History
The "SS Thistlgorm" was a merchant ship built in
1940, launched exactly on april 9th, 1940. Her last trip began in
Glasgow, on june 2nd, 1941. The final destination of her trip was
Alexandria. Her mission was to bring supply to the british 8th Army in
preparation of the Operation Crusader, against the famous Marshall
Rommel's "Afrika Korps".
The Mediterranean Sea was under german
threat, so the ship was to be part of a convoy who had to sail around
the Cape and enter the Red Sea through the south. In september,
the captain anchored north of the Straits of Gubal, near what is now
Ras Mohammed.
The Suez Canal was now closed following ships
collision, and the "SS Thistlegorm" had to wait in what was supposed to
be a safe place..
On October 6th, two german bombers low on fuel,
returning from a mission over the Red Sea, attacked the "SS
Thistlegorm". The 450kg bombs hit the ship, and one of them
directly in a ammunition hold. There was a huge explosion,
killing 9 crew members, and sinking the ship almost instantly.
The wreck has been discovered 15 years later by Jacques Cousteau, but became "popular" in the mid eighties.
When
sh sank, the ship war carrying a wide range of supplies, from rubber
boots to Bedford truck, BSA motorcycles, rifles, steam locomotives, and
RAF equipments.
Due to her location (sometimes, there is a lot
of current), years of divers'plundering, and the dive boats behavior,
the wreck is rapidly desintegrating.
Data : length : 128m - beam : 18m - 5000 tons - depth : between 13m and 30m.
(source : wikipedia)
Images
During this liveaboard, we made two dive on this wreck,
and we had the good fortune, especially on the first one, to have no
current, excellent visibility and no divers !!!! But
unfortunately, I dove with a not-fully-charged battery, and
my video abandonned me rather quickly during this first dive.
After
that, I when back to my boat, and made sure that the next dive
would be with a 100% fully loaded battery. It was during that second
dive (with more divers and less visibility), that I discovered that my
battery was in fact - flawed...
Anyway, I had time to shoot almost 90% of what I had in mind.
I don't change a winning team, so you will find the same music I used for the "Umbria", Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song".
The
still images beginning the sequence is, in fact, the last part of a
slide show on my dvd, but the pictures are great and the transition
between still and animated images is too much, and I'm proud of it !!
lol
Anyway, the images are not mine, but I'll try to have the authorization to put them on line.
