Certified TDI technical diver explores Thailand’s wrecks

Koh Tao, Thailand

Big Blue Tech has been providing experience dives to Nick Andrianov, an experienced TDI Trimix Diver who joins us from Hong Kong on a brief holiday and diving trip. Nick has been diving with us all week getting dives in some caves, caverns and most recently on our small wreck in one of the confined bays on Koh Tao.

During his week stay Nick will be exploring all the dive sites Koh Tao has to offer and taking a trip to the Unicorn Wreck on a wreck wednesday trip hosted by a local technical liveaboard.

Nick received one on one leadership from our in house technical divemaster team. This is the first time Nick has dived in Thailand and enjoyed diving without large crowds, which made us wonder how it must be diving where he’s been!

One of the busiest months on Koh Tao starts off with a bang.

Koh Tao, Thailand - Big Blue Tech was very busy today with the combined effort of most staff working around the clock with different activites.

Dean Jenkins was out taking the divemaster interns out for a dive on one of our local wrecks and tooks some time out for some diving in tech gear. Ash and Andrew were working together to complete a Search and Recovery Specialty for Felix including search patterns, lift bags, knot tying and scenarios. Helen is teaching advanced level courses and spent most of the day in tech gear and analyzing nitrox.Thomas was out on the rebreather. Duncan and James had the day off so played football on the beach.

This might not seem very hectic but tomorrow is the start of a tech course from beginner to extended range followed by more technical diving leading up to a trip at the end of the month.

Tec divers locate and dive on a shipwreck that has been missing for over one year.

Koh Tao, Thailand - In April of 2009 a wooden overnight ferry that would transport passengers and goods from Koh Tao Island to Chumphon City sank in rough waves and strong wind. The boat sank slowly allowing all the occupants to be rescued.

In May of 2009 a group of individuals contacted big blue tech to conduct a search for the wreck in an attempt to identify it as a potential artificial reef which was completed after warm-up training. However, due to technological limitations the wreck wasn’t found at the position reported.

In Christmas of 2009 it was reported that fishermen were catching their drag nets on something big under the water. The position was logged with their GPS as an area to avoid in the future and this information was passed down to the technical divers who have been looking for information in that area.

Today staff from Big Blue Tech set out on the sea early in the morning armed with GPS and a type of sonar that shows the topography of the sea bed to find the lost nightboat. The staff members included Helen Artal. Duncan Tyler, Thomas Hallstrom, Yvonne Fries and James Thornton-Allan worked as a team relaying information from the sonar to the GPS to the captain as we got closer.

Unfortunately the information we received was not accurate again and the GPS mark was showing nothing. After 30 minutes of searching the sonar bleeped showing the depth which was a constant 40m raise up to 27m about 1 kilometer away from all reports of the sinking. This was clearly what we were looking for, after a few more sweeps the shot line was thrown in and James set off to make the confirmation.

As James descended the divers waited on the surface waiting for the signal that there was a wreck below and that the rest of the team should descend. The signal would be a bright orange air bag  that would float on the surface after filled with a small amount of air from below. After what seemed like an eternity the bag broke the surface along with cheers and applause.

The wreck is sitting perfectly upright in the silt, the stern is completely covered in fishing nets which appears to have ripped of the top roof exposing one floor. The length and width hasn’t been measured yet but it’s estimated at 30m long in length with plenty of room for penetration.

Without knowing the actual name of this boat we have named this large blue nightboat simply the “Big Blue Wreck”. More information needs to be gathered and a survey to be conducted before the wreck will be opened up to Big Blue Tech customers.

The Sea Chart 1 shipwreck get’s explored by technical divers for the first time

Khao Lak, Thailand - Big Blue Tech conducted accelerated technical dives on the Sea Chart 1 shipwreck on the morning of January 9 2010. The purpose of this dive was to explore the recently sunk shipwreck and expose features to other divers who have been limited by recreational diving rules and restrictions.

Aided by a diving modified longtail the group of technical divers included James Thornton-Allan, Mark Slinn, Matt Payne, Emily Billingham and andy Cavell explored the entire shipwreck in a checkout dive to aid further surveys in the days to come.

The shipwreck lies on it’s starboard side in 40m with it’s highest point at 27m. The wreck itself is a staggering 85m and it feels like crossing a football field when finning from bow to stern.

