Instructor Alex Heyes says: “It just isn’t that dangerous.” Originally from Preston, Heyes, 32, moved to Dahab seven years ago and runs the H2O centre. Others maintain that as long as divers do their homework and exercise due caution, the Blue Hole’s fearsome reputation is undeserved. Deaths of freedivers such as Keenan are also a constant concern, with the sport growing in popularity since Luc Besson’s 1988 film The Big Blue, which brought it to the world’s attention. In recent years, as technical diving (a form of scuba that usually involves breathing special gas mixtures) has become more fashionable, Omar has witnessed a rise in the rate of fatalities.
“They were the first bodies recovered from the Blue Hole.” Since then, he says he has pulled more than 20 bodies out of the water, earning himself the grim moniker “the bone collector”. Omar rose to fame in 1997 when he retrieved the bodies of Conor O’Regan and Martin Gara.
A technical diver from Dahab, Omar began exploring the Blue Hole in 1992, fascinated by tales of a curse laid upon it when an unwilling party to an arranged marriage drowned herself there. One man who doesn’t venture to guess is 53-year-old Tarek Omar.
Divers in Dahab suggest as many as 200 in recent years. With no public record, it’s hard to say how many people have lost their lives.
0 kommentar(er)
