Sunday, April 15, 2007

Mariam sends her regards

We were supposed to be diving Mariam on Friday but the weather and high seas conspired to stop us and we had to call off the dive about 2Km out of Umm Suqeim harbour.
Fortunately the weather on Saturday was much better so we launched Diver 1 and Diver 4 from EPPCO Harbour and made the marker buoy for the Mariam Express in less than fifty minutes. We anchored Diver 1 on the wreck and tied Diver 4 astern ready to give chase if a diver drifted away from the wreck.
As it happened the currents were light and divers surfacing on the high points of the superstructure were easily able to swim back to the boats.
Mariam herself is now well covered in marine growth and is an absolute delight to explore. She was a Ro-Ro (roll-on roll-off) vessel and her large holds are both open and easily accessible. The lower hold was full of a cargo of large tyres and is a dark and tangled void requiring care, a good torch and a line to find the way back out. The upper hold situated below the accommodation and bridge is home to a large collection of very disparate items. A pallet of rather garish crockery sets is accompanied by stacks of bedding, old computer game consoles and LNBs (the bit on the arm of a satellite dish). All of these are jumbled around and are now starting to decompose in the salt water. Swimming to the end of the hold reveals a grilled opening onto the uppermost side of the hull. Once again caution is required, as is always the case when diving with overhead obstructions.
The crew accommodation and bridge decks are directly above the smaller upper hold and are very congested with the remains of internal partitions, bed frames and sundry rotting junk. It is however possible to swim through a window above the hold, right the way through and up to the bridge passing the galley and laundry facilities on the way. This area could do with being cleared to make it safer and more accessible.
Behind the rear hold is a large expanse of flat deck to which several scooters and wheel-loader Caterpillars were secured. These are now scattered on the sand or suspended from the deck and becoming quite overgrown with shells and barnacles. One of the Caterpillars has the remains of a car pinned under it’s front bucket – I hope the owner’s insurance covered this sort of eventuality.
Adjacent to this wrecked car and digger tryst are the rear funnels of the vessel with louvered ventilation panels giving access down the funnel into the engine room. Sadly we didn’t have long to check out this area but will try to return for a longer investigation.
All in all a very enjoyable day of diving and we hope to make a return visit in the near future.

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