With shafts of sunlight shimmering through a few metres of crystal clear water, you can pick out the cornerstones of an ancient civilisation which inspired literature and legend.

There is more than a whiff of Atlantis about the story of Pavlopetri - the world’s oldest submerged town.

But the Bronze Age site has its roots in fact not fiction.

New underwater archaeology techniques - with sonar mapping used by the military and off-shore oil industry - are giving up new secrets.

An international team, given special permission to dive by the Greek government, has found artefacts on the sea bed dating back 5,000 years.

This fresh information puts the world’s oldest submerged town well over a millennium older than previously thought.

Dr Jon Henderson led a team from the University of Nottingham and said the expedition surpassed all expectations.

“This site is unique in that we have almost the complete town plan, the main streets and domestic buildings, courtyards, rock-cut tombs and what appear to be religious buildings, clearly visible on the seabed.

“Equally as a harbour settlement, the study of the archaeological material we have recovered will be extremely important in terms of revealing how maritime trade was conducted and managed in the Bronze Age.”

One of the most important discoveries has been what is believed to be a large rectangular great hall, known as a “Megaron”, from the early Bronze Age period.

They have also found more than 9,000sq m of new buildings, including a pillar crypt, which could be the first example ever discovered on the Greek mainland.

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture’s Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities is overseeing the work.

Official Elias Spondylis said: “It is a rare find and it is significant because, as a submerged site, it was never re-occupied and therefore represents a frozen moment of the past.

The team had a warm reception from local people, who were excited about the project and sense an important part of Greek history and culture would soon be returned to them.

The Mayor of Neopolis, Pavlopetri’s nearest neighbour, Jannis Kousoulis, has become one the the dive team’s most enthusiastic supporters. He hoped the new work will raise the whole region’s profile as a place for culture and tourism.

Archaeological co-ordinator for the Pavlopetri project is Dr Chrysanthi Gallou, a post-doctoral research fellow at The University of Nottingham and an expert in Aegean Prehistory.

Dr Gallou said: “The new ceramic finds form a complete and exceptional corpus of pottery covering all sub-phases from the Final Neolithic period (mid 4th millennium BC) to the end of the Late Bronze Age (1100 BC).

“In addition, the interest from the local community in Laconia has been fantastic.

“The investigation at Pavlopetri offers a great opportunity for them to be actively involved in the preservation and management of the site, and subsequently for the cultural and touristic development of the wider region.”

The team has also been joined by Dr Nicholas Flemming, a marine geo-archaeologist from the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Southampton.

He discovered the site in 1967 and returned the following year with a team from Cambridge University to carry out the first ever survey of the submerged town.

Using just snorkels and tape measures they produced a detailed plan of the prehistoric town which consisted of at least 15 separate buildings, courtyards, streets, two chamber tombs and at least 37 graves. Despite the potential international importance of Pavlopetri no further work was carried out at the site until this year.

The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeology Project 2009 is at the start of a five-year study of the site which aims to define the history and development of Pavlopetri.

Four more fieldwork seasons are planned before their research is published in full in 2014.

Recent news releases from IANTD drew our attention to yet another in depth book from Tom Mount. The news release said.

“Tom Mount, D. Sc., Ph.D., N.D. is a diving pioneer in cave diving, deep diving, mixed gas diving, rebreather diving and wreck diving. His career also includes saturation diving, supervision of saturation diving, scientific diving and 50 years of diving leadership. While reviewing accidents in adventure sports, Tom became interested in why some survive difficult challenges while others perish in more simple predicaments, which led him to research survival mechanisms. It is apparent that the psychological and mental outlook as well as the physiological and physical demands contributes to who lives and who dies in critical situations. EXPLORATION & MIXED GAS DIVING ENCYCLOPEDIA, THE TAO OF SURVIVAL UNDERWATER addresses these issues. Joseph Dituri, M.S., is an avid rebreather, wreck and undersea explorer who pushes the technical edge of diving. A Navy Diving and Salvage Officer by trade, he continually seeks to improve his knowledge of deep diving and share his discoveries with others. Joe’s initiative has spurred changes in the way that conventional and military diving is being accomplished. He is the CEO of the Association for Marine Exploration, which conducts and facilitates innovative scientific exploration of undersea environments often in the twilight zone. While being responsible for the safety of others, Joseph developed an understanding of the physical and mental skills it takes to survive as a diver. His objective to share this knowledge is fulfilled in the pages of EXPLORATION & MIXED GAS DIVING ENCYCLOPEDIA, THE TAO OF SURVIVAL UNDERWATER. Tom Mount and Joseph Dituri are widely published and have written or contributed to numerous books, papers and many of the IANTD training materials. IANTD materials are located at www.IANTD.com and are available in your local IANTD Dive Shop. Tom & Joseph thank the expert contributors in their individual and collective areas for making this the definitive reference for How To Survive in Exploration Diving.”

