CLEOPATRA’S PALACE
PeterT	REPORT ON DIVE TRIP TO CLEOPATRA’S PALACE From; Dave Fletcher Hello folks, Last week a member of my club was invited at the last minute to join a party of divers travelling to Alexandria, Egypt, to dive on the recently discovered ruins of the old palace of Queen Cleopatra. The following is her account of the trip; it is quite long, for which I make no apologies, and when you read it you will see why I have included it in full. There are apparently several lawsuits in preparation in connection to this holiday. The trip was booked via Regal Diving Holidays, about which the diver in question was at pains to say the following: "Regal Diving have reacted fantastically, not least because their Director of International Diving was on the trip, and we are getting a full refund plus free Regal dive trip to Sharm or Hurghada whenever we want to take it. Regal have cancelled all future trips to Alex and are carrying out their own investigations into the Alexandria set up." I would urge you to distribute this account widely, to ensure that anyone thinking of making this trip in future can do so fully informed. Dave Fletcher Telephone: 0208 241 2584 / 07778 643827 REPORT ON DIVE TRIP TO CLEOPATRA’S PALACE WITH THE ALEXANDRIA DIVE CENTRE (ADC) 5-10 SEPTEMBER 2002 Overview 1. There was a total absence of understanding and awareness of basic diving safety procedures and a blatant disregard for the safety of divers both above and in the water 2. The inexperience / disinterest of the ADC staff resulted in a number of potentially dangerous situations where divers were drifting into the path of other vessels and/or would have been on their safety stops when tankers were passing directly over the dive site 3. The issue regarding contaminated air is extremely serious. There are documented incidents of diving fatalities resulting from contaminated air. Urgent inspection of the ADC’s compressor and air filter should take place and remedial action taken 4. The Alexandria Dive Centre was poorly managed with inexperienced, untrained staff who demonstrated little or no understanding of how to conduct a dive brief; lead a dive; handle diving equipment; listen and respond to clients issues 5. No surface marker buoys or other surface indicators were used to alert sea traffic to the presence of divers 6. ADC carried out a reverse profile dive plan with no prior communication, brief or discussion with the divers on the sites or depth of those sites 7. ADC staff accompanying the dive carried no visible means of telling the time or depth of each dive and failed to carry out basic safety checks on the groups they were leading 8. ADC staff ignored signals from one diver (not in the UK group) that he was low on air and wanted to ascend 9. PADI claim no knowledge of an Alexandria Dive Centre; say that the owner/dive master at the centre and lead guide Ashraf Sabry has no PADI instructor accreditation (as he claimed) and that the Centre is not a “3 star PADI organisation” as AS claimed – PADI has no such accreditation. Investigations are being made with other diving organisations from which AS claimed instructor status 10. It is not clear whether the diving organisation with which the group booked the trip carried out checks prior to the trip regarding the Alexandria Dive Centre’s PADI affiliation or verified the diving qualifications of Ashraf Sabry and his staff. If not, then the diving organisation has have failed in its duty of care to their customers and should take steps to review their processes in this area with immediate affect to ensure that this situation is not repeated. Friday 6th September 11. During the 3 dives on this date the UK Diving group were split 6/6 between two boats. On one boat Ashraf was the dive guide; on the other Heba, whom Ashraf claimed was also a diving instructor, was the dive guide. 12. 7 people on one boat complained of bad tasting or excessively dry air in their cylinders; nausea or vomiting after the dives; stomach cramps and sore throats. When this was raised with Ashraf Sabry he claimed that it was not unusual for 8 people out of the 12 on his boat [4 Americans dived with the group that day] to fall ill; that all of these people were suffering from seasickness; that there could be no problem with the air supplied by the Alexandria Dive Centre (ADC) and that there was no need for any investigation of the Dive Centre’s compressor filter. 