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By Elliott Hester


Imagine you are diving beneath the surface of the Caribbean Sea.

A school of horse-eyed jacks suddenly changes direction, flashing what appears to be a silvery sheet. A shipwreck emerges in the deep blue distance. You head in that direction, cruising alongside a picturesque coral reef. 

In this underwater adventure, you're neither a snorkeler nor a diver. You're a passenger in an submarine. 

Since 1986, when Atlantis Submarines International Inc. launched the world's first public-passenger submarine off the coast of Grand Cayman Island in the British West Indies, more than 11 million customers have taken the plunge.

The voyages are now offered in 28-, 48- and 64-passenger subs at 12 island destinations in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Guam. 

I went under in Atlantis III, a 48-passenger sub operating off the coast of Barbados.

The journey began at the dock in Bridgetown, the capital. I boarded the Ocean Quest transfer boat for the 10-minute trip to the dive site at Freshwater Bay Reef, a mile off Paradise Beach on the west coast of the island.


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By Eithne Shortall


American entrepreneur Gregg Bemis finally gets courts go-ahead to explore the wreck off Ireland.

It is the best known shipwreck lying on the Irish seabed, but it is only today that the owner of the Lusitania will finally begin the first extensive visual documentation of the luxury liner that sank 93 years ago. 

Gregg Bemis, who bought the remains of the vessel for £1,000 from former partners in a diving business in 1968, has been granted an imaging license by the Department of the Environment.

This allows him to photograph and film the entire structure, and should allow him to produce the first high-resolution pictures of the historic vessel. 

The RMS Lusitania sank off the coast of Cork in May 1915 when a German U-boat torpedoed it. An undetermined second explosion is believed to have speeded its sinking, with 1,198 passengers and crew losing their lives.

By Alan Hustak


A replica of a 19th-century Hudson River canal class schooner is open to the public at the Old Port this weekend.

Unlike many of the graceful tall ships that often sail into the harbour, the Louis McClure is a stubby little blue-collar working boat.

It resembles boats that used to carry heavy cargo between Montreal and New York City down the Richelieu River, through Lake Champlain and along the Hudson River canal system.

"Think of them as a tractor-trailers with sails," said the Louis McClure's first mate, Erick Tichonuk. "Before the railways, they travelled the historic corridor between Trois Rivières, Montreal and New York City."

The boat arrived in Montreal from Quebec City on Thursday to raise awareness about Quebec and New England's shared maritime history.


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From PR-Inside


Archaeologists and scholars will excavate hundreds of fragments of an ancient Egyptian wooden boat entombed in an underground chamber next to Giza's Great Pyramid and try to reassemble the craft, Egyptologists announced Saturday.

The 4,500-year-old vessel is the sister ship of a similar boat removed in pieces from another pit in 1954 and painstakingly reconstructed.

Experts believe the boats were meant to ferry the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid in the afterlife.

Starting Saturday, tourists were allowed to view images of the inside of the second boat pit from a camera inserted through the a hole in the chamber's limestone ceiling.

By McKibben Jackinsky


"You are helping write history today," shipwreck historian and dive team leader Steve Lloyd of Anchorage told a gathering of more than 130 people aboard the USCGC Hickory Monday afternoon.

The significance of the moment was not lost on representatives from the Pratt Museum, archaeologists, historians, researchers, teachers, writers, Coast Guardsmen and others surrounding a collection of items spread across the Hickory's deck.

Before them were pieces from the Torrent, a privately owned 141-foot, 641-ton ship, that sank after its oak hull crashed against the jagged rocks of Bird Reef the morning of July 15, 1868.

Just off Dangerous Cape, Bird Reef is in southern Cook Inlet, near Port Graham. 
 

From Blueflipper


With the opening of dive sites of once forbidden areas to divers, Greece is becoming a haven for looters.

When it was first proposed, it seemed like a good idea: open up the Greek seas to divers and create a paradise for tourists underwater.

Those who backed the law never thought of it as a windfall for looters, nor did it occur to them that it might put the acquisition policies of museums under further scrutiny.

But the Greek parliament's unprecedented step last month to allow divers access to the once forbidden coastline has raised fears that archaeological riches preserved in an untouched world will be taken by ruthless thieves.

"There are treasures in our seas," says Dimitris Athanasoulis, president of the Archaeologists' Association. "This will open the floodgates to smugglers.

It'll serve to encourage them at a time when evidence shows the trafficking of antiquities is on the rise."

By Ali Nassor


Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a Russian battleship designed by Peter the Great in Amsterdam and which played a key role in a 1719 victory over Sweden in a war on the Baltic Sea.

A team including professional archeologists, divers, a film-producer and a cameraman located the 54-gun “Portsmouth” battleship at a 12-meter depth in the waters off Kotlin Island near Kronshtadt last week during final stages of a three-month mission as part of the “Secrets of the Sunken Ships” project.

The team was back on dry land on Tuesday.

We are currently lobbying for an immediate raising of the wrecks to serve both as a museum and as objects for research,” said Andrei Lukoshkov, head of the research team, adding that the discovery is unique because the ship, which was designed by Peter the Great, disappeared with another ship, the “London,” on the way back to the port of Kronshtadt.


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By Matt Jackson 

The wreck of the first British-made submarine is in Dire straits at the bottom of the Solent, according to a new report.

English Heritage says the A1, built in 1903 and sunk twice with the loss of 11 submariners by 1911, is in 'significant decline'.

Divers have been blamed for speeding up the natural decay of the historic vessel by visiting the site and taking items away with them.

The English Heritage 'At Risk Register' also lists Gosport Railway Station and nine other sites in the area as badly needing help to prevent them falling into disrepair.

The Vickers-built A1 lies two miles south of Chichester harbour and is in such a poor condition naval experts fear for her future.

George Malcolmson, archivist at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, said: 'It stands to reason that if the wreck is lying under the sea it will rust, but there have been other problems with her.