National Flag Underwater

BY MARIAM WAHBA 

The university’s Scuba Diving Club placed a 25 x 2.5 meter Egyptian national flag under the Red Sea in Hurghada, earning the title of the largest national flag to be placed under water in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Guinness reviewers took 6-12 weeks to thoroughly examine and register the record; the team then received a confirmation that the submission has been accepted and is being processed.

The Outreach Program of the School of Sciences and Engineering, which the Scuba Diving Club is a part of, organized the process.

Alaa Ibrahim, director of the Outreach Program which the Scuba Diving Club is part of, realized that the diving trip would take place during the winter break and would overlap with January 25th.

The club therefore decided to place the flag underwater to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the revolution.

“The club also intended to promote and support ecotourism by raising awareness about the unique marine life in the Red Sea, ” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim added that he had an immense feeling of pride, primarily for two reasons.

“First for putting the largest national flag underwater and for the successful implantation of the plan among the team of divers,” he said.

The group of divers included members of the university’s diving club, which includes undergraduate and graduate students.

Faculty, staff, alumni, diving instructors and high school students were also involved.

Yasmine Tawfik, a graduate student and a member of the diving club said that placing the national flag in what she described as a beautiful location made her feel proud to be an Egyptian.

“Being in the middle of the Red Sea and holding the national flag with other Egyptian teammates was indescribable,” she said.

Abdelrahman ElGhannam, an undeclared student and one of Tawfik’s undergraduate teammates, said that he is proud to have played a role in such a historical moment.

Nancy Shawkat, Ibrahim’s assistant, said she was instantly excited by the possibility of breaking a world record by doing something patriotic, and she offered her help.

Despite financial restrictions, Shawkat managed to provide the flag, which took around a week to make.

To reference the flag’s size, the team photographed it via Google Maps and Google Earth from the AUC library garden and the John D. Gerhart Field Station in El Gouna.

The team faced some difficulties in successfully carrying out their plan. “[These issues included] color absorption by sea water and also braving the underwater current to make the flag straight and leveled at the same depth,” Ibrahim said.

The divers also could not talk underwater and therefore had to rely on divers’ sign language.

They had to work together to complete the mission, which required them to descend to the sea floor together and resurface together.

“We prepared well and the team did a great job working coherently and controlling the flag well underwater,” Ibrahim said.

Although the AUC Scuba Diving Club was only launched last August, Tarek Shawki, dean of the School of Sciences and Engineering said that its popularity is growing rapidly.

“In the last four months of 2013 alone, 24 members learned to scuba dive and received their international scuba diving license, issued by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors – the organization that standardizes and safeguards the practice of scuba diving worldwide,” Shawki said.

Shawki also said that programs such as that which the Scuba Diving Club operates under extends the educational and cultural mission of the university toward the society above and beyond the formal channels.

The AUC diving club is a community outreach unit under the Outreach Program of the School of Sciences and Engineering that is open to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members.

The club runs a program that promotes awareness and appreciation of the ecosystems of the planet and helps preserve the unique coral reef and marine life in Egypt’s Red Sea.

Ibrahim said that the Scuba Diving Club will continue to carry out similar plans in the future.

“We will take the flag to unique [diving] sites and to the maximum depth of recreational diving, which is 40 meters,” he said.

He added that they will participate in environmental sustainability activities such as classification and monitoring of marine life and coral reefs.