Salvage – Page 2 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Cape Town’s visible shipwrecks: RMS Athens at Mouille Point

An observant visitor to the promenade between Mouille Point and Green Point may notice something man-made sticking out of the ocean, less than 100 metres from shore. This artifact is the iron engine block of the Royal Mail Steamer Athens, which ran aground here in the great north westerly gale of 17 May 1865. Seventeen ships were wrecked during this colossal gale – reports of the events of that day (including a mention of the Athens) can be seen in this historical newspaper.

The engine block of RMS Athens is barely visible to the left of this image

It is possible to dive the wreck; indeed, owing to its accessibility from shore, it has been extensively “salvaged” in the last 150-plus years! There is more information about diving the wreck on wikivoyage, but suffice it to say it’s a shallow dive best done when there is no swell to speak of. The wreck is very broken up and overgrown with kelp and invertebrate life, by all accounts.

The stretch of shore where RMS Athens came to grief

There’s a great article on the history of RMS Athens on the Submerge website: click here to read it.

If you want to go and see the remains of the wreck, I’ve geotagged this instagram picture of the engine block. My photos of the engine block as seen from the sea were taken while we were aboard the Ocean Adventurer. If you’re interested in other visible shipwrecks around Cape Town, you could visit the Kakapo, the Clan Stuart, and (by boat) the BOS 400, to start with!

If you’re interested in visible shipwrecks, check out my ebook Cape Town’s Visible Shipwrecks: A Guide for Explorers!

Newsletter: Load shedding tips

Hi divers

Weekend diving

No diving!

Conditions report

It is once again a weekend that does not bode well for diving. We are looking at pretty much the same conditions that were around last weekend and from what I have gathered the conditions last weekend were somewhere between lousy and appalling. A 3-4 meter swell arrives tomorrow. It drops but lingers on Sunday and reappears in force on Monday. Both False Bay and Hout Bay are very green and brown and viz reports have been very poor.

I doubt the weekend will deliver any good diving, sure if you really need to dive and can deal with the surge and low viz then try sheltered sites from shore. For us, we will stay high and dry.

Congratulations

Brian, whom many of you will know from the time he spent here in late 2013 during which time he did his Advanced course and got comfortable diving in cold, not always clean water, qualified this week as a diving instructor in Hawaii. He has accepted a job at a dive centre there, and if you head out that way be sure to visit him. He is pictured above doing the aircraft recovery specialty, the raw egg specialty, and his best Grumpy Cat face. Well done Brian!

Load shedding tips

One way to guarantee that your area will not experience load shedding is to buy a generator, fuel it, wire it for connection to the mains, and then wait, with the excitement of a child, for the power to go out. It won’t, I promise. You can thank me later.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

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Who you gonna call (if you see a poacher)?

Anyone who has dived out of Hout Bay harbour, or spent time at Betty’s Bay or Pringle Bay, has probably seen abalone or rock lobster poachers in action. Miller’s Point is another hotspot for this kind of illegal activity – a poacher whose friends had deserted him once tried to sell his gear to Tony in exchange for some cash. We have called the police in Hout Bay about poachers on the slipway on more than one occasion, but they usually “don’t have transport”. (One can also identify with this lame excuse to some extent – it is not unheard of for poaching syndicates to threaten the families of local policemen and women.)

I still volunteer once a month (when my car is working properly) at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town. Tinus, the Operations Manager, recently shared details of who to contact when a poaching operation is observed. The aquarium sometimes gets calls about poaching from concerned members of the public, but there are direct routes to report it and you should use those. Tinus has agreed for me to share the information here – the wider the audience the better!

Should you ever witness a marine poaching operation in progress in the greater Cape Town area, or non-compliance with fishing regulations (number of fish, species, size, etc) this is the number to contact: 028 313 2703. This is the Green Scorpions’ 24 hour manned operation room situated in Hermanus where all calls are recorded, logged and acted upon. (The Green Scorpions website is currently offline. They are also known as the Environmental Management Inspectorate, EMI.)

Alternatively, or for environmental offences throughout the republic, whether marine or terrestrial, the 24 hour toll free number for the Environmental Management Inspectorate is 0800 205 005.