13. Ashraf Sabry “led” the first dive with 10 people following him in c. 2 metres visibility. Another diver (later claimed by Ashraf Sabry to be a diving instructor) accompanied the dive and kept to the rear of the group. With that number of people and with such poor visibility it was impossible for any divers other than perhaps the first 3-4 in the group to see anything pointed out to them on the dive. 14. With so many people on a dive, and in such poor visibility, there was a potential danger in terms of being able to identify and properly manage any diving incidents or problems which may have occurred; indeed, Ashraf and the other ADC diver made no visible attempt to check the group during the dive. When this was raised with Ashraf he replied there was no danger as the dive site’s maximum depth was 8 metres and nothing could go wrong or, if it did go wrong, the divers could always just come to the surface without any problem. 15. On the third dive of the day, Ashraf and the other dive guide, Heba, swapped boats. Heba did not carry out any pre-dive brief. She and another ADC diver, Rami, led the dive. After c. 10 minutes 2 UK divers surfaced, leaving 4 UK divers plus Heba and Rami. In poor visibility and a strong current, Heba was obviously lost, and after vigorous gesticulation with Rami, Heba left the group and surfaced, apparently to reorientate herself on the surface and to rejoin the group. For c. 15 minutes the group were left with Rami in the same spot, despite several requests that Rami take over leading the dive. After c. 15 minutes Rami indicated that he, too, was going to surface but that the group should remain under water. JM signalled to Rami that was unacceptable and that the whole group should surface. Rami disagreed, indicating that the group should remain under water. JM then indicated to the rest of the UK divers that the whole group should abort the dive and surface. This they did. During the ascent, 3 UK divers had to take urgent evasive action when an ADC boat went directly over the dive site and c. 1-2 metres above the heads of the ascending group 16. Of the two divers who had surfaced earlier, one got caught in the strong surface current and was totally unable to attract the attention of the crew despite the fact that he was drifting into the path of shipping traffic. In the end, his wife had to get into the water to assist him to the boat. On finally reaching the boat, there was no attempt by the crew to help them out of the water. 17. On surfacing the rest of the divers had a c. 100m swim in a current back to the boat, watched by the ADC crew. Despite the fact that all divers were now on the surface, the crew made no attempt to bring the boat to the divers and only threw a rope to assist the divers when JM shouted at them to do so. 18. The second boat had 8 customers (a Czech/Italian couple dived with the 6 UK divers). Heba led the first two dives, supported by Rami. No pre-dive brief took place; there was little or no viewing of the dive site or artefacts on the site and divers suffered from the affects of bad air in their cylinders. In addition, Heba was clearly lost on both dives and argued with Rami about the direction in which to go, under water. UK divers were also appalled to see that Heba repeatedly attacked the antiquities, stabbing at them with her dive knife to expose the original surfaces, without any concern for the damage she could cause. Heba also appeared unconcerned about any harm she might cause to other divers as she flailed her knife around during the dives. 19. All three dives were conducted on exactly the same small site on Cleopatra's city. The entire area could easily be covered in a single dive of less than one hour. The UK group had expected more variety, both from the UK brochure and Ashraf's initial briefing. 20. At no time did Ashraf or Heba use surface marker buoys or any other surface indication to sea traffic that there were divers in the water; no ‘A’ flag was displayed at any time on either boat; Heba and the other ADC divers did not wear watches, computers or any visible depth gauge; indeed, Ashraf recommended divers did not dive with computers as the constant “up and down” over the dive site had, he claimed, ruined 2 of his computers. 21. Ashraf Sabry had made a point of saying in his pre-dive brief that diving equipment would be put together and taken to the boats by his staff. This was not done. 22. Diving equipment was not properly stowed or handled on the dive boats by the ADC staff. Regulators were banged on the deck, knocked by cylinders and left strewn around the deck between dives. There was nowhere to store cylinders, weight belts or other diving equipment during the journey to/from dive sites. 