Big Blue Tech have a strict policy againts removing items from wrecks and therefore didn’t disturb any of the items found on there. However, there were signs of items being removed which can only be recognized if you knew what to look for, items like the ships bell and compass have been removed by either recreational divers before us or the navy divers during their survey.

The next few days would be focused around this shipwreck with 2 dives daily on the 10th, 11th and 12th we will be updating this post with pictures as the dives are completed.

Today Big Blue Tech checked out a new boat that might be part of the Big Blue Diving fleet, bringing our fleet to 7 boats.

The M/V Itsaramai is a sailing boat designed for scuba diving that can accommodate 12 people in their cabins. The vessel has global range providing us the chance to explore long range locations including wrecks and caves.

It’s a real pirates of the Caribbean feeling and you get the immediate essence you are one with the sea even though we only experienced the boat anchored in front of our resort.

One of our new year goals is an exploration to a destination that is littered with caves and caverns but very little exposure. While we can’t speak about this new destination just yet we can offer up Intro to cave and full cave courses for people to join.

Big Blue plans to use the vessel for sailing tours and custom diving trips and occasionally letting us take it hundreds of miles out to sea for weeks on end.

Contact us if you want more information.

Christos Kardana, former tech crew member of Big Blue Tech has put his photo’s online on Flickr for everyone to see.

The majority of his work was composed during diving trips with us to Khao Sok and other diving destinations we ventured over the past 6 months.

On his website he describes his method by saying:

“Utilising multiple cylinders and mixed gas blends, technical diving allows you to dive beyond the standard recreational range. Characterised by extensive equipment requirements, added redundancy and decompression procedures; technical diving allows for exploration of deep water environments, wrecks and caverns.”

His collection can be seen HERE

The remains of hundreds of shipwrecks line the Florida Keys reef tract. Their stories are the history of the Keys.

Some wrecks have been identified, but many have not. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and state archeologist have spent thousands of dollars investigating the wrecks to determine their origin. The remains have become living museums the sanctuary chooses to leave in the waters so divers can enjoy them in their natural state, as opposed to removing them and putting them in a facility on land.

The sanctuary has established a Shipwreck Trail, running from Key West to Key Largo, to showcase the wrecks and educate people on their history and importance.

Sanctuary officials are reminding divers not to take or move anchors, ballast stones and small trinkets found along the reef, as they could be the clues that lead to a wreck being identified.

The reminder comes after sanctuary divers discovered nine Crown patent fuel blocks, a mixture of coals that have been molded into briquettes, stacked on top of each other on a sand patch on Horseshoe Reef off Key Largo in August. Two researchers, who routinely work underwater in that area, observed the newly formed piles of blocks, sanctuary spokeswoman Karrie Carnes said. Sanctuary officials fear someone was trying to take them as souvenirs.

The divers know the blocks could not have been moved by wave action, as they were stacked too perfectly. One pile contained six blocks, with three blocks stacked on top of each other and three additional blocks nearby. Another pile just 10 feet away contained three of the same blocks lying together in the sand.

“While the site may have been impacted by storms and hurricanes over time but nothing except human influence could have created the neat stacks of these artifacts,” said Brenda Altmeier, who works for the sanctuary’s Maritime Heritage Resources Division.

The sanctuary moved the blocks to another area of Horseshoe Reef last month to protect them from further disturbance or theft, Carnes said. They are out of plain sight and protected from surges and other potential environmental impacts.

One of the blocks is on display in the sanctuary’s Upper Keys office.

Sanctuary divers first discovered the blocks and other artifacts on Horseshoe Reef in October 1993. Patent fuel was a means of using small pieces of coal that otherwise would have been wasted. These blocks bear the symbol of the Crown Patent Fuel Works Ltd., formerly of Cardiff, England.

Underwater archeologists suspect the blocks were from the 1894 vessel S.S. Moonstone, Altmeier said. While archeologists have visited the site and collected data to determine its origin, they have not been able to confirm it.

The National Marine Sanctuary Act makes it illegal to disturb a site or recover artifacts without a permit. Movement or disturbance of artifacts could diminish the quantity of potential information that may be obtained from a site, Altmeier said.

