Missing The Thistlegorm

Several years ago, Liz and I were looking forward to diving the Thistlegorm. The guide, an instructor, talked us through the dive plan, “fall off the rib, grab the line and follow it down onto the wreck.” We clambered off the liveaboard into the inflatable and shot seaward. As we approached the buoy marking the drop line he, motioned to the helmsman to continue forwards, and after a few moments to stop, in open water. “We’ll go down here,” he said. We did as we were told, missed the wreck, and dropped down thirty meters before he signalled for us to surface. I’ll call the rib he said, and when it arrived told us to grab ropes trailing behind. We were dragged through the water, it was difficult to keep a grip of the line and we had to keep our regs in, in the wake of the speeding boat. When we arrived at the wreck’s designated drop line, I checked my SPG. I had somehow used 70 bar. Liz swam over to our leader. In all the time I have known her, I have never heard her swear. She positioned herself in front of him, “you total ****ing idiot, you ****er, what do you think the **** you are doing, what happened to the plan?” “Madam, he replied, “you are a panicked diver, take slow deep breathes please.” Liz’s reply was memorable, and is, in my view, up there with Churchill’s, “but in the morning I will be sober.” She replied with that icy calm, of which we mortals should be very afraid, “I am not a ****ing panicked diver, I am a ****furious diver.” We never did get down onto the Thistlegorm. 

Maybe now though, we have another chance. Living in Hurghada, we can book a day trip, and maybe we will. I would like to do this dive, rated as one of the top 10 in the world, but have mixed emotions about wrecks and visiting them as a sightseer.

For a brief time, we have the privilege of visiting another world, of sharing it with its inhabitants and of marvelling at its complex beauty. What right do we have to scatter our rubbish around the seabed?
 

Does a rusty old gunboat enhance the beauty of the underwater environment, even if assimilated by ecosystem? By what convenience do we differentiate between leaving the detritus of our picnic on Dartmoor and leaving a decaying hulk at the bottom of the ocean? Most wrecks are the result of human folly, of our wars or of some oversight in navigation or of hubris, a catastrophic failure to respect the power of the sea, and we turn our collective incompetence into idylls of romantic legend. A wreck is a reminder of our uncivilised society and our contempt for the natural world. A coral teeming with fish though, is a marvellous and uplifting spectacle and manages this without any help from this planet’s dominate species. Humbling. 

There too is the knowledge that men died on many of these sunken vessels, on the Thistlegorm, nine sailors were lost. Do we visit these wrecks in their memory, or to gawp and take pictures and to clock up another must do? And if we are, would those who died mind? Perhaps they would be happy that the site of their fate is unforgotten, and perhaps the countless visitors are a memorial to their tragic end. Better a grave in a busy cemetery than in a forgotten mausoleum. But, we’d best pause a moment on our dive and silently ask permission to come aboard, it’s only polite.  

Archibald Giffin, Able Seaman Aged 18

Arthur Kain, Able Seaman

Alfred Kean, Fireman Aged 57

Donald Masterson, Able Seaman Aged 32

Joseph Munroe Rolfe, Ordinary Seaman Aged 17

Kahil Sakando, Donkeyman Aged 49

Christopher Travers Todds, Able Seaman

Alexander Neil Brown Watt, Fireman and Trimmer Aged 21

Thomas Woolaghan, Able Seaman Aged 24

will not answer but we are paying our respects and acknowledging their sacrifice. They’d most likely not turn us away.