23. The toilet facilities on the boats were unusable due to a lack of water, despite frequent requests to the crew. The ladies toilet facilities at the dive centre were also unusable due to a lack of water until repeated requests resulted in the water being turned on. Saturday 7 September 24. The UK divers swapped boats but the groups remained the same. On Ashraf’s boat were 6 UK divers together with an Italian/Czech couple who were not with the UK group. In addition to Ashraf, two other ADC divers were on board. 25. On the other boat, with Heba, were JC and the other 6 UK divers, plus an Englishman who was not with the UK Group and one other ADC diver. 26. The boats were expected to be out all day in 30+ degrees C of heat but it took 90 minutes of repeated and persistent requests to get any drinking water put on either boat. 27. Prior to leaving for the site, one of the boats was taken to be refuelled. 3 UK divers on that boat were splashed with diesel during this process – on their faces, T shirts, BC and wetsuits. No acknowledgment of this was made by the ADC staff or apology forthcoming. The potential dangers here are enormous as the staff routinely smoked on the deck where the smell of diesel on both boats was very strong. 28. The site selected to dive was in the middle of the shipping lane entrance to the Port of Alexandria. The site was a German boat, at 30metres. Ashraf’s boat dropped an anchor in the middle of the shipping lane and Ashraf and another ADC diver attached lines to two life rings and announced that they would attach these rings to either end of the wreck as shot lines. These two life rings, plus the two anchored dive boats, were to be the only surface indication to any sea traffic that there were divers in the water. These were the only life rings on the boat and there was no evidence of any other life jackets in case of an emergency. 29. Just prior to Ashraf attaching shot lines to the wreck, a large freight tanker approached Alexandria Port and passed within 5 metres (c.20 feet) of the bow of the anchored dive boat. Despite several requests by UK divers for the boat to be moved out of the way and raising concerns about the potential danger the dive boat and its occupants were in, no attempt was made to raise the anchor or move the boat. Indeed, the UK divers were ridiculed for showing any anxiety about the narrow escape. Photographs of this incident were captured by UK divers on the other dive boat. 7. UK divers refused to dive the site, raising concerns about the potential diving dangers; the anchored boats; the absence of surface marker buoys visible to sea traffic etc. All these concerns were dismissed by Ashraf who claimed to have dived the site many times without incident. 8. During the first dive, one English diver from the other dive boat (not part of the UK group) got to 50bar while on the wreck and showed his contents gauge to Ashraf and indicated he wanted to ascend. Ashraf indicated that the diver should remain on the wreck. The diver then approached the Italian/Czech couple who were also low on air, and all 3 began their ascent. It was only then that Ashraf and the other ADC divers ascended. The Czech diver ran out of air on the ascent and had to breath off her buddy’s octopus during the safety stop and the remainder of the dive. 9. During the surface interval, Ashraf was clearly avoiding any communication with JC, the leader of the UK group, despite numerous requests by JC for Ashraf to speak with him urgently about the dive site. Ashraf and his ADC staff spent some time trying to persuade UK divers to dive the site and claimed that JC was overreacting. 10. After an hour’s surface interval, Ashraf and 3 other ADC divers, together with the Italian/Czech couple and the English diver dived the wreck again. This time both the Englishman and the Czech diver ran out of air on the safety stop and had to breath off their buddy’s octopus. When this was raised with Ashraf later, he claimed that “a lot of divers run out of air”; that it wasn’t a problem and that was why he had ADC instructors on dives. Neither Ashraf nor the other ADC divers had made any attempt to check the air consumption of the Italian, Czech or English divers throughout the duration of the dive; neither did they offer their air to the Czech diver and the Englishman had to take the octopus from one of the ADC staff himself. 11. Ashraf had said that a spare bottle and regulator would be on each shotline at 6 metres for use during the safety stop, if required. This was not done. 12. The English diver later informed the UK group that the dive (to 30m) had been his first dive for nearly 3 years. He had informed Ashraf of this and Ashraf had not raised any concerns that he should do such a deep dive after a long break from diving. JM found this surprising as Ashraf claims to be a doctor of hyperbaric medicine and, as such, should not advocate such potentially dangerous diving practices. 