Shipwrecks of the Egyptian Red Sea by Peter Collings, Peter likes to think he knows the Red Sea. His biography goes back further than some of that sea's recent history. For example, he was a passenger on the liveaboard mv Lady Jenny V as she stood by when the mv Giannis D went down. He has devoted 20 years to diving the wrecks found in the Red Sea and in that time has accrued much information and taken quite a few photos. So what to do with it all?
In 1996 he published a book called Shipwrecks of the Egyptian Red Sea. It was very much a DIY job and he printed only 1000 copies. Then, he says, the printer disappeared with the original artwork! It has taken him this amount of time to track it down. The latest version is along the same lines as the original but with a colour section.
For anyone who has dived these wrecks, it makes a very interesting read. Collings has covered all the sites that any diver is likely to visit on a typical liveaboard trip. In many cases there are contemporary photographs or illustrations of the original vessels, plus primitive illustrations by the author of the wrecks as they are now.
Maps of the locations are a little "unfinished" too, and the quality of the colour photographs rather variable. This is a problem with doing it all yourself. Obviously Peter Collings did not have the budget to spend on bringing in people with skills to collaborate with him on this production.
He did not apparently have the advantages of a second pair of eyes on the text, either. But at least he can claim that it's all his own work.
He has also become a little blinkered about some of the facts he originally got wrong in the first edition. However, if you expect nothing more than information delivered in the manner of a sophisticated dive briefing, you won't be disappointed.