So we thought it would be worth the hundred dollars (plus shipping) to order the manual for all the eager readers here at Big Blue Tech .

Our early attempts to get it shipped from America to Thailand were futile, so we had a third party order it from Canada and later ship it to us.

A few weeks later a large box arrived in the office looking in surprisingly good condition considering the distance traveled.

The sheer weight of the book is impressive. At almost 400 A4 glossy color pages the book rivaled every other book on our shelves taking first place in “the big book category” previously held by DAN ‘Deeper into diving’ on our bookcase..

First impressions when looking on the cover reveal that Tom Mount (the author) has a lot of friends who have been through a fair bit of education with several abbreviations at the end of their name. Our last most impressive book, the DAN Deeper Into Diving had the name “Richard E. Moon MD, FRCPC, FACP, FCCP” and that was a good read.

As we flipped through the pages we found over saturated reds and purples, with photo’s of 1980’s technical divers in pink and orange wetsuits proving a bit unsettling. If you had read any of Tom Mounts previous books like “Technical Diver Student Workbook for the Technical Diver & Normoxic Trimix Diver” you would be used to this style of presentation. Despite having read his previous work we thought twice about showing it to people as a representation of the new and emerging community of technical divers who prefer things simple, streamlined and certainly not pink.

Despite the books unique layout and color the content is amazingly rich in theory covering all theoretical aspects from physiology in great length, psychological aspects, decompression models and decompression sickness. I’ve stressed the word theoretical because beyond theory there’s nothing necessarily practical about the book, failing to expand or explain the technical function of things. At one point, the book begins to describe fins and other general equipment which climaxes with a one paragraph mention of a CCR and then moves on to Daltons Law (theory). When I gave this to someone who was thinking of getting into technical diving it simply confused them and overwhelmed them. I realize this book is designed for the more advanced technical diver but it could of been toned down a bit to appeal to a broader audience.

We continued to read through the content to see what was added further, instead of the essential ground works education and we found a lovely little section on meditation where the author demonstrates how he’s a Grand Master and uses Qi Gong to build energy. At that point we were lost…completely lost. The chapter that held this obscure section was referred to as physical fitness which would lead someone to think there would be practical (opposite of theoretical) examples of building physical strength for technical diving. There were examples like “eat right, exercise and get good sleep” but there were also the more disturbing “Chase, Age 8, Ha(s) received special energy training exercises from grand master mount in order to - force tom backwards when pressing against a knife”, so basically Tom is putting knives to the throat of 8 year old and having them push him away using only their Qi Gong’ness, maybe his next book should read “how to repel old men with sticks and knives with your throat” and put only theoretical information about scuba diving in it, image below.

Now I’m not knocking the power of the spiritual world, i beleive there’s a lot there to be discovered but I think there should be books then. The practical guide to surviving technical diving and one which is more theoretical.

The one saving grace about this book is you can always pick it up and learn something you had forgotten or simply overlooked. Additionally, the expedition chapter is a very good section with some helpful planning tips for people wanting to do their own expeditions in the future.

Looking at the back of the book is quite revealing when reading about the contributors and realizing that the authors of this book also wrote many “bibles” used in the technical diving community today. These other books may be black and white and very old but a lot of the methods used 30 years ago are still taught today.

I think the book should be labeled clearer for future people who can’t read it first or see a preview of it’s content because this book is not essential nor should be considered an encyclopedia for everyone. Additionally those who would consider this book a great source of information and a rich resource probably already know much of what’s being said inside. Those who don’t already know the things inside would probably get confused quite early on.

This leaves us to still refer to the DAN Deeper into Diving as the true encyclopedia of technical diving as a reference and resource for true survival.

