With depth and darkness to contend with, anyone's first dive on the Empress of India could be a confusing experience. However, by diving the Hood a few times first to learn the general layout a dive on the Empress can be much more rewarding.With depth and darkness to contend with, anyone's first dive on the Empress of India could be a confusing experience. However, by diving the Hood a few times first to learn the general layout a dive on the Empress can be much more rewarding.
The bows point to the north-east and are largely intact, but about two thirds of the way to the stern the wreck has been cracked right open for salvage of the engine room and machinery.
Forward from the break in the hull, galleries run either side of the wreck below the gun barbettes in a similar way to the layout of the Hood. Wreck penetration here is a very serious undertaking. With fine silt banked in the compartments, fewer exits and 48 metres depth it is not a venture to be made lightly. The prize for such a dive is to swim along rows of intact portholes hinged open into wreck.
If wreck penetration is not your thing, the starboard side of the hull rests in the silt, but the port side of the wreck is more accessible with open portholes and gun ports visible and various fittings jumbled against the hull and the seabed.
Towards the bows it is possible to follow the seabed beneath the open deck to the base of the main gun barbette, before making your way up to the keel and releasing a decompression buoy to ascend.
Whilst it is possible to dive the Empress of India and decompress on air, the growth of technical diving has led to most divers at least decompressing on nitrox for such dives.