13. Shortly after divers surfaced from the second dive, another tanker approached Alexandria Port . Ashraf’s dive boat was directly in the path of the tanker, which sounded its horn 5 times. Despite this, and with the tanker c. 150 feet (c. 40 metres) away from the dive boat, the dive boat moved further into the path of the tanker to retrieve one of the life rings which Ashraf had previously attached to the wreck. It was only with the intervention of 2 UK divers and the English diver that the ADC staff eventually cut the rope attached to the life ring and the boat managed to escape a collision with the tanker. A pilot boat accompanying the tanker approached the dive boat and a heated exchange took place between the dive boat and pilot captains. Ashraf and the ADC staff found this exchange highly amusing and did not acknowledge that the situation had been in any way dangerous. Photographs of this incident are also available and will be sent to UK Diving. 14. Had they carried out this second dive, the UK Diving group would have been in the water or on their safety stop when the tanker passed directly over the dive site. The implications of this, in terms of divers being sucked into the tanker’s propeller, are amongst the most serious of the many examples of Ashraf’s utter lack of concern or care for the divers or his staff. Sunday 8 September 15. Further to JC’s discussions with Ashraf on all the above points, Ashraf gave his assurance that the dives on this day would be on Cleopatra’s Palace, as previously agreed, and that he would lead the dive himself. UK Divers were again split over 2 groups. 16. The first dive site was not Cleopatra's Palace, but a WWII plane wreck in water heavily polluted with raw sewage and general debris (cans, bottles, plastic) clearly visible and floating on the surface. The dive was led by Ashraf with 3 other ADC divers, and 11 UK Divers. The visibility varied between nil and half a metre. It was impossible to get close to any object which Ashraf might find or try to point out, due to the large number of divers and the poor visibility. Several divers became parted from their buddies and a number aborted the dive due to the futility of trying to see anything of the site. 17. In such poor visibility it was important for divers to be able to stay with their buddies. Ashraf was more concerned with descending and showing off ‘finds’ rather than ensuring his party was together and that they had descended safely with their buddies. 18. The second dive passed without incident but was a repeat of the three dives undertaken on the first day, leading several of the party to question the number of available dive sites, contrary to claims on the ADC’s website regarding diving on Cleopatra’s Palace. 19. The third dive was 10 minutes out of the harbour on a wooden wreck which had apparently disintegrated leaving just amphorae. Ashraf told the party on his boat he would return in 7 minutes after checking the dive site was the correct one. He did not return to the boat and descended leaving the remaining divers to join Heba, who had entered the water and was encouraging the UK divers to join her, despite a long surface swim to the supposed site and the presence of fishing boats crossing their path to the site. Heba appeared completely unconcerned by this. Again no surface marker buoys of any description were used to alert other vessels that divers were in the water. There was no dive brief and it was only when the divers were in the water that Heba informed the group that the maximum depth on the dive would be 17m. This resulted in a reverse profile dive as the previous two dives that day had been to 6m and 8m respectively. 20. The three dive guides remained at the front of the group and appeared to be lost as they covered the same ground several times. They ignored the rest of the group, failing to check they were still with the guides. After c. 10 minutes into the dive one of the group noticed that Heba was using another dive guide’s octopus. They carried on for 5 minutes after the UK diver saw them. DC, the UK diver, informed the rest of the group and approached Heba and other guide and said they should surface. They indicated they were going to carry on despite the fact that they only had 50 bar of air between them. Another UK diver, LT, then insisted they surface and indicated to the other UK divers that they abort and surface. This they did. Heba and guides went to surface without safety stop. The UK divers refused to dive any more with the Alexandria Dive Centre.