Exploration and Mixed Gas Diving Encyclopedia; The Tao of Survival Underwater can be bought at http://www.iantd.com/

Big Blue Tech has a lot of compressors, in fact we have 8 in different places around thailand from a small portable gas powered one for expeditions to a compressor so big it takes 10 people to move it. Many would think they’re not all needed but when one breaks it causes panic and mayhem around the dive resort.

Recently one of our older compressors decided he had enough of his life pumping gas and committed suicide. It was touch and go as the compressor doctors debated about putting him out to pasture or fixing him. It was decided to let the compressor go and replace him with a new one. The compressor that passed on had been with the school for over 15 years and was the first compressor ever to be bought at Big Blue.

The new one is a Bauer 250 with the “state of the art” P41 filter (basically more filter for the air) and it’s one of the new toys added to the collection of bells and whistles.

Additionally Christos returned from Singapore with his Amphibico Underwater Housing which looks very serious indeed. Christos claims its the housing the BBC and National Geographic used before HD moved on the scene.

Locating the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 is not easy: The plane fell hundreds of miles away from any coast, in an area where ocean depths vary from 2,800 to 15,000 feet. To make matters worse, pinging signals emitted by the data boxes are expected to stop in less than two weeks.

And nobody knows if the boxes have been damaged in the crash, which could make recovery impossible.

Source

A U.S. nuclear warhead was abandoned under the ice in northern Greenland after a B52 bomber crashed in 1968, an investigation has found.

The Pentagon believed the former Soviet Union would destroy the base as a prelude to a nuclear strike against the U.S. and began flying nuclear-armed B52s continuously over Thule in 1960 in order to retaliate.

Thule Air Base has been a major strategic asset to the U.S. since it was built in the early 1950s, as it allowed a radar to scan the skies for missiles fired over the North Pole.

A B52 bomber carrying four nuclear warheads crashed close to Thule U.S. air base in Greenland, with only three of the bombs recovered

Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark, but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret, according to the BBC investigation.

On January 21, 1968, one of the missions went wrong and a bomber crashed into the ice a few miles from the air base.

Military personnel, Greenlanders and Danish workers rushed to the scene to help.

Over the next few months a massive operation took place to recover the debris of the aircraft and collect 500million gallons of ice, some of which contained radioactive wreckage from the bomber.

A declassified U.S. government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some ideas of the scale of the operation.

Explosives surrounding the four nuclear warheads had detonated, but had not set off the bombs themselves because they had not been armed by the aircraft crew.

A nuclear warhead lies abandoned under thick ice in Iceland, despite Pentagon insistence that all warheads had been destroyed. File photo

The Pentagon had maintained that all four weapons had been ‘destroyed’, but declassified documents obtained by the BBC under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal investigators realised only three of the weapons could be accounted for.

One talks of a blackened section of ice which had refrozen with shroud lines from a weapon parachute.

The document reads: ‘Speculate something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.’

By April, a decision had been taken to send a Star III submarine to the base to look for the lost bomb, which had the serial number 78252, but the Danish government was not informed of the real reason behind the mission.

One document from July reads: ‘Fact that this operation includes search for object or missing weapon part is to be treated as confidential NOFORN’, the last word meaning not to be disclosed to any foreign country.

It states that the operation should be referred to Danish officials as a survey of the ocean bottom underneath the impact point.

The U.S flew B52s over Iceland continuously as it feared a nuclear attack by Russians

But the underwater search was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the documents recount something approaching panic setting in.

The abandoned weapons contained uranium and plutonium and could have revealed classified elements of nuclear warhead design. Eventually the search was abandoned, with officials believing the radioactive material would dissolve in such a large body of water, making it harmless.

William H Chambers, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, told the BBC: ‘There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components.

‘It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn’t find them.’

A nuclear scientist has told the Daily Mail: ‘We really don’t know what has happened to this bomb.

‘It’s not going to explode but the possibility remains of very large contamination with all of the dangers that involves.’

Tomorrow after noon we’ll be supporting 60 divers cleaning the underwater area around the main peir. By providing a crew of 3 technical divers we can be on the boat available to help lift the big, dangerous or cumbersome items with our lift bags and expertise.

After the cleanup there will be a party at Vibe with a raffle for several different prizes from courses to equipment. We’ve donated a free Discover Technical Dive and a PADI Enriched Air Diver Specialty (without dives).

You can sign up in the dive shop to volunteer to help clean up our local environment.