UTD MIDDLE EAST
AND EGYPT –
MO, FAISAL, ALAIN, SAAD, ANDREA
by UTD Instructor Mo Hammoud
When you think of the Middle East,
you might think, ‘desert.’ iI you are
hungry, ‘hummus and falafel.’ And,
of course, all the terrifying thoughts
about the Middle East gathered from
the media. Diving, however, is surely
not the first thing to come to mind.
Diving in the region has been an integral part of a very large community
that stretches along the coastlines of
Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Northern
Egypt, the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf
including Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE,
Oman and the KSA covering a huge
geographical area.
UTD Instructors Mo Hammoud (left) and Saad Rizk.
History
Some historians time the birthplace of skilled diving to when Alexander the Great used divers to build the underwater foundations of the causeway needed for the siege of the Phoenician
island of Tyre, currently in the South of Lebanon.
The Phoenicians, however, proved to be as competent, ‘Thinking
Divers”, worthy of the challenge by diving during the nights and succeeding in destroying the Great General’s meticulously engineered
constructions, leaving behind no traces, only confusion. The 1km
causeway took 8 months to build and the siege only succeeded with
the help of the naval fleet that was sent from Egypt in support of Alexander, or so the story goes.
The siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great.