sharky	As one of the intellectualy-challenged group referred to by Mr 'Willo', I'd like to point out that this information was posted as a warning to other divers, not as an invitation to abuse by sad people who jump to ill-founded conclusions. Even sadder is the fact that recriminatory remarks such as yours, 'Willo', will only serve to dissuade people from flagging up potential danger situations for fear of being branded lame-brains by someone like you. I don't know what your level of diving experience or ability is, but I've been a diver and extreme rock climber for almost 40 years, and have a fairly well developed instinct for self-preservation (I'm still here) - and in my Darwinian opinion everyone in the group behaved responsibly. The level of experience and expertise was high, and I would be happy to dive again with any of them in any circumstances. clive.t (edited by PeterT)
Davey_Willo	Clive I understand that you are annoyed by my reaction to the report, after all, you were one of the divers there, however my response was neither based on assumption nor intent to abuse, infact it was based on the facts laid out by the author(s) of the report itself. I have already apologised for the Darwinian comment once (In my mind my only mistake so far) but to appease I shall apologise once more, although I am still convinced that to repeatedly dive day after day with such a dangerous dive centre/guides/crew (which you yourself have named Alexandria Die Centre is/was a serious error of judgement. The fact that I've commented on this has offended you in the extreme Clive, I know because I've read the deleted part of you're post, but at no time did I suggest that you or anybody in you're company was 'intellectually challenged' nor did I infer anyone was 'lame brained' In fact all of my comments, were directed at the staff of ADC (and I quote myself) "Ignorant untrained locals" and "imbeciles".. Never did I suggest that the diving experience or ability of any of the dive party was at any level whatsoever, high or low, so you shouldn't have felt the need to tell me it was high.. I never doubted it. I'd suggest that once you've calmed down, you re-read my last two posts very carefully , maybe then you'll see that my disgust was directed at ADC, the rest was voicing my concern that you and others repeatedly placed yourselves in the hands of these people who would then proceed to put you in danger once more. As for being classed as 'sad' for not getting behind you on this one Clive, well there is no way I can change you're opinion of me so therefore I shall not even try, but remember that this is a forum open to debate and you and I and the rest of you're party are debating. I'd respectfully suggest that if you want all of you're next post to be read publicly then please keep the personal comments to private email which I shall send to you via Private Message As always I'll send you my best regards and await you're reply either here or my home email. Dave.
sharky	There are a number of points which require clarification here: First, no-one asked for a forum. To my knowledge the information provided to UK Divers was, as I have already mentioned, given as a warning and not as a topic for discussion. Second, no one diver was exposed to all the risks. It was a developing situation, and the complete picture only emerged afterwards when, as a group, we sat down to share our experiences. Third, we were all experienced divers, and a major reason for the fact that we all returned safely was our ability to recognise risks, and circumvent them. Sadly, for those seeking to dive in complete safety, not all the dive sites in the world are well-oiled PADI Open Water Diver factories. If you dive for as long as I have you will encounter unexpected dangers. and in such circumstances it is your own ability to survive which will rescue you, not your PADI qualification, or even your buddy. (I would strongly recommend you to read 'Solo Diving'. I subscribe to its self-sufficiency philosophy entirely). Fourth, the only avoidable risk I personally took on this trip was to dive on bad air. It tasted all right, and it was only after breathing it for 20 minutes that I became ill. I say avoidable, because I could have checked out the centre's compressor before diving with them. But it was billed as a PADI centre, and the owner did claim to be a doctor of hyperbaric medicine. In all honesty, would you have checked it out? Fifth, I stress again that this was a warning to less experienced divers who may not realise, for instance, that diving in an international shipping lane is not the safest of procedures, and that reverse profile diving isn't highly recommended. The minimum qualification for the trip was a PADI AOW certificate, and to any of you who believes that such a qualification makes you bullet-proof, let me be the first to disabuse you of that notion. PADI divers are encouraged to trust their instructors. The owner of the dive centre claimed to be qualified, was very plausible (at first anyway), and should have been trustworthy. Sixth, the dossier published on this site was the basis of a complaint to the tour company. The major point we were trying to make was that the trip did not live up to the experience we had paid a considerable amount of money for - we were promised 8 dives, and I myself only completed 3 - because I chose not to dive in dangerous circumstances. Lastly, and I'm in serious danger of becoming repetitive now, most people would consider my other love, rock-climbing, to be more dangerous than diving. It is isn't! The only difference is that to be a rock climber you have to be reasonably fit, and have the ability to become self-reliant. Sadly, the PADI machine churns out thousands of divers each year who aren't fit and will never be self-reliant. Fine, providing they always dive in well-organised groups led by experienced professionals. The only point we were trying to make is that if you are such a diver, the Alexandria Die Centre isn't for you. clive.t