During office hours, you can also contact the Green Scorpions on 021 402 3361, 021 402 3430 or 021 402 3506/16/25/29/33.

Hopefully you will not have to resort to this, but should the agencies above not respond as required by law, please contact the National Anti-Corruption Hotline for Public Service, 24 hours toll-free on 0800 701 701.

It would be nice if there was a similar number to report parties damaging and looting shipwrecks that are older than 60 years – does anyone know of one?

Article: Vanity Fair on Nick Sloane, the salvor of the Costa Concordia

The most recent issue of Vanity Fair has an article on Nick Sloane, the salvage master who refloated the Costa Concordia and oversaw the towing of the ship to Genoa. Wonderfully, the article is written by William Langewiesche, author of The Outlaw Sea and this article on piracy off the coast of Somalia.

Sloane is a local boytjie who lives in Somerset West when not abroad doing salvage work. He agreed to talk to Langewiesche for this article on condition that they did not discuss the Costa Concordia (I imagine he was utterly exhausted and sick of that subject). Many of the salvage jobs that Sloane has worked on are off the Cape coast – notable examples dealt with in this article are the wreck of the MV Treasure (now a dive site) in Table Bay, and the Ikan Tanda which ran aground off Scarborough in 2001.

… one of the greatest seafarers at work today is neither a naval commander nor an old-salt merchant mariner but a certain marine salvage master with a taste for chaos and a genius for improvisation. He is a burly South African, aged 53, by the name of Captain Nick Sloane. His job is to intervene where other captains have failed, and to make the best of ships that are sinking, burning, breaking apart, or severely aground. Usually those same ships are threatening to leak bunker fuel—the sludge that powers them—along with crude oil or other toxins in quantities that could poison the environment for years to come. Sloane boards the ships with small teams—by helicopter from overhead, or by Zodiac from oceangoing tugs—and once he arrives he stays aboard and fights, sometimes for weeks at a stretch.

Do not be put off by the fact that the article doesn’t deal with the Costa Concordia salvage at all – I imagine we’ll see a book about that in a couple of years’ time.

Read the full article here. It’s a fascinating read.

Bookshelf: Treasure – The Search For Atocha

Treasure: The Search for Atocha – Robert Daley

Legendary American treasure hunter Mel Fisher searched for the wreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha for more than sixteen years. The Spanish galleon sank off the Florida Keys in 1622, loaded with precious metals, jewels, tobacco and other cargo. She and another ship from the Spanish fleet (the Santa Margarita), were driven by a hurricane onto a reef near a group of islands called the Dry Tortugas.

This is a fascinating account of a protracted treasure hunt for Atocha by a very determined man. Fisher had the requisite permits to search for and salvage the wreck (imagine that!) but was involved in numerous lawsuits for the duration of his search, and his financial state was insecure. He was constantly on the brink of bankruptcy. He had to continually raise money from investors and devise fund raising schemes in order to maintain the search. The search for Atocha was also marked by tragedy: during the years he spent looking for the wreck, a storm capsized one of his boats, killing his son and daughter in law, and one of his divers.

The Florida Keys are a beguiling part of the world. Shallow, crystal clear blue water, white sands and several centuries of shipwrecks – many carrying treasure like Atocha – make this a paradise for treasure hunters and recreational divers alike. While the search for Atocha involved years of diving effort – thousands of underwater hours by many individuals – the key to finding the wreck was arguably provided by Dr Eugene Lyon. Lyon spent hours in the archives in Seville, Spain, searching for information to pinpoint the location of the wreck. The Spanish had found the wreck shortly after her sinking (the masts protruded from the water, which was less than 20 metres deep) and spent several years retrieving treasure from the wreck, so there were descriptions of her location (all tantalisingly vague).

Fisher’s family are still cashing in on his legacy, and working the wreck. The part of the wreck with the most valuable cargo – the stern castle – has not yet been located.

You can get a copy of the book here or here. There are many other books covering this topic – I don’t know how this one stacks up against the rest of them, so best do some research first if this is a subject that interests you.

