Interview with Shipwreck Explorer Valerie van Heest

Talking Scuba host Bob Shoemaker conducts a terrific interview with explorer and author Valerie van Heest, who shares stories and video footage of the shipwrecks discussed.

Don't miss this one.


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Also be sure to check out Valerie van Heest and Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates.

Tech Divers Pay Homage to Fallen Heroes of HMS Repulse

Cool article, courtesy of Big Blue Tech.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in the Pacific on 8 December 1941, the HMS Repulse left Singapore in company with the other major element of the Eastern Fleet, including HMS Prince of Wales, and 4 destroyers, to try and intercept Japanese invasion force heading towards Malaya (Malaysia).

On December 10, 1941, after failing to find any Japanese invasion forces, and turning south, Japanese aircraft were spotted. The fleet was attacked by 86 Japanese aircraft from the 22nd Air Flotilla based in Saigon, which attacked both HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.

The HMS Repulse survived a bomb hit and managed to dodge 14 torpedoes before being sunk in 20 minutes after receiving 5 torpedo hits. 327 crew members died in the sinking. Including a young electrician Arthur Frederick Cavell.

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Tech Divers Discover Missing Wreck Off Thailand Coast

From Big Blue Tech:

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.

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PADI’s DSAT Technical Diving Arm Prepares for Course Overhaul

Definitely wondering your thoughts on this.

Heeding customer feedback and finally bowing to market pressures, PADI’s DSAT technical diving arm is preparing an overhaul of its TecRec Deep and Trimix courses that will lower the entry barriers to the course and give instructors more flexibility.

Although final course outlines have not been finalized, the Tec Deep course will be broken into three parts, tentatively called “Tec 40,” “Tec 45″ and “Tec 50,” signifying the depth in meters students will be certified to dive. The current Tec Trimix course will be similarly broken into two parts, dubbed “Trimix 65″ and “Trimix 75.” DSAT hopes to introduce the courses by the end of the year.

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Good? Bad?

Ocean Defenders Battle the Infidel

In 2006, a 70-foot commercial trawler known as the Infidel sank just a mile off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, California. The downed vessel, shrouded by a 9,000-pound fishing net, became nothing short of a deathtrap for marine life -- catching and killing sea lions, sharks, seals and dolphins.

Sounds like a job for the Ocean Defenders!

Luckily, the Ocean Defenders, a Huntington Beach-based group of volunteer SCUBA divers dedicated to removing derelict fishing gear from the ocean floor, are on the job. Armed with some reinforcements from the Catalina Island diving community, they’re working to free the net, one dive at a time. Cutting the net free and floating it to the top takes time (many dives over many days), as well as skill (the wreck is deep enough to be beyond the range of most recreational divers), but it’s all in a day’s work for these brave volunteers.

Check out this terrific video...


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For more on the Ocean Defenders Alliance, visit www.oceandefenders.org

Carl Spencer: Modest Professional

Last week the UK-based Telegraph released Carl Spencer's obituary, which we think does a good job at encompassing for all that he lived.

Carl Spencer, who has died aged 39, was one of the world's most accomplished deep-wreck divers and led several high-profile explorations of famous wrecks, including that of Titanic; he was killed in a diving accident during an underwater filming mission exploring Titanic's sister ship, Britannic.

Although best known as a talented technical diver with a glamorous career in the oceans of the world, Spencer also followed a more workaday calling as a heating and air conditioning engineer based in the Midlands. A modest, self-effacing man, he invariably told people that he was "just a plumber from Cannock".

This spring he was part of a 17-strong crew commissioned by National Geographic magazine to dive on Britannic, which sank in the Aegean Sea, off Greece, in 1916. The wreck lies on its starboard side in 120 metres of water and is well-preserved.

The diving mission was part of efforts by the Britannic Foundation, headed by a British historian and businessman, Simon Mills, to convert her into an underwater tourist attraction by running tours in mini-submarines.

Spencer's team was due to spend nine days on an internal and external analysis of the wreck, first discovered by the French explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1975. A veteran of three expeditions to Britannic, Spencer made his first dive on the wreck six years ago, uncovering evidence that the ship had been sunk by a mine rather than a torpedo, a question that had long divided historians.

Some had believed that she was attacked for carrying weapons while being disguised as a hospital ship. Survivors spoke of seeing torpedo trails in the water, in which case the Germans would have committed a war crime by attacking a hospital ship.