“Shipwrecks, as well as the many artifacts located along the Florida Keys, are nonrenewable resources that provide evidence of historical human impacts that have taken place along the Florida Keys for centuries,” Altmeier said. “Removing and/or moving artifacts may cause irreparable damage and potentially inhibit researchers from unlocking questions about past ways of life, historic or legendary events. Each artifact, regardless of its size, can aid in building the story of humankind’s adventure on the sea.”

Keys reefs have seen more than their share of shipwrecks, as captains for generations have struggled to navigate its shallow waters. Each year, archeologists with the State Division of Historical Resources and the sanctuary partner and pick several unidentified wrecks to dive on and collect data from. In the past few years, they have focused their attentions on the remains of three wrecks off Marathon, dubbed only the Rib, Brick and Pin wrecks.

“The wrecks tell us what was going on in transportation, commerce and war,” Division of Historical Resources underwater archeologist Roger Smith said. “These artifacts may seem small and insignificant, but they are a valuable piece of the giant puzzle.”

Source

Thailand is described  as being “the new technical frontier“, Thailand has numerous world class sites for divers of all standards, making it an underwater adventure paradise. Some wrecks still remain unidentified and all sit just as they sank.

Huge freighters, POW ships, drill ships, tankers, munitions carriers and even a US WWII submarine can be counted amongst the historical wrecks littering Thailand.

The Andaman and South China Sea’s, all the wrecks listed have been located over the last five years and are truly untouched. Along with Caves and Caverns that are being discovered every day with untouched decorations and long rewarding penetrations.

The recent discovery of a sunken village in Khao Sok National park and the on going wreck discoveries in the Similan Islands open up Thailand to the technical diving community with more variation of challenges and adventures than any other technical diving destination.

To the right is a list of diving locations we use frequently for trips, training and planned expeditions for certified technical divers. The list is a summary of destinations, for more information about where we’re going and where we’ve been look at our news section and upcoming events.

Chumphon Pinnacle

Location: Koh Tao, Gulf of Thailand

Description: Underwater pinnacle used for training, warm up dives and experience dives. This is also the only place to see sharks large predatory sharks in the region.

Depth: 45 meters

Visibility: 20 - 25 meters (65 - 80 feet)

Rating: ****

Availability: Daily from December to October

Sharks, Sharks and more Sharks. This busy dive destination is used by everyone on Koh Tao. Although not suitable for open water dives since the site starts at 16m this dive site is one of our more accessible deep sites where 50m is found easily.

The main attraction is Bull Sharks, Gray Reef Sharks and Whale Sharks which can be found daily. We use this site for training purposes and for fun technical diving when you just want to watch the sharks go by for hours.

Gulf Of Thailand Wreck Liveaboard

Introduction:

This 3 day technical wreck expedition joins the MV Trident to the HTMS Pangan

These dives are in complete in tropical conditions at 50-60m

Pre Day: Travel from your destination anywhere in Thailand to Koh Tao where the Boat Departs in the evening.

Day 1: 2 Deep Accelerated Decompression Dives

Day 2: 2 Deep Accelerated Decompression Dives

Day 3: 2 Deep Accelerated Decompression Dives - Return Home.

* a optional warm up and check out dive is available if required prior to the trip.

Costs: 40,000 Thai Baht - When Booked Online (course or training not included)

Included:Food, Drink, Accomodation, Boat Fees, Nitrox, Oxygen, Equipment (Regulators, Wing, Backplate)

Not Included: Personal Diving Equipment, Diving Insurance

Water:Salt

Location: Gulf of Thailand

Availability: Montly February to October

Cave and Cavern Expedition

Introduction:

Our 4 day Cave and Cavern Expedition is designed not only for training but also for certified cave and cavern divers.

Pre Day: Travel from your destination anywhere in Thailand to Khao Sok National Park

Day 1: Reel and Line Practice, Jungle Trekking, Relaxing, Swimming

Day 2: 3 Fresh Water Cave or Cavern Dives - Water Fall Tour After

Day 3: 3 Fresh Water Cave or Cavern Dives - Trek to hidden lagoon.

Day 4: 3 Fresh Water Cave or Cavern Dives - Head Home

Costs: 20,000 for certfied divers, to combine with a course see specfic course.