Newsletter: Slow boat

Hi divers

Just a short and sweet newsletter this week as we are at the Boat Show at the Convention Centre for the next three days, and therefore won’t be diving. Besides boats there are other water related products and services to check out.There are some interesting speakers scheduled for the show, including Monty Guest who will talk about coelacanths tomorrow, and various experts on subjects from sharks to boat electronics to shipwrecks and salvage. Check out the full list of speakers here and plan your visit accordingly.

In short: pop in and say hi. Also, please bring cake.

Dive conditions

We had good diving on Saturday out of Hout Bay, visiting the Maori and Duiker Island, and again yesterday in False Bay. We visited Atlantis, Fan Reef and Boat Rock, and the divers reported good viz of 8-12 metres. If you want to dive this weekend there will always be someone keen to dive, and I know Alistair of Underwater Explorers will be launching on Sunday.

Be good and have fun.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Measuring up

Hi divers

Weekend plans

Saturday: Student dives at Long Beach, starting early (casual divers welcome)

Sunday: Boat dives from Simon’s Town jetty to Atlantis at 9.30am / Maidstone Rock at 12.00

Dive report

Last weekend we chose to dive Hout Bay, partly because I expected Simon’s Town to be a little too busy given it was nearing the end of the Lipton Cup, a sailing regatta hosted by False Bay Yacht Club. The sea was flat, with light winds and sunny weather and good visibility. We did three dives but by the third one were a bit chilly! It was sad to see all the poaching boats, and the damage that’s been done to the wreck of the Maori lately.

This weekend I think False Bay will be the place to be. We had really good conditions yesterday and the wind direction has been good for False Bay viz. There is going to be some swell so I think we will shore dive at Long Beach with students on Saturday (I’ll be focusing on my students, but casual divers are most welcome to tag along). We will hit the high seas for boat diving on Sunday. We will launch from Simon’s Town jetty to dive Atlantis at 9.30am and the beautiful Maidstone Rock at 12.00. Text or email me if you feel like a dive.

Physiology at the extremes

I attended a conference today focusing on how the human body responds to extreme conditions, with a focus on cold water immersion (but also including exposure to alcohol, drugs, and hyperthermia). It was fascinating, and one of the important things I took away from it is how important it is to take seriously our dives in Cape Town’s water. Our physiological responses and capabilities change after an extended period of time in cold water, and while you may feel that you’re still mentally sharp and fully in control, the opposite may be true, and this is when accidents happen. I’m looking forward to incorporating some of the things I’ve learned into our day to day diving activities at Learn to Dive Today.

Dive travel

Pencil in a trip to Ponta do Ouro in late April/sometime in May next year. We’ll start planning it early next year, but we’ll aim for five days of diving with a day of travel on each side. Start saving now! We have had amazing experiences there – some of our favourite dives were done at reefs called Doodles and Texas.

Faraway friends

We are thinking of our diving friends in far off lands – Bernita and Tamsyn, sending all good thoughts your way!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Scattered shipwreck: The rudder of the Brunswick

View of the rudder showing the broken end

The Brunswick is an old wooden wreck from 1805 that lies in shallow water just outside Simon’s Town. I’ve taken some video footage on the wreck that also gives you an idea of what it looks like today. When Tony attended a talk on the Brunswick by an Honours student called Jake Harding, who has just completed a project on it, he learned that the rudder from the ship is currently on display in the courtyard of the Slave Lodge in Cape Town.

End-on view from the intact end of the rudder

I went to check it out, and it’s awesome! It gives a sense of how large the Brunswick was that I didn’t get from diving her, as the debris is quite low to the sand and much of it is buried.

The rudder was salvaged in 1967 by an American salvor, who discovered the copper clad rudder on the wreck site (at that stage unidentified). He required the assistance of the SA Navy to bring the rudder ashore, as it was so large. The rudder then lay on the dock in Simon’s Town for several days, during which time most of its copper cladding was stripped off. Some copper still remains on the rudder today, but it is in very poor condition and has the texture of cardboard – you could probably peel it off with your fingernails, if you were a bad person.

The rudder would have been attached to the back of the ship – the stern – onto a part of the vessel called a sternpost (which is what it sounds like). There are hooks (called gudgeons) on the sternpost and pegs (called pintles) on the rudder that enable the rudder to be attached to the ship, and to move from side to side. There are three pintles visible on the rudder at the Slave Lodge, with one of them partly broken off. The rudder measures just over 4 metres by just under 2 metres, and is nearly 30 centimetres thick.