But Spencer favoured the theory of a mine explosion – a view reinforced when his team discovered debris entangled in mine anchors laid in the Kea channel of the Aegean.

Spencer found that when Britannic was mined, the ship's watertight doors had been open, allowing water to flood through; she sank in less than an hour, much faster than Titanic. He became the first diver to find and film the doors which, with the lower portholes, had been left open because it was so hot below decks.

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Our thoughts and prayers remain with Spencer's family and friends.

Diver Error to Blame for Experienced Technical Dive Instructor's Death

Last week it was reported that failure to use a mooring line was a contributing factor in the death of a scuba diver who drowned at a popular dive site near Nanaimo in November 2007.

[C]oroner Kim Bailey found that Daniel Harrington, 32, died on Nov. 24, 2007 of accidental drowning due to a scuba diving incident.

Harrington was exploring the HMCS Cape Breton off Snake Island with a friend when they entered a small room and stirred up a cloud of silt, reducing visibility to zero.

One diver was able to find her way out of the room, but could not find Harrington and surfaced to get help from other divers.

Immediate searches were unsuccessful and Harrington’s body was not recovered by RCMP dive teams until Dec. 6, 2007.

The body was found in the room where Harrington and his friend had become separated.

Bailey’s investigation found Harrington was an experienced, certified technical driver/instructor (sic) who had been to the wreck many times in the past. His equipment was found to be functioning normally at the time of the incident and his tanks were found empty of air.

But part of his equipment, a 76-metre spool of line intended to be tied to the outside of a wreck, was not used.

Bailey classified the death as accidental and made no recommendations.

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While the sport of diving enjoys relatively remarkable safety statistics, accidents can and do happen to even the most experienced among us.

Army Divers Prepare for Deep Sea Mission

What a cool way to spend your military time in service!

In the Army, engineers routinely fix, tear down and build structures on land.

One such team of engineers does their tasks with an added challenge of an air tank strapped to their backs in depths far lower than commercial divers. The team, consisting of Army divers from the 7th Engineer Dive Detachment is facing the routine challenges engineers encounter during a re-certification training exercise May 11 through May 22 in the coastal waters off the big island of Hawaii.

The 30 Soldiers are diving in a multitude of underwater environments including wrecked ships, reefs, as well as the sea floor to their equipment and hone their skills.

"What we're doing is qualifying on all of our systems and getting the newest divers accustomed to some of the tools we use on a daily basis to make us more mission capable," said Staff Sgt. John Geffert, a salvage diver with the 7th Eng. Dive Det.

The 22-year-old from Hopedale, Mass., said the team is doing everything from SCUBA diving, and hard-hat-diving to instructing diving supervisors on how to handle their dive teams.

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Interested in becoming an Army diver, or simply curious as to what it takes? Check out all the details of the Diver (21D) MOS in the US Army.

As an Army Diver, you'll specialize either as a scuba diver, who works just below the surface of the water, or as a deep sea diver, who usually works for long periods of time in depths up to 190 feet. Some of your duties as a Diver may include:

* Inspect and clean watercraft propellers and hulls
* Patch damaged watercraft hulls using underwater welding equipment
* Salvage sunken equipment
* Patrol the waters below watercraft at anchor
* Assist with underwater construction of piers and harbor facilities
* Survey rivers, beaches, and harbors for underwater obstacles
* Use explosives to clear underwater obstacles

REQUIREMENTS

Divers must be excellent swimmers and be physically strong.

TRAINING

Job training for a Diver requires nine weeks of Basic Training, where you'll learn basic Soldiering skills, and 29 of Advanced Individual Training and on-the-job instruction, including practice in diving and repair work. Part of this time is spent in the classroom and part in the field. Some of the skills you'll learn are:

* Principles of scuba and surface-supplied diving
* Underwater welding and cutting
* Use and care of hand and power tools
* Maintenance of diving equipment
* Explosives

...

ADVANCED RESPONSIBILITIES

Advanced level Divers provides guidance, supervises and trains Soldiers within the same discipline. As an advanced level Diver, you may be involved in:

* Perform as a lead diver during underwater work
* Prepare patching materials and pumps for salvage operations
* Prepare explosives for placement
* Prepare rigging and lifting devices for salvage operations
* Assist diving supervisors in preparing equipment for diving operations

Very cool!

Norwegian Court Overturns Lawsuit by Deep Sea Divers

If you remember, almost a year ago we brought you the story of the deep sea divers who sued the Norwegian government.