Included:Food, Drink, Accomodation, Transfers, Equipment, Torches, Reels, Park Entrance Fee, Boat Fees

Not Included: Nitrox, Oxygen, Technical Equipment (If Certified)

Water: Fresh

Location: Khao Sok National Park

Availability: Monthly year round.

Sunken Village Expedition

Introduction:

Our 4 day Sunken Village Expedition is designed for Technical Divers who want to try something completely different.

These dives are in complete darkness in water about 25 degrees at 50-60m

Day 1: Travel from your destination anywhere in Thailand to the National Park

Day 2: 2 No-Decompression Warm Up Dives with one night dive.

Day 3: 2 Accelerated Decompression Dives

Day 4: 2 Accelerated Decompression Dives

Day 5: 2 Accelerated Decompression Dives

Costs: 30,000 Thai Baht - When Booked Online

Included:Food, Drink, Accomodation, Transfers, Equipment, Torches, Reels, Park Entrance Fee, Boat Fees, Nitrox, Oxygen, Technical Equipment (regs, wings, plates), Diving Insurance

Water: Fresh

Location: Mainland Thailand

Availability: Montly year round

Similan Islands Technical Liveaboard

Introduction:

Our 4 day Similans Technical Liveaboard is designed for Technical Divers who want to explore the Similan islands in the comfort and style of technical diving with staff and crew who know how to accomodate you on our vessel the Mv Pawara.

Day 1: Travel from your destination anywhere in Thailand to the Khao Lak (free pickup from Phuket Airport is available. Depart in the Evening.

Day 2 :Up to 4 Technical Dives including night dive.

Day 3: Up to 4 Technical Dives including night dive.

Day 4: Up to 4 Technical Dives including night dive.

Day 5: Up to 3 Technical Dives arrive back in Khao Lak with transfer to airport or town.

Costs: 35,000 Thai Baht - When Booked Online

Included:Food, Drink, Accomodation, Transfers, Equipment, Torches, Reels, Park Entrance Fee, Boat Fees, Nitrox, Oxygen, Technical Equipment (regs, wings, plates)

Water: Salt

Location: Similan Islands

Availability: Bi-Monthly November to April

Today Big Blue Tech, a technical diving school based on Koh Tao in Thailand celebrates the graduation of Phil Elmer from his TDI Extended Range Course.

Phil arrived on Koh Tao almost a week previously and began with some technical diving fun dives as he was already certified as a TDI Decompression Procedures Diver. After a few trips Phil was ready to start his course. The TDI extended range course certifies the student to 55m and to use a variety of gas mixes and techniques for decompression diving. Phil started off in confined with a skill refresher and an introduction to how we do skills and then we were off deep diving the next day. The course took us to various locations, wrecks and conditions.

The final day was conducted by looking for new wrecks using gps and sonar from fishermen marks on our own boat. After a few sweeps and some dives we came up empty handed but it was great experience for Phil to see how wreck searches are conducted and it was a chance for Big Blue Tech to cross off an area of interest leaving only a few more search areas left.

As reported on the Big Blue Diving blog:
“Meanwhile in the deeply technical world of Deep Tech diving, ‘Canada’ (James Thornton-Allan) & his tattooed team of black hooded twin tank techie boys have been taking Navakid off for a jolly with a fish finder & a depth reader to see if they can find somewhere deep & dark to go diving. Ideally chancing upon a wreck would be a fine thing, but we’ll suffice with a ridge or a wall or a series of pinnacles. As long as its deep & its dark & its technical & it involves carrying around lots of tanks & a gimps hat it doesn’t really matter!”

Tonight the celebration will continue with a party at “Moov” which will be their last for the season.

Below are pictures from his course:

Fish nets caught on dive sites are increasingly becoming a major issue. For years divers have been aware of these issues and even the fishing men themselves know there is a dive site in the area and still somehow catch their nets on wrecks or pinnacles. The most concerning aspect beyond the environmental impact is the risk of entanglement to less experienced divers who might want to “pitch in” and it’s a terrible eye sore for the biggest diving certification destination in south east asia.

Today Cory Lewis and James Thornton-Allan went for some fun technical diving at a relatively shallow dive site called “South West Pinnacles” and ventured to the “secret pinnacle” where the most preserved and pristine soft coral and marine life are. It was supposed to be some simple fish watching but as the divers arrived at the secret pinnacle it was covered in a fine plastic fishing net with several species of marine life trapped alive amongst decaying less fortunate fish.