One end of the rudder is jagged, and it is believed that originally the rudder was more than five metres long and had another 2-4 pintles. The work of shipworm, Teredo navalis, is evident at the jagged end, where the wood is full of thousands of tiny tunnels created by these creatures. These worms would have lunched on the rudder while it was still attached in the ocean. The cladding of ships’ hulls and rudders with copper was one way to prevent shipworm from damaging the wood while the vessel was still in use, thus prolonging their useful lifespans.

Copper cladding that remains on the rudder

Bolts used to attach the cladding to the wood

Residue from the copper remains on the wood

End-on view of the rudder from the broken end

Massive bolt in the bottom of the rudder

Piece of wood from one of the edges of the rudder

If you’re interested in visible shipwrecks, check out my ebook Cape Town’s Visible Shipwrecks: A Guide for Explorers!

Article: Esquire on diving the Andrea Doria

The wreck of the Andrea Doria, a luxury Italian cruise ship that sank in the north Atlantic ocean in 1956, is to some divers a sort of Mount Everest. It lies in about 70 metres of seawater, 160 kilometres from land. It has claimed ten lives to date and been the subject of several books and essays. Deep Descent deals specifically with this wreck. Shadow Divers and The Last Dive describe dives on the wreck, as well as featuring several of the regular charter captains and divers who pioneered diving on the Doria.

An Esquire article from 2000, written by Bucky McMahon (author of this article on Reunion’s shark problem), describes diving on the wreck, and attempts (as do they all) to pin down the allure of this particular piece of ocean debris. The article was written after a thirteen month period (late 1998- late 1999) during which five divers from the same charter boat (the Seeker) died on the wreck. It is written in a masculine, aggressive style that may be characteristic of McMahon’s writing, but is certainly characteristic of the sort of behaviour that seems to play (or have played) out on the Andrea Doria since people started diving her.

But how does it feel? What’s it like to know you are in a story that you will either retell a hundred times or never tell? You decide to drop down into the black hole. No, you don’t decide; you just do it. Why? You just do. A little ways, to explore the wreck and your courage, what you came down here to do. What is it like? Nothing under your fins now for eighty feet but the mass and complexity of the machine on all sides–what was once luminous and magical changed to dreary chaos. Drifting down past the cables that killed John Ornsby, rusty steel lianas where a wall has collapsed. Dropping too fast now, you pump air into your b.c., kick up and bash your tanks into a pipe, swing one arm and hit a cable, rust particles raining down. You’ve never felt your attention so assaulted: It is everything at once, from all directions, and from inside, too. You grab the cable and hang, catching your breath–bubble and hiss, bubble and hiss. Your light, a beam of dancing motes, plays down a battered passageway, where metal steps on the left-hand wall lead to a vertical landing, then disappear behind a low, sponge-encrusted wall that was once a ceiling. That’s the way inside the Doria.

Read the complete article here.

Article: Business Week on sunken Spanish treasure

It’s not often that an article in the business pages dovetails with my interest in the ocean, but once in a long while there is a connection. A 2012 Business Week article about Odyssey Marine Exploration, the company featured in Treasure Quest and the Treasure Quest – HMS Victory Special, relates the outcome of a protracted battle between Odyssey and the Spanish government over 17 tons of silver coins, retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of Portugal. Odyssey spent $2.6 million retrieving the coins; the only compensation it received from the Spanish government was $20 apiece for the white plastic buckets in which the coins were transported to Spain.

Yesterday’s article (written in 2008) describes in more detail the events that led to the conflict between Spain and Odyssey, and profiles both the company and its founder and CEO, Greg Stemm. Today’s one provides a good introduction to what the company does (if you’re not in the mood for a long New Yorker read), and fills in what happened since 2008 – and things did not turn out particularly well for Odyssey.

The Odyssey share price (OMEX US Equity) hasn’t really gone anywhere since the company listed, which suggests to me that they still haven’t had their big break yet. That said, it must be remarkably interesting work, finding and researching long forgotten wrecks. Plundering them… not so much.

Read the full article here.