Team of divers dive deep to locate unexplored wrecks of the UAE

When it comes to choosing exotic destinations for scuba diving holidays, most divers choose the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Australia or South East Asia, but scuba diving in the Middle East is a popular choice for people looking to discover unexplored wrecks and diving sites.

One group of scuba divers from Dubai has been working on an exotic scuba diving project that will see them discover and film every shipwreck in the deep waters stretching along the Gulf of Oman from the coast of Fujairah up to Musandam.

One of the divers, Nick van der Walt, from New Zealand, said: "It's just an absolute blast when you see one of the wrecks. You go down and you go through these layers of water and then you get a dark layer of plankton, and you go through that and then it's like a theatre curtain opening as you look down on the wreck with the divers' torch beams flashing across it."

The project was launched in 2009 by the team leader, Bill Leeman, and the group of divers are required to dive deeper than where standard scuba diving breathing equipment can usually take them, to depths of approximately 100 metres below the ocean’s surface. The divers use special technical diving skills, a mix of helium, oxygen and nitrogen gases, and complex diving equipment to reach these wrecks.

Mr Leeman, a British engineer and trained technical diving instructor, explained: "Currently there are five brand new wrecks that had never been dived before, which we've dived, and there are three or four left that we haven't found yet.

"When you're the first one to see one of these wrecks, and to physically touch it, it's fantastic. You've achieved something, you've found it, you've dived it, and then everybody can go after you."

The group is made up of 12 divers who are all members of the Desert Sports Diving Club which is the Dubai branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club. The group also works closely with the Coastal Technical Divers and Scuba Dubai.

One of the team divers, Ali Fikree, is keen to put the undiscovered underwater wrecks on the map so that it will highlight the part that the Middle East played in World War II, while promoting the region as one of the top scuba diving destinations in the world.

Mr Fikree is planning to explore the wreck of the German U- 533 boat which was first discovered by Mr Leeman, to carry out a full survey.

"If you type WW2 and the UAE into a search engine nothing much comes up, and hopefully the survey will change that and basically broaden the history," said Mr Fikree.

"Something I really want to do is contribute to the historical side, that's been my biggest aim for quite a while. Hopefully there is going to be a World War II chapter written into all the history books and that will become part of the UAE's heritage and history."