Tag Archive
British War Graves
We live in a comparatively free society in the UK. We can park on double-yellow lines, smuggle in more than our Duty-Free allowance, smoke illicit material and even cheat on our Income Tax returns; that is until we get caught. During a summer in the early1980s I had a project in Yorkshire and, living just north of London, I found that I could easily commute if I travelled in the early morning. I drove my exotic sports car at high speed up the M1 each day, leaving at 4.00am, and rarely saw another vehicle on the road. I drove so quickly it was like low level flying without actually leaving the ground. It was also illegal. On the fourth day I was ambushed by a group of police patrol cars that lay in wait, one with a radar gun and the others to block the road. They had clocked me at 140mph. Later in Court, I pleaded guilty and walked away with the opportunity to get a new driving license. I certainly didn’t try to prove that the law was wrong and that I was perfectly safe driving at that speed at that time of day. The law is the law. For many years, in Spain, one had to get permission from the Navy to use scuba equipment. In Greece, if you were merely found to be in possession of scuba equipment on your boat, the vessel was liable to confiscation. These laws were very inconvenient but those that chose not to abide by them had only themselves to blame when they got caught. Thankfully things there have changed for the better. Now there may be some British laws that people disagree with. The subject of wrecks listed as protected War Graves might be one of them. We all know that the lost souls have... More »
New World Record!
I was in the Bahama Islands in the late 1960’s. I had just awakened my mania for Scuba and decided that Going Diving was I wanted to do with my life. I was glowing with the excitement of self-discovery when I was confronted with the shocking news that two local divers had died trying to break the World Depth Record for Scuba Diving on Air. I seem to remember they were diving out of Small Hope Bay on Andros Island. The team of three had successfully completed previous practice dives to record depths and were ready for the officially sanctioned Record Dive to make them the World Record holders. Just hearing of the attempt got me thinking weird thoughts. I had just been studying partial pressures of gasses, and learned that their medical effect changed as the partial pressures increased. Nitrogen became narcotic and produced “Rapture of the Deep” – Nitrogen Narcosis. Oxygen at a high enough partial pressure became toxic and could produce out-of-control muscular spasms. The gases in air become poisonous with increasing depth. It seemed to me that what these divers were actually doing was equivalent to seeing how much Arsenic they could take before they would die. Pretty stupid, I thought, what is the point? And more than that, what organisation could possibly sanction such a record. Would it qualify for the Guinness Book of Records? But these divers claimed they had developed special techniques that prevented them from getting poisoned, something to do with ice packs and... More »
Wruck Diving in the Philippines
When Ben Davison first approached me about writing a blog for Undercurrent my first thought was "Great, I can write a puff piece about my organization, Seacology, for my favorite dive magazine." But then I channeled the voice of my friend and fellow blogger Bret Giliam saying "Duane, first write about an interesting dive adventure before you discuss Seacology. You've led dive trips all over the world. Write about that." Okay, Brett, I hear you. If readers want to know about Seacology they can read Bret's article of several years ago in Fathoms. Instead I will take this opportunity to write about the wonderful wruck (no, that's not a typo) diving of Coron Bay in the Philippines. During World War II, the Japanese anchored a fleet of ships in Coron Bay, 180 miles southwest of Manila. The ships were well camouflaged and covered with trees so that they would resemble islands. While comparing aerial reconnaissance photos taken at different times, a very perceptive navy analyst realized that several of Coron Bay's "islands" had moved. Orders for an air strike on this Japanese fleet went out and U.S. Hellcat bombers on carriers based 350 miles away soon took off for Coron Bay. Since the bombers had to cover a very long distance before they reached Coron, their time over the Bay before running out of fuel was extremely limited. Some say their actual mission lasted no more than twenty minutes, but in that brief time the entire Japanese fleet was wiped out. Coron Bay now has eleven diveable wrecks, including some, such as the Tae Maru oil tanker, that are over 500 feet long. Most of the dives are somewhere between 30 and 120 feet deep and several of the wrecks still have construction supplies in their holds and anti-aircraft guns on... More »
WRECK DIVING: A Diver’s Adventure
Most people have a romantic image of the sunken treasure ship sitting upright on her keel with tattered sails still creaking in the current and brass bound chests straining with booty. Well, reality is a bit less dramatic. The classic 16th and 17th century vessels sailing to the New World laden with riches were, of course, of wooden construction. Once sunk they quickly deteriorated due to wave action and other natural elements such as destructive marine teredo worms which fed on the primary wood structure. Those who have been successful in locating and salvaging these vessels have usually spent years researching logs and voyage records to determine the wreck location. Since the wrecks themselves were long buried under sand or coral there was typically no evidence to the divers' naked eye of a lost vessel. Tedious excavation of tons of sand, sediment, and debris was necessary before any cargo could be accessed. As diving wrecks, these older ships offered little in the way of interest unless one was a committed treasure hunter with a considerable war chest of funding. Even then your odds of success were better in the state lottery. [caption id="attachment_971" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="WWII wreck in Solomon Islands after seven decades at depth "][/caption] Although some modern wooden ships are remarkably well preserved in fresh water environments such as the Great Lakes, as a general rule steel vessels have provided divers with the most intriguing wreck diving sites. These ships are better able to withstand the ravages of time and in many cases can survive over a hundred years of entombment while remaining virtually intact. A classic example is the wreck of the Royal Mail Steamer RHONE sunk in 1867 off Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands. Although her stern section sank in 15 to 45 feet of water... More »
The Navigator’s Grandson
Back in the early 1970s I visited Palau for the first time and was killing time in Guam on my way back to the Virgin Islands when I bumped into an ex-Navy diver I had done submarine diving work with in the Caribbean earlier in 1971. I had yanked him out of a few tight spots in our diving projects and he insisted that I join him aboard a commercial freighter where he had recently signed on as one of the Merchant Marine officers and was serving as Third Mate. This was before the days that Guam's main beaches on the north shore were lined with luxury hotels and I was facing a grim layover at a flophouse with more roaches than guests. I couldn't have afforded a decent hotel then even if one had existed, so I quickly accepted his invitation to dinner aboard and a berth for a few days while they took on cargo. Over dinner in the officer's mess that evening, he mentioned that one of their first ports of call was the main island of Weno in Truk Lagoon. Being a WWII history buff, I was well aware of the epic battle termed Operation Hailstorm that sunk over 80 Japanese vessels as well as nearly 250 aircraft in February 1944. It was now coming up on the 30th anniversary of that battle and, without much hope of success, I asked if I could accompany the ship there to have a chance to do a bit of exploring. Luck was with me and the captain welcomed having another licensed Merchant Marine officer aboard since they were short-handed and I evened out the watch sections. I volunteered for 0400-0800 bridge watch that nobody wanted and we cast off for Truk after two nights in port. This was also before... More »
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