The Rosalie Muller

Having had a feast of Wrecks at the start of the trip tension was mounting at the possibility of diving the Rosalie Muller. This was my sixth trip to Egypt and with varying degrees of success I had worked my way through most of the wrecks several times. I had not however managed to get on this one.

We arrived in the middle of nowhere to moor up next to another couple of boats, one of them Hurricane was to appear nearly identical to our own Typhoon (more of that later)

Jeff and I had planned a dive time 36minutes to 36metres which would allow for a leisurely exploration of the wreck on our twin cylinders without too much deco. Planned as a runtime we should have hit the surface at 54 minutes after about 12 minutes of stops. This was based on us starting the dive on a CTC of B, given this was the first dive of the day.

We dropped in and hurtled down the shot to hit the deck and look up at the upright masts with the deck stretched out in front of us. Beneath us the stern dropped away to the prop and below our agreed maximum planned depth of 36m. We proceeded forward over the holds and through the accommodation block. The scene was very reminiscent of the Hispania in the sound of Mull although with warmer water! The water was slightly milky from the sediment on the bottom and the whole wreck seemed to be emerging from a mist. We passed the crew washroom and intact baths before stumbling across the galley complete with large range. Arriving at the bow we were able to look back at the vessel with intact masts cruising along the seabed.

According to the plan it was turnaround time and we cruised back to the stern with one eye on the clock. By this time most of the other divers had begun to leave the wreck and we found ourselves alone on the deck. I spotted the opening in the engine of ceiling where the ventilators were stove in and looked down into the room below. Three cylinders were visible with gantries and other paraphernalia and the whole scene looked like a very inviting under water mausoleum. However it was deeper than 36metres and was not catered for in the plan.

We turned round to head to the shot to see David the dive guide looking reassured that we were on plan. We left the bottom two minutes early to head to our first stop at 9m. Turning to look at the wreck a great shoal of fish enveloped the mast and to back position of the Muller.

All was going to plan until having moved to our 6m stops I noticed that the computer was giving a surface time of 1h 3minutes and NOT the 54 minutes planned!

Of course we had planned the dive on a table which assumed we would start on a B. The computers were however being more cautious and had not fully desaturated in 16 surface intervals. Still plenty of gas and a prospect of a boiled egg for breakfast to look forward to!

I began looking at the bottom of the boat, something wasn't quite right. The twin 7 bladed props were there but the deco bottle wasn't? On surfacing I found that I was deco'ing on the wrong shot and Typhoon was next door! Unfortunately my error was noticed by just about everyone on both boats .... not part of the plan!