Davey_Willo	An incredible account, I'm so very pleased that there is to be a positive outcome to this story, what with the refund and a free holiday, but I must confess to not understanding the logic of repeatedly diving over a period of 3 days with these people and their equipment, or lack thereof. With all due respect, if I were to be handing out Darwin Awards they would not be given to the ignorant untrained locals, but to the trained divers who knew the risks of everything from breathing poisoned air to diving in shipping lanes yet still climbed into the boats each day. All's well that ends well, I'm just glad we're not reading a story that ended with a fatality or serious injury. Best Regards Dave
j matthews	As one of the divers on the recent trip to Cleopatra's Palace, and a joint author of the trip report, I'd like to reply to some of Dave W's comments on our activities and the implication that we were irresponsible in our dealings with the Alexandria Dive Centre: (1) we did not "dive repeatedly" on bad air; the bad air issue related to the first dive only and did not recur, following discussions with the dive company representative on site and the Alexandria Dive Centre (2) we did not know that the wreck dives were to take place in the shipping lane to Alexandria Port and, once that became apparent, we refused to dive there (as stated clearly in the report). The divers who did choose to dive there were not part of our group (3) as far as "repeatedly climbing onto the boats" in the light of all our issues with the ADC are concerned, we did what all responsible people do in these circumstances - raised and tried to resolve all the issues we had with the diver operator as they happened, to get their assurances that the problems would not be repeated. Most divers I know would do the same and would give the dive operator the chance to rectify matters. We had come a long way to dive this site, and wanted very much to continue, if at all possible. However when it became apparent that, despite all our efforts, things were not going to improve, we called it a day. We have been in communication with PADI, SSI, the Egyptian Tourist Authority, and the Alexandria Port Authority on all the issues we experienced with the Alexandria Dive Centre so they are in a position to take whatever action they feel is appropriate. My understanding is that PADI and SSI, in particular, are taking the issues we raised with them extremely seriously. jm
dr.dave	I don't think it is very helpful to criticise the experienced divers on this trip. It seems very clear to me that they were not just taking things lying down and eventually did quit diving after giving the dive centre time to get their act together. In a group of mixed experience, the more experienced divers felt obliged to stick with it in order to look after their less experienced buddies, since the dive centre staff were quite clearly not going to do that - which I think is a laudable, not a suicidal motive.
Davey_Willo	JM/Dave I realise now that my initial comment about the Darwin awards may have been rather offensive and I really do apologise for that BUT.... This report tells of divers that dived throughout the three whole days, even though the divers were now fully aware that the... Dive Guides were incompetent and downright dangerous The Diesel wielding, ciggy smoking boat crew even more so The life support equipment abused The most basic of safety procedures completely ignored on every successive dive Divesites so incredibly lethal that they are beyond comprehension Surface cover so bad that I'm sure it must of been intentional Air so foul that over half of the divers were violently ill The list goes on.... The statement that '8 out of 12 divers being ill wasn't an unusual figure' might of raised a flag of concern that polluted air was a regular occurance on that boat I understand your frustration and also your determination to want to actually visit the sites you'd paid for and travelled so far for, but I'm amazed that anybody would want to go back onto these boats and dive with these very same guides after Fridays fiasco alone! But to then try and understand why anyone would leave the relative safety of the shore once more, especially after being doused in diesel and I quote The potential dangers here are enormous as the staff routinely smoked on the deck where the smell of diesel on both boats was very strong. Add to this the refusal to supply drinking water, the same inept guides and abused equipment as Friday, the no doubt very fresh memories of Fridays events and surely a serious forboding of potential disaster looming, then one has to wonder... Just what were people thinking?? But it gets worse.... Saturdays tales are some of the worst I've ever heard of, or ever read.. anywhere.. ever and yet... and yet! on the Sunday....people actually voluntarily climbed onto the boats once more and sailed away to put their lives into the hands of the same imbeciles that had endangered at least one member of every group on every single dive so far.... Incredible! And yet Dave, you think I'm wrong for directing criticism at the people who should know better and your comment of experienced divers only sticking with it to look after the less experienced divers was a joke, right? Best regards Dave