Images of the Ajman Glory today

It’s been quite a hectic week centred around our new friend, the Ajman Glory. The video tour taken the Friday before last was duly uploaded to the web site by Peter. Based on this and everything else, Nelson McEachan of the UK Hydrographic office has emailed us the following:

Subject: RE: Ajman Glory
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:20:40 +0100
From: Mceachan Nelson
Ian,
I have looked at your dive report on the BSAC406 website and I agree that this is the long lost Ajman Glory. A first-class job, so please pass our thanks to all the divers involved.
I will forward the data to our Regional Team with a recommendation that the charted Dangerous Wreck, Position Doubtful be deleted and this wreck be inserted as Wk 20 metres (Ed: clear depth above wreck) from previous dive details. If the chart is corrected by a Notice to Mariners and Authority will be needed – who gets the credit! Or should it be the BSAC Branch?
Best regards
Nelson
N McEachan
Wrecks’ Officer
UK Hydrographic Office

(I requested Nelson to jointly credit BSAC 406 Sharjah and BSAC 1339 Dubai
Ian)

With the identification now confirmed, it occurred to us that the local press might be interested. Before sending anything out, it seemed like a good idea to get some good quality still photographs of the wreck – hence another trip out there last Friday. It didn’t look too hopeful at first. The forecast was 4-6 ft waves offshore, which is uncomfortable to say the least when you need to travel 32km. Fortunately, the sea-state was not as rough as predicted and you can travel half the distance by hugging the coast for 15km before heading north west.

Once there, although the sea was still choppy, it wasn’t that bad and there was very little current. The viz was also good and we left with some excellent quality images a few of which are attached. As well as PJ taking the pictures above, we also had a close encounter with a turtle which seems to be resident on the wreck. The turtle in turn had a close and inadvertent encounter with one of Mike Dalton’s fins. I hope he wasn’t upset (the turtle that is).

See also: The National Page 5 28th August 2012 on our Links page above, or go to: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/glory-story-begins-to-unravel-off-ajman-coast utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Daily%2BNewsletter%2B28-08-2012

And below you can download the story as published in the September 2012 issue of OUTDOORUAE

Further to the publication of The National online article on the ‘Ajman Glory’ Marc de Ruyter forwarded the link to Mr Cor Dijk (crew member on the Dollard in 1961). His immediate reply (in Dutch) translates as follows:

“Dear Marc,

Thank you very much for sending me the link to the news article about the last resting place of M/S Dollard.

Reading the article and seeing the pictures and video was a quite an emotional experience. Fifty years ago this was my very first job [note: Cor joined the ship when he was only 15 years old]. The captain, who also owned the ship, was Poppo Dekker. ‪At the time I would have never have thought that the ship could sink.

I managed to save the news article to my computer. . . The diving video footage is extremely beautiful, especially considering the depth the ship is at. It appears that the sea is still very pristine there.

‪‬Please find the link of my website about M/S Dollard below, which I believe you must have found already:
http://home.versatel.nl/knelus2/msdollard.htm
[note: The link is listed by Google as hosting malware]

Best Regards,
‪Cor Dijk‬”