Well, the story is back in the news as a Norwegian court has overturned the divers' settlement.

An appeals court on Tuesday overturned a nearly 30 million kroner ($4.2 million) settlement for three deep sea divers who claim their health was ruined by Norway's early quest for offshore oil wealth.

In August 2007, the Oslo district court ordered the government to compensate the three men in a case that could have brought a rash of similar lawsuits. However, the Borgarting appeals overturned that ruling, saying the government could not be held responsible for their injuries.

When Norway, now one of the world's major oil exporters, was first developing its North Sea fields in the 1970s and 1980s, divers were sent to extreme and sometimes experimental depths to maintain and install equipment.

The so-called pioneer divers from the early years of Norway's offshore oil development - Magn Haakon Muledal, Angus Gunnar Kleppe, and Dag Vilnes - said they will appeal the case to the Supreme Court. It was not clear when the case would be heard.

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What do you think?

New York Hires 6 Deep-Sea Divers to Repair Water Tunnel

It's a deep job, but somebody's got to do it.

All tunnels leak, but this one is a sieve. For most of the last two decades, the Rondout-West Branch tunnel — 45 miles long, 13.5 feet wide, up to 1,200 feet below ground and responsible for ferrying half of New York City’s water supply from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains — has been leaking some 20 million gallons a day. Except recently, when on some days it has lost up to 36 million gallons.

After tiptoeing around the problem for many years, and amid mounting complaints of flooded homes in the Ulster County hamlet of Wawarsing, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has embarked on a five-year, $240 million project to prepare to fix the tunnel — which includes figuring out how to keep water flowing through New Yorkers’ faucets during the repairs. The most immediate tasks are to fix a valve at the bottom of a 700-foot shaft in Dutchess County so pumps will eventually be able to drain the tunnel, and to ensure that the tunnel does not crack or collapse while it is empty.

For this, the city has enlisted six deep-sea divers who are living for more than a month in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing air that is 97.5 percent helium and 2.5 percent oxygen, so their high-pitched squeals are all but unintelligible. They leave the tank only to transfer to a diving bell that is lowered 70 stories into the earth, where they work 12-hour shifts, with each man taking a four-hour turn hacking away at concrete to expose the valve.

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Hypothermia-Induced Tourette Syndrome

This video 'says' it all.

Salvage Diver Recovers Golden Grooming Tool

It's interesting to think that human grooming tools have evolved from this, into toothpicks and Q-tips!

The crew of the historic shipwreck search and recovery vessel Blue Water Rose pulled into port Sunday with an extraordinary discovery – a solid gold early 17th Century grooming tool consisting of both toothpick and earwax scoop.

The ornate artifact, which resembles a scimitar and measures about 3 inches long, was discovered at a depth of 22 feet by crew diver Chris Rackley. Both functional and ornamental, it would have been worn on a golden chain by a high ranking person.

"What a way to start the new season!" exclaimed Keith Webb, President and CEO of Blue Water Ventures Key West (BWVKW). "The Captain and crew worked hard through the winter to prepare the vessels for this season and the area we are now searching is the most northern that gold has been found. Excitement is particularly intense because we ended last season on such a high note, with the discovery of gold bars and chains, some exceedingly rare silver coins, and a lead box containing 16,184 pearls valuing approximately $12 million."

Archaeologists Dive Cape Danger Wreckage for Bronze Cannon

Shipwreck Investigator Steve Lloyd is set to head up the archaeological expedition charged with raising a 140-year-old bronze howitzer from the sunken wreckage of the Torrent - in the icy cold waters of Dangerous Cape.

Less than six months after surfacing from the 140-year-old wreckage of the Torrent, diver and shipwreck hunter Steve Lloyd was ready to head back under the icy cold waters of Dangerous Cape to bring up a fairly significant artifact from the 641-ton U.S. Army ship. State and federal archeologists [sic], along with a shipwreck consultant, have joined Lloyd's shipwreck discovery team to attempt to raise the ship's bronze howitzer cannon to the water's surface.

If they succeed, the team will bring the big gun into Homer Harbor for transport up the road to Anchorage.

Three archeologists [sic] will monitor and verify the removal of artifacts from the site. They include: Dave McMahan, State Archeologist [sic] with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Office of History and Archeology; Tane Casserly, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and Jason Rogers, a consultant with a private firm of underwater archeologists [sic] in Anchorage.

