Category: Recreation

Uraifjan or Qit’at Uraifjan is Kuwait’s largest nearshore platform reef only 10 km southeast (20 minutes by boat) from the port.

Well this wasn’t much of a dive in fact. We tooled along a bit for about 15 minutes then decided to surface as the visibility was so poor it wasn’t a lot of fun. And another thing, it was the first time diving with this guy for me so it takes a few dives to get used to each other. Also, I had 2 kg more weights on for this dive. Ten not eight. So, it was a good experiment and probably a kilogram overweight. You have to add weight to dive, the amount depends on the density of the water, if salty it is denser and you need more weight, plus on what you are wearing. The thing when diving is you want to be neutrally buoyant but:

• the tank buoyancy changes during the dive as it gets more empty. At the start it will sink at the end it will float. You need to compensate for this.
• a wetsuit as it gets deeper compresses becoming less buoyant

To compensate for this you have a buoyancy compensator (BCD), which is inflated so you float on the surface and then you deflate it to submerge. And while you descend you might at a bit of air to it. Ideally you don’t add much as too much air is hard to handle as when you change depths in the water the BCD air bladder will also expand and contract with different pressure changing therefore in it’s buoyancy. Confused yet?Here’s an article on it.

Deep Dive at the Qaruh Wreck
Down to 35.5 meters on 30% Nitrox.

This was my second dive of the SDI Deep Diver course. So now I’m a certified Deep Diver, to go to a maximum of 40 meters (130 feet). Of course the bottom time at this depth is only a few minutes though.

This sketch from the Kuwait Mantas site. Click here for their overview of dive sites in Kuwait. I went to one of their socials and decided that it wasn’t the group that I want to dive with now.

Reef Dive

Night Dive
First ever

Long Reef Dive
Did this on 34% Nitrox as I just finished my TDI Nitrox certification the night before. In fact the plan was to dive the wreck, but the water was too rough for the boat to anchor, so we did the reef. This was my longest dive to date.

Long Reef Dive

Well, I’ll keep the dives listed here.

Went diving on Friday. To Qaruh island, finally!

The conditions were quite good, we went out to explore the reef and after a few minutes I had a small leak in my pressure gauge. So I went up, though I should have found my buddy then went up, but on a scan of the water I didn’t see him. It was in fact because he was so close to me that I didn’t see him. A good buddy!

Then I want back to the boat and say it was a minor leak in the swivel to the pressure gauge so I went out again with the same gear for a conservative dive on the reef with another fellow. It was a fun dive, good visibility, I saw more variety of fish than I’ve seen yet. No sea turtles, though they do show up sometimes.

Got a nice view of a lion fish. You don’t touch them the spines will give you a nasty sting. What is very beautiful or ugly generally stings or bites so do not touch.

Then a second dive. Saw sea cucumber which looks like a big blob of poop on the bottom and more varieties of fish and several types of coral. Fun.

Then I changed regulators, to be safe and it was time for the deep dive.

Then the biggie. Dive three was the deep dive at the wreck. The wreck is about 2 km from the island in deep water. It is a Coast Guard boat that Iraq took in the Gulf War and then the Americans shot down and sank. The top of the mast is at about 24 meters and the bottom is at about 32 meters depending on tides. Lots of interesting things around the boat, lion fish again. You certainly need to be careful around the boat, lots of things sticking out as you go down the cable that is fixed on the top. The top of the boat is the top of the mast where all the antennas etc. are sticking out. So a short tour around the boat and then time to surface. We stopped on the bottom to look at a couple of plastic bottles. One was sealed at the surface and was completely crushed on the bottom. The other had some water in it, and you could see on the bottom how the entrapped air in it was compressed. Also we had a snack. I took a bit, 26 meters down. It looked like an apricot but was a tomato a bit shriveled up. Of course red is the color first lost as you descent. Took a bite and didn’t need salt! You can eat underwater, though it would need some practice, as I still had some in my mouth after surfacing!

After a tour around the conning tower we surfaced along the guide wire took our safety stop at 5 meters then surfaced at the boat, and I got a piece of jellyfish on my wrist. Immediate blisters and mild pain. Vinegar took the blisters away and that was that. Tonight, 24 hours later, there is a vague feeling of it, but nothing to bother me.

Water temperature was around 24 degrees so I was happy with the wetsuit, 3 mm thick, more than adequate for these conditions.

I now notice that in my logbook, I didn’t log three dives only two. Not to worry.

I’m heading diving on Friday. Thursday is preferred but this is the day it is planned by the dive center.

It will be my first deep dive down to 30 meters. Stay tuned for new. We plan to go to Garo Island and do two fun dives then the deep one.