We’re not particularly against fishing, everyone understands that commercial fishing is an important role and industry around the world, however these fish we’re trapped and dying slowly and would attract larger marine life to get trapped in the same way.

As we started to remove the net, slowly trying to not get entangled and at the same time to not damage the coral the net clung to, we found about 6 scorpion fish (poisionous), baner fish, damsel fish, angel fish and the rest of nemo’s friends. We we’re able to remove wat was alive and wouldn’t kill us and removed the entire next that stretched well over 100m

On the topic of fishing is a new movie, much like all the recent environmental documentaries, this one focuses on commercial fishing call the End of the Line which should help to improve general education of commercial fishing and the impact of fish lines.

Thankfully the dive site has been returned to it’s normal condition even if took dives 50 minutes and a bit of decompression to clear it.

The waves and wind have increased causing havoc on our diving schedule and making it generally rough on our side of Koh Tao

These waves and wind proved too much for one dive school ,who will remain anonymous, when their boat got into a bit of trouble and was sank in a shallow dive area where it was hiding from the elements.

One benefit to this unfortunate incident is the creation of a shallow and publicly accessible wreck where previously all the wrecks on Koh Tao were reserved for technical diving or experienced divers. In comparison this new one can’t really be called a Ship Wreck, it’s more a sunk boat.

This wreck is lying upright in 15m of crystal clear water with a buoy line on it for everyone to see. There’s nothing particularly interesting inside except the odd news paper or sunglasses but you can see the tank racks that would hold the scuba cylinders for their customers. There is the slight hazard of the petrol and oil that leaks out which could be smelled on our gear after the dive.

On this day we used it for some simulated deep wreck training with some underwater photography equipment and we had the wreck all to ourselves.

Unfortunately the wreck is wooden which means it won’t last long. We lost a boat of the same size a few years ago in similar conditions, that one was gone and swept away in a few months. Hopefully in it’s protected location it will have a better chance of being an source of amusement for a while. For directions, go to the furthest buoy line from Japanese Gardens.

These photos have been edited to protect the identity of the owners.

Two new books, heavy on diving hit the shelves shortly. Diving in to Darkness (A True Story of Death and Survival) by Philip Finch, release date 30th September and Titanic’s Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohle by Brad Matsen, release date October…

Diving in to Darkness

On New Year’s Day, 2005, David Shaw traveled halfway around the world on a journey that took him to a steep crater in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, a site known as Bushman’s Hole. His destination was nearly 900 feet below the surface.

On January 8th he descended into the water. About fifteen feet below the surface was a fissure in the bottom of the basin, barely wide enough to admit him. He slipped through the opening and disappeared from sight, leaving behind the world of light and life.

Then, a second diver descended through the same crack in the stone. This was Don Shirley, Shaw’s friend, and one of the few people in the world qualified to follow where Shaw was about to go. In the community of extreme diving, Don Shirley was a master among masters.

Twenty-five minutes later, one of the men was dead. The other was in mortal peril, and would spend the next 10 hours struggling to survive, existing literally from breath to breath.

What happened that day is the stuff of nightmarish drama, but it’s also a compelling human story of friendship, heroism, ambition, and of coming to terms with loss and tragedy.

Titanic’s Last Secret

After rewriting history with their discovery of a Nazi U-boat off the coast of New Jersey, legendary divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler decided to investigate the great enduring mystery of history’s most notorious shipwreck: Why did Titanic sink as quickly as it did?

To answer the question, Chatterton and Kohler assemble a team of experts to explore Titanic, study its engineering, and dive to the wreck of its sister ship, Brittanic, where Titanic’s last secrets may be revealed.

Titanic’s Last Secrets is a rollercoaster ride through the shipbuilding history, the transatlantic luxury liner business, and shipwreck forensics. Chatterton and Kohler weave their way through a labyrinth of clues to discover that Titanic was not the strong, heroic ship the world thought she was and that the men who built her covered up her flaws when disaster struck. If Titanic had remained afloat for just two hours longer than she did, more than two thousand people would have lived instead of died, and the myth of the great ship would be one of rescue instead of tragedy.