The three took a water taxi out to join the exploration team aboard their Tollycraft at Cole Cove, inside Port Graham where the survivors from the Torrent landed after their ship hit the rocks and sank and where they spent 18 days awaiting rescue.

The Torrent was carrying 150 men, women and children on a mission to build a fort near Homer, when it ran aground July 15, 1868. The remnants of the ship — mostly metal parts that have survived almost a century and a half of saltwater corrosion — is of interest to state and national agencies, as well as adventure shipwreck explorers like Lloyd and his crew.

"One of the things that makes this expedition newsworthy is that the archeologists [sic] would like to know what will happen to the artifacts," Lloyd said. "We are awaiting final approval from authorities (to retrieve the artifacts.)"

According to Lloyd, state and federal authorities have determined that the GSA (U.S. General Services Administration) has ownership and control over the artifacts belonging to the Torrent.

"Even after 140 years, it's still government property," he said. However, Lloyd said the state has indicated a commitment to keeping the artifacts in Alaska.

"McMahan's office will make the point that the purpose of the recovery is to preserve the artifacts," he said. "Nothing will be removed unlawfully and any (artifacts) that are recovered will be displayed in Alaska."

For more, visit The Torrent Shipwreck Project.

Navy to Name Ship After First Black Deep-Sea Diver

The Navy will be naming a ship after Carl Brashear, the first African American to become a U.S. Navy Master Diver.

A new cargo ship will bear the name of the Navy's first black deep-sea diver.

Carl Brashear joined the Navy in 1948 when he was 17 years old. 1 of 6 children born to a sharecropper in Kentucky, he dreamed of becoming a Navy diver. No blacks were Navy divers at the time.

Brashear remained determined and made his way into the service, eventually retiring as a Master Chief Petty Officer in 1979.

He died at age 75 in 2006.

If you remember, Brashear was depicted by actor Cuba Gooding Jr. in the film "Men of Honor".

Deep Diver Saved from Oxygen Toxicity by Dive Buddy

Never underestimate the power of a quick-thinking scuba diving buddy.

A San Clemente man nearly drowned off San Diego after going into convulsions while underwater Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

The man was 15 feet from the surface and about 1.5 miles from the coast when he started reacting to an air mixture he was using for diving deep into the ocean, said Sans Diego Lifeguard Lt. Andy Lume.

The man's diving partner noticed he was having convulsions and gave him his regulator to supply air, Lume said.

The quick action saved the diver's life, Lume said.

The diver, who has not been identified by authorities, had been diving off La Jolla Shores when the accident occurred at 12:15 p.m. The two divers went underwater to a depth of about 200 feet.

To make the dive, they used a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen called Nitrox, an advanced diving technique to prolong the amount of time a diver is underwater.

The two divers were on their way to the surface and making decompression stops along the way, Lume said. During the stops, the diver seemed to be having a hard time keeping his buoyancy and was kicking hard to stay underneath, Lume said.

"He was inhaling more oxygen than he should," Lume said.

Both divers had experience doing extended dives, but this was the longest dive he'd done.

The San Clemente man is believed to have reacted to oxygen toxicity, where a diver takes in excess amounts of pure oxygen, Lume said.

The man's partner took him up to their boat and lit a flare to alert lifeguards. When lifeguards arrived, the diver had regained consciousness.

The diver was transported to UCSD Medical Center to be treated.

Deep Sea Divers Sue Norwegian Government

Four-hundred meters!? Yikes.

A group of former deep sea divers are suing the Norwegian government for damaging their health in the early years of the North Sea oil boom.

Lawyers for the 24 divers say some of them were sent to a depth of 400m. The safe limit is now set at 180m.

"The state conducted medical experiments on an entire group," lawyer Marius Reikeraas told Oslo city court.

Norway says it has already offered compensation to divers who have been totally or partially disabled.

About 200 divers were offered sums up to 2.5m kroner (US$458,000;309,000 euros) in March 2004.

But a similar case to the present one ended in August last year with the government being ordered to pay a group of other divers up to 6.5m kroner.

The "pioneer divers", as they are known, say they suffered physical and psychological damage in the 1970s and 1980s as they laid the groundwork for the Norwegian oil industry, helping to make their country one of the richest in the world.

They say the government knew or should have known the dangers when it sent them to work at extreme depths.

"This is a test case for the Norwegian government when it comes to respecting human rights," said Mr Reikeraas.

The government is appealing against the verdict in last year's case, and when that and the currently case are finally settled, observers expect a flood of new claims from former divers.

What do you think?