the deck although
this could change if the weather gets rougher.
Day Two
The boat remained docked in Hurghada overnight. It was hot and most of
the expedition members moved from their rooms and slept under the stars on the
upper and sun decks.
The
boat left Hurghada at 8:00 and sailed due North for three hours to a reef called
Sha?ab El Erg ( Erg is a widely used name for a pinnacle of rock). Before the first dive we had two
lectures on corals and their life cycle. You can see the background to the
lectures in the lecture section of this web site. It was a very pretty dive,
lots of different corals, sea temperature of 24 degrees Celsius and a visibility
of 20 metres. Some of the expedition members were lucky enough to see a turtle
which then began eating the coral! It ws explained by James ( the marine
biologist) that turtles are only |
