Terror on the Red Sea Liveaboards

Within the last couple of years there have been a number of incidents in the Red Sea where diving vessels, known as liveaboards, have suffered some kind of mishap or disaster and in some of these cases a number of lives have been lost. Last November the Sea Story capsized and sank with a party of divers on board who were heading out from Port Ghaleb to a number of dive sites out in the middle of the Red Sea. Eleven people were killed, some of the bodies have not been located, with a further 35 others being rescued, some of them days later. This disaster highlighted what turned out to be a multitude of failings and slap-dash ways of running these vessels that has been going on for years. And Sea Story is not the only one.

In June 2023 the Hurricane had left the same port when fire broke out mid-voyage with 29 people on board, three of them were killed in the disaster. The image of the vessel blazing while rescue ships gathered was one that shocked the diving industry. But are these just isolated incidents? Are we putting our trust in these dive boat operators when they are not fit to head out to sea with people on board? Are the boats themselves perfectly fine but the people running them lacking skills and common sense? Well until an investigation is carried out and reports their findings we can only speculate.

But this took me back to the May of 2005 when I was out on a Red Sea liveaboard heading out to the wreck of the Thistlegorm for what was promised to be a fantastic diving experience on a wreck that I had heard so much about and had studied for years. I was over in Dahab learning to become a PADI Dive Master and on completion of the course I ended up with several days where I was doing nothing when the company decided to book my Instructors exam the same day that I flew home. With two weeks of course now cancelled I was offered the trip on board a boat going out from Sharm el Sheikh to dive what was classed as the best wreck dive in the world. 

I boarded the Embero and slept on board as it would be departing in the early hours of the morning. I was excited that this was actually happening and settled in for a long overnight voyage where the following morning we were almost at the site. The dive team leader gave us a run down of the wreck and spoke of pulling items out of the wreckage and “shining them up” for us to see, which annoyed me as if every dive team did that then there would be very little left of this wreck in a few years. Still, I was excited that soon I would be down there myself and ticking off this famous – and beautiful – shipwreck from my list. 

But this is where it all stopped, for the waves were too high for us to safely dive the wreck, I was gutted but completely understood their logic. They said not to worry as we would instead head over to a reef at Ras Mohammed. Several hours sailing later and we were at the dive site, after checking our kit we stepped off the back of the boat and our team went down together, consisting of a guide, myself and a Danish couple as well as a few others grouped in. When we reached the bottom I started having complications and began floating to the surface without realising, the guy who was partnered up with me just watched as I floated away without any sense of urgency. Thankfully I sorted myself out and we headed off on to the reef where the strong currents made us almost “fly” around the reef at some speed. There was the remains of the cargo of the wreck of the Yolanda, in this case a container full of toilet seats had spilled out, kind of summed up the dive as I wasn’t really having a relaxing dive it seemed very much hard work. 

But it was the surfacing that got me the most, for when we finally came to the top there must have been 15-20 liveaboards all gathered round, nobody had a clue which one was which as they were all looking exactly the same. Suddenly a horn went off and a number of them faced us and came straight towards us at speed from different directions. Eventually we found which one was ours but the waves were picking up and I was now struggling to cling on to the ladder as each wave threw me about. The dive boat crew stood and watched, they could see I was now really having difficulty climbing on and would have done anything for just one of them to grab hold of my BCD or even just held out their hand. The ladder offered no grip and my breathing was becoming faster as I was becoming more and more exhausted. Eventually I got a grip and only then did one of them assist me just to get me out of the way where I collapsed on the deck utterly drained of all energy. When I checked my air gauge it read zero….. I was probably just a few breaths away from sucking on the rubber. 

Both me and the Danish couple were furious that there was no safety involved and that everyone here was so lax it was unbelievable, I refused to go in again when the second dive was ready to go. Seeing all those vessels suddenly coming towards me at once was terrifying enough, but to then have our own boat be so close yet not be able to get onboard was enough to persuade me to stay out of the water and live to dive another day elsewhere. 

Today I have continued diving and I have been with some really professional (and safe!) diving clubs and the wrecks I have explored have been amazing, but I never did get to the Thistlegorm and that continues to be one wreck that I still want to do, just not with dive boats that risk your life and have no care for their passengers.

This must be why many of them ask you to sign a waiver that exonerates them of all blame even if it is their negligence.