Titanic’s Last Secrets is the never-before-told story of the Ship of Dreams, a contemporary adventure that solves a historical mystery

by LUKE SALKELD

It is a mystery that has perplexed treasure-hunters for centuries: how to find the wreck of a ship that sank carrying not only the world’s most famous actress, but her fantastic riches.

Now two British divers claim to have found the Nancy, which was smashed on rocks off Cornwall in a storm in 1784.

Among those on board the ill-fated voyage from Bombay to London was Ann Cargill, a beautiful opera singer as renowned for her scandalous love-life as her talents.

The 24-year-old took her fortune on board the ship after she was expelled from India for bringing shame to the country’s ‘pure shores’.

For as well as achieving huge fame and riches, she was also linked to a string of lovers and there were rumours she had given birth to an illegitimate child.

But she never made it home.

Instead the ship on which the young star was travelling sank off the Isles of Scilly, and after her unidentified body was found, she was buried in a pauper’s grave.

The former child star was adored by theatre audiences and charged ‘astonishing’ fees to play in the top theatres of London in the late 1700s.

The daughter of a coal merchant, she also embarked on numerous affairs - the first aged just 15 - and became the target of gossip and scandal.

As a teenager she eloped, ran away from theatres and her family, and eventually travelled to India where she had yet another lover and performed in packed theatres, often taking a share of the profits on top of her payment.

To the bosses of the East India Company, however, she was seen as immoral and she drowned en route to London from Bombay, carrying an estimated £200,000 fortune after they ordered her to leave.

Divers Todd Stevens and Ed Cummings say they have discovered the long-lost wreck of ‘The Nancy’, the ten-gun ship which smashed on rocks in February 1784, killing all 49 passengers.

Tragic accounts of Cargill’s death and her ‘floating in her shift’ with an infant at her bosom were published in English newspapers, and local legend has it that her lonely spirit still haunts the island spot where she died, singing a ghostly lullaby to her lost child.

As the discovery of the ship wreck was revealed yesterday, Mrs Cargill, was compared by one historian to a more modern star of the stage.

Marcus Risdell, librarian and archivist at London’s Garrick Club, said: ‘The records show that she was incredibly famous and enjoyed being in the limelight.

‘Actresses were plagued by scandal in those days - whether it was true or not - and Mrs Cargill seems to have encouraged it.

‘She once played the part of a young run away in a London theatre - and then ran away from it.’

He added: ‘But like an 18th Century version of Britney Spears, it is clear that she was also quite vulnerable - and often ended up with apparently unsuitable men.’

For over 200 years divers have been trying to find the wreck of the The Nancy, but may have simply been looking in the wrong place.

Mr Cummings, 62, said: ‘This has always been one of the most intriguing wrecks to go after. It has everything - a beautiful actress, a tragic shipwreck and a lost fortune.

‘The Nancy was bound from Bombay to London when she ran into a dreadful storm near the treacherous rocks west of Scilly.’

‘It would have been an almost hopeless position,’ said Mr Cumming.

‘Up until then it has been a good passage, but then they hit the storm. There was no lighthouse to guide them as Bishops Rock had not been built.

‘They would not have been able to see the lighthouse at St Agnes either.’

He added: ‘We are still trying to piece together the human stories around the wreck but we are sure we have found her.’

The Nancy sank off the coast of the Isles of Scilly and official papers referred to the passengers being ‘driven’ into a small island.

But Mr Cummings and Mr Stevens realised the descriptions referred to the lifeboat - and not the Nancy itself.

Ed said: ‘We realised that after the ship had hit the rocks, the passengers had got into a smaller boat and that was the one that was ‘driven’ on to Rosevear.

‘So people were looking in the wrong place for the Nancy, they should have been looking further out.’

The ship sank in 1784 and the first thing the islanders knew about it was when paperwork began washing ashore and onto beaches.

It took seven full days for the storm to subside, but when it did a rescue boat was sent out in the vain hope there may be a survivor clinging to the rocks.

Bodies were found including a woman clutching her dead baby - who rescuers were unaware was Ann Cargill, then aged 24, whose fortune at the time was described as being ‘beyond the dreams of avarice’.

She had caused outrage aged 15 by running off with the playwright Miles Peter Andrews while starring in a production of the Fairy Prince.

She was later ejected from India on the orders of Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger who told Parliament: ‘An actress should not be defiling the pure shores of India’.

