The Loss of the Hey Daroma: On the night of 3 September 1970, the Hey Daroma sailed from Eilat with a cargo of water and later struck a reef near Nabq. All the crew were safely rescued. There were several attempts to refloat the vessel before she was eventually abandoned as a constructive total loss. At some time, the ship eventually slipped off the reef and was reported as being upside down at a depth of 18-20m. In 1996, the much larger (26,181 grt) Million Hope struck the same reef and came to rest on top of the Hey Daroma.
Diving the Hey Daroma: Today, very little of this ship is now left. Her bows are still found on top of the reef a few metres in front of the Million Hope. Swimming down the bows of the Million Hope to the seabed, the diver should follow a course toward the stern of the much larger vessel between ship and reef. After some distance, some crushed wreckage will be found. This is all that remains of the Hey Daroma.
Postscript: During one of my visits to the Million Hope I was in company with a fellow diver from Scotland and showed him an original photograph of the Hey Daroma. He immediately recognised the ship as a former Scottish outer-islands ferry. He informed me he used to board this ship every morning in order to attend school on the Scottish mainland!
Ned Middleton is an award-winning, best selling author. For more information about this and other shipwrecks found within the Egyptian sector of the Red Sea, his book “Shipwrecks from the Egyptian Red Sea” (ISBN 1898162719 and 1905492162) is readily available. This book was declared “Underwater Publication of the Year” for 2007.