JT - What is your attraction to wreck diving and history?

WD - Exploring the unknown, finding out out past history, unlocking secrets of the sea and bringing a story to life either by a magazine article or a video production. Some of my favorite wreck dives around the world include:

St. Catherine
The wreck site I dived on was that of the 'St. Catherine' a Flemish vessel from the Spanish Netherlands which was wrecked carrying munitions, men and possibly 'money' from King Philip II of Spain to the Earl of Errol during his Counter-Reformation rising of 1594-95. We only found the odd bit of old timber buried in the sand. In 1840 two cannon were raised and more in 1855 and 1876.

HMS Pandora
From then I have dived on the remains of ships and aircraft off the Philippines, Vanuatu, Solomons, Australia ( I spent six weeks on the site of HMS Pandora wrecked in 1791 off the far north coast of Queensland. She was carrying mutineers from the 'Bounty'. She lay in 130 feet and I dived with my assistant twice a day filming
for a 50 minute documentary.

Umbria - Port Sudan, Red Sea
Other sites include New Zealand, USA, Eygpt and best of all the 'Umbria" off Port Sudan in the Red Sea. An Italian ship, first explored by Hans Hass and made famous in his book "Under The Red Sea". 491 feet long and 59 feet wide she lies on her side with her starboard davits sticking out of the water. At 50 feet is one of her massive propellers. She was carrying cargo of munitions and cement, tiles and other odds and ends. On June 12, 1940 she was taken over by the British when Italy entered the war. The opened the ship's seacocks and denied the British a good prize. Jean and I spent three months in the Sudan working for the Sudanese Tourist Authority and visited the "Umbria" when possible. With our supplied Zodiac and a run of a few miles out from Port Sudan in usually calm seas it was an easy dive location. The visibility
was always over 100 feet, good fish life and no another diver's on the wreck, except when we took a East German's vessels Captain and another diver to dive the wreck in exchange for some real European food! It was a diver's paradise.

Cousteau's Underwater Village 1963
This was an underwater "village" set underwater at Sha'ab Rumi or Roman Reef. It was in 33ft on a terrace that soon dropped off into very deep water. The site was called 'Conshelf Two'. Today all that remains is the undersea hangar/garage for the little jet-propelled DS-2 saucer-shaped submarine. The undersea research divers lived in the specially constructed main building and worked up to five hours a day to a depth of 90ft and were to attempt to spend a month continuously submerged and working in and out of "Conshelf Two". The full story can be found in the book "World Without Sun" by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. A film was also produced.

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