Scuba diving is a diverse and breathtaking activity where, upon submerging, one can find oneself drifting along the waves of history. Such an opportunity presented itself to me during my recent visit with fellow divers in Perm, who discovered an interesting object under the ice in the Sylva River.
The operation was organised by the Tourism Authority together with the Ministry for Tourism and the Association of Professional Diving Schools of Malta, Gozo and Comino.
The boat was scuttled and sank between the wrecks of St Michael and Melita, two tugboats that also serve as scuba diving sites.
At the time of its designation in 2021, the sanctuary included 36 known shipwrecks dating from the 1830s to the 1930s, including Wisconsin's two oldest known shipwrecks, the schooners Gallinipper, which was constructed in 1833 and sank in 1851, and Home, which was built in 1843 and sank in 1858.
Prior to the founding of Alexandria by Alexander the Great in the year 331 BC, Thônis-Heracleion was the largest port city in Egypt, controlling the entrance to the country at the mouth of a western branch of the Nile River and dominating the area for centuries.
Destroyed and sunk along with a wide area of the Nile delta by several earthquakes and tidal waves, Thônis-Heracleion was rediscovered in 2001 in Abu Qir Bay near Alexandria, now Egypt's second-largest city.
In the spring of 2021, Oryol divers discovered the site where the Battle of Sudbischen took place in 1555. This battle between the Russian army and the Crimean horde was a fateful event, in name and in nature, in the history of Russia during the era of Ivan the Terrible.
In 2015, commercial and salvage diver Ahmad Qamarulhazman was clearing debris underwater near Pedra Branca island, 24 nautical miles east of Singapore, after two bulk loader cranes that were in danger of toppling were blown up.
On his final dive of the operation, he spotted something wedged between rocks 8m deep. His trained eye told him that it was not something natural, but it was tough to see what it was as it was encrusted with algae, molluscs and organisms.
Trading and transport by sea goes back to prehistoric times. Stone Age settlements and canoes, Viking ships, medieval cogs, fluyts, tall ships, warships, defence systems, jetties, harbour installations and aircraft wrecks—Denmark has got it all.
M/F Ærøsund is a former ferry that served the islands in the South Funen archipelago. It was scuttled in 2014 in a sheltered bay just 550m off Funen’s southern coastline where it now rests at a depth of only 19m. It is easily visible from the surface.
The seas around Denmark have seen thousands of shipwrecks from ancient times until today. We take a look at a selection of wrecks from WWII minesweepers to WWI Battle of Jutland armoured cruisers to Age of Sail vessels with cannons.