Following the crash she was buried in a pauper’s grave and her paperwork sent to London where officials realised who she was and her body was exhumed and reburied in the Scilly capital, St Mary’s.

Official logs in India showed she had been carrying all of her possessions including jewels and gifts from her various scandalous lovers and a £200,000 fortune.

Mr Stevens said the jewels on her body were used to fund a neat memorial although he has not yet managed to locate the grave.

Mr Stevens moved to Scilly a decade ago to pursue his passion for diving and has since discovered a number of shipwrecks.

After being put on the right track by his friend, he was able to locate the Nancy within the first few dives.

Mr Stevens said: ‘It has been a real thrill. This kind of discovery is what you go diving for.

‘We are still searching for the gold and jewels but if we find them we will hand them all over to the Isles of Scilly Museum.’

The wreck was actually found last year, but the two men have only just revealed their discovery because they were keen that the site should not be disturbed.

The pair have now written a book called the The Ghosts Of Rosevear.

Source: CDNN

New York’s Metroplitan Museum is to host a new exhibition called Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C., and will feature artifacts found on the world’s oldest shipwreck, Uluburn, dating back to 1300 B.C. on loan from Turkey…

One hundred and forty unique items from the 3,300-year-old shipwreck willinclude: the golden seal of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, glass beads, golden necklaces, precious jewels, a stone hoe, containers for food and hunting items used in ancient times.

The artifacts wil be on loan from the Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum and will be displayed alongside other treasures sent by museums around the world.

In addition to being the oldest shipwreck discovered so far, Uluburun provides significant insight into the ancient commercial life of the Anatolia and Mediterranean basins. Furthermore, the artifacts from Uluburun are extremely well preserved. Egyptian Queen Nefertiti’s first and only golden seal in the world will be on display at the symposium.

Source: Turkish Daily News

By Reg Little

MENSUN Bound, the Oxford archaeologist dubbed the ‘Indiana Jones of the Deep’, is gunning for the Tower of London on his latest expedition.

The Oxford researcher is returning to investigate an Elizabethan ship that sank off the Channel Islands, which has given up an array of treasures including muskets, swords and body armour from the age of Drake. But now he is aiming to deliver one of the great cannons from the wreck to the Tower of London later this year, along with other finds and artefacts.

The ship sank off the coast of Alderney in 1592 and is considered to be the most important Tudor find since the Mary Rose. It was carrying munitions and dispatches from Elizabeth I’s greatest minister, Lord Burghley, to an English army in France.

Many of the finds from the wreck are on display at the museum in Alderney. But one of the great cannons and other pieces are to go on temporary exhibition in the Tower of London, once England’s greatest arsenal and manufacturer of military equipment.

The Alderney guns are all cast iron, smooth-bore muzzle loaders of identical calibre and represent a complete co-ordinated weapons system.

According to Mr Bound, of St Peter’s College, Oxford, the Alderney guns, along with those from the Mary Rose, represent the two most important naval gun collections in the world.

He said: “Between the Mary Rose, that sank in 1545, and the Alderney ship, there were only 47 years, but in that time there was a revolution in military science. ”

Mr Bound, who lives in Horspath, said: “This was a ship that was supplying an English army fighting in France to prevent a second Armada-style invasion by Spain.”

He said there are now plans to replicate the guns at a foundry in Scotland and then carry out a series of tests at a live-firing range to establish their ballistic characteristics and destructive capability.

The Governor of the Tower, Major General Keith Cima, said: “Because this ship was on Queen’s business it is likely that the heavy ordnance she carried, not to mention the small arms and bladed weapons, were issued from here by us, so it will be good to get them back - even if it is just for a while.”

Sir Norman Browse, the President of Alderney and the chairman of the Alderney Maritime Trust that oversees the project, said: “This is not going to be an easy job. The wreck is sitting in soft sand in 30m of water in what we call the Swinge, possibly the most notorious stretch of water in the entire Channel.”

Mr Bound established himself in the 1980s as the world’s best known underwater archaeologist after discovering the wreck of a Greek trader from 600BC off the Italian coast.

Since then he has brought up eagle insignia and guns from the German pocket battleship the Graf Spee and raised a cannon from Lord Nelson’s ship, The Agamemnon.

Source: Banbury Cake