By David Baker. Photo by Justin Smith.
The nose of the Boston Whaler dips into the trough of the wave for a stomach-dropping second. The crew and divers now face a wall of water topped by the frothing curl of a break. They ride up so steeply that the boat seems about to topple backward. The pilot, Mohammad, guns the throttle, charges over the top and slips down the other side.
Before they can catch their breath, he circles back to make another run at dropping anchor on the windward side of the stack of coral jutting from the ocean floor just below the surface. This reef called Shib Nazar is located off the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, and it’s the first structure these waves have met after rolling across hundreds of kilometers of open water. No wonder they’re angry.
Mohammad somehow manages to anchor just short of where the waves pound the reef’s outer wall. Four Oregon State University divers in back of the boat hurriedly strap on weight belts and hoist heavy tanks onto their shoulders. They eye each other nervously as the craft bucks over the swells.