They weren’t supposed to dive anymore. For the clubs operating in Pakistan, by mid-April earlier this year, scuba diving season was over — with the summer monsoon winds having returned to the coast, the sea was now too rough. But that didn’t stop a group of four experienced divers from going out on their own and trying their luck — maybe mother nature would favour them just one more time.

Muhammad Iqbal (Master Scuba Diver), Khizar Sharif (Advanced Open Water Diver), Subhan Tinwala (Dive Master Trainee) and Kamran Ishrat (Scuba Diving Instructor) would never forget what unfolded when they descended into the Arabian Sea that day. “We got the coordinates from a local fisherman,” says Khizar recounting what happened. “The fisherman said that there was a sunken vessel in that area, but he wasn’t sure how recent or how long it had been sunk.” They decided to investigate.

They were on the boat for hours. “From Gadani when you move towards the deep sea, you come across Oyster Rocks, it’s popularly known as Chhota Charna. Another 45-minute boat ride will take you even further and that’s the open sea, so it’s not easy to tell where it is,” explains Khizar. “When we got to the area, we saw through the fish finder [a device that scans the sea from the surface] that there’s something ‘big’ underwater — it could’ve been a reef as well.”

For four scuba divers, discovering and exploring a sunken tugboat in the open sea holds wonders of its own

It wasn’t a reef. As they descended, they experienced a clarity in the water unlike that usually experienced in Pakistan — transparent, blue waters (“Sunlight was penetrating the sea like light sabres,” describes Khizar) and lots and lots of wildlife. And at a depth of 27.8m (91.2feet) they came across an untouched wreck — a tugboat.

“We went towards the tail of the boat first,” says Khizar. “There were such big nets there that we were afraid that if we went close, we might get caught in them.” Ghost nets were found all around the ship and tragically, there were quite a few fish caught in them. Ghost nets are discarded or lost fishing nets. Usually smaller fish get trapped in them, attract larger species and other marine predators which include dolphins, sea turtles and sharks. They can drift through seas for hundreds of years, trapping and killing wildlife and are a major hazard.

“We approached it very slowly and started exploring the wreck, our fear subsided and that’s when we really started enjoying ourselves,” relates Khizar. “And we did limited penetration — as much as we could.”

There was a lot of coral formation on the wreck as well. This indicated that the tugboat had sunk a long time ago. But that wasn’t the only wildlife they saw on or around the wreck — there were schools of baby yellow-tailed barracuda, quite a few banner fish, angel fish, stone fish and … to the delight (and caution) of the divers, very large groupers.

“There was one sitting inside one of the doors,” says Khizar. “The mouth alone was probably around six-seven inches big. I looked at it and instantly was on my guard — if the mouth is that big, then how big is the fish? So, I backed off.”

They’re almost 100 feet deep in the middle of the open sea, far away from land and from the usual diving spots. At any point, were they afraid? “There was the fear that we might bump into a sharp edge of the wreck and get injured,” related Khizar. “We’re 27m deep and to quickly surface from this depth is like … maut ke mounh mein jaana. It’s not so simple to ascend from this depth [you have to do decompression stops to allow excess nitrogen to escape from your body]. We’re not in some kind of Hollywood film.”

How did it feel after they surfaced from the dive? “We couldn’t stop smiling,” says Khizar, with a twinkle in his eyes. It’s evident that even remembering the dive brings him back to the wonder of the experience. “We couldn’t believe what had just happened. Even now when I look at the footage, I am baffled, did we really experience all of this ourselves?”

Have they tried going back to that same wreck? “Yes,” says Khizar. “After one week, with a few other friends. We went to the same coordinates, but we didn’t find the wreck. The sea was too rough and the visibility was all gone.”

“Two of us went down to 20m (65.6feet) to scout for the wreck. The visibility was so bad that both of us divers had to hold each other’s shoulder to stay together — we could barely see the light from our torches.”

They’re going to have to wait for that once-in-a-lifetime window when natural elements would come together to create the perfect diving conditions to try again. For now, the wreck and its tragedy, majesty and wonder remain elusive.

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 23rd, 2018