White Star Diving

09/03/2022

Wow - Shackleton's Endurance found at last!

She's 3km deep at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.

The level of preservation is incredible - can't wait to see more footage of her!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60662541

What was one of the world's greatest undiscovered shipwrecks is identified on the Antarctic seafloor.

24/03/2021

Back in the days when you were allowed beyond the end of your drive, George McClure, Luke Kierman, Steve and myself whistled off to the Red Sea for a bit of diving. This is a clip of Geo and myself ferreting through the holds of the Thistlegorm.

The SS Thistlegorm was a British armed merchant ship that was bombed and sunk (6th October 1941) whilst at anchor waiting to head up through the Red Sea and ...

22/03/2021

Deco in Spain
Long decompression can be exceedingly boring. At least here in Spain, the water was warm (too warm actually), clear and very blue. In these conditions, after a long dive, dehydration can be a problem... I'm not convinced the lad's solution to the problem was particularly practical! 😉

19/03/2021

HMHS Britannic Telegraphs

Two of HMHS Britannics telegraphs. These are the ones that would have been situated starboard side of the bridge's steering wheel.

30/10/2020

Lobster Eats Fish: The wreck of the Black Hawke lies in two different places - the stern being in nearly 50m, the bow is in Worbarrow Bay in a much more accessible 15m. Despite this broken section being well dived, there is much of interest to see, not least some wonderful sealife. Over the summer, I came across this Lobster enjoying it's lunch... I'm not sure it was overly impressed by my intrusion!

06/10/2020

Having never had anything to show my non-diving friends and family of my underwater antics, I bought a GoPro (a few years ago now). My early videographical efforts were utterly rubbish. After several years of practice, my results are now just about passable! Whilst a lot of those improvements have been down to practice, there are a couple of other things that have made step changes to the quality of the video - the first one was getting a decent set of video lights. The second one was mounting the whole lot on my scooter.

Whilst the scooter is neutrally buoyant underwater, it does have a substantial amount of inertia. This inertia acts to filter out vibration and shake and results in a much smoother video. (note: the "stabilisation" gained by mounting on the scooter is better than the software stabilisation implemented on this GoPro 7)

29/09/2020

A cast crab on the wreck of the Aeolian Sky, off the south coast of England. Who knew that "cast" was the collective term for a group of crabs

22/09/2020

The Aeolian Sky sank in 1979 after hitting the Anna Knueppel in bad weather. This clip shows the windlass mechanism on the fo'c'sle, the anchor chain, hawsepipe and the anchor.

28/08/2020

The Thistlegorm: there are so many parts of this wreck that are fantastic, but I was taken by how many places the trapped air in the ceilings acted as mirrors!

21/08/2020

Daisy Chained Strobes: Finding your way back to the shot line when you're mixed gas diving is a must. Attaching strobes to the shot helps a lot, particularly when everyone puts one on and they're spaced well apart.

18/08/2020

Rebreather Cells: Rebreathers use oxygen cells so they know how much oxygen is in the gas you're breathing. It's important they work properly! Here, I've put the cells into a mini chamber, filled it with oxygen and then I vary the pressure whilst noting the current that the cells are producing. These values are plotted on a graph so I can see if everything is ok.

11/08/2020

Setting up a photo on Britannic: This clip shows my part in the setup of what turned out to be a series of excellent photos taken by, . I lit up the Port and central propellers, whilst Rick headed for the sea bed (at 120m) to place another light to illuminate the Starboard propeller. He then positioned himself to take the photos. Once complete he signalled me, I retrieved the light on the seabed, and then met back up with Rick. The whole process was observed by another buddy pair that effectively acted as safety divers.

If you are interested in seeing one of the results, I posted a flyer for a Britannic talk on the 14th May that featured one of the photos.

07/08/2020

Gantry Davits on HMHS Britannic: After the fate of Titanic, massive gantry davits were designed and fitted to Britannic. These enabled numerous lifeboats to be launched quickly and due to their size gave enough clearance over the side of the ship that the life boats could be launched even if the ship was listing significantly. The problem was that they were ugly. They didn't fit them to subsequent ships!

05/08/2020

There's just enough room to pass over the top of one of the boilers of the Dunraven. It is picturesque with life, reflections in the trapped gas above and the deep blue exit beyond.

04/08/2020

A short clip inside the beautiful wreck of the Thistlegorm in the Red Sea

03/08/2020

The Dunraven was a sail and steam ship built in Britain and lost 3 years later after hitting a reef in the Red Sea.
Although wrecks that lie upside down can be a bit boring, there is opportunity to explore her insides, with plenty of entry and exit points. The light streaming through the various holes in her hull make for a beautiful dive.

31/07/2020

Off-loading Stages: By the time we get to our shallower stops, 2 of the 3 stages we carry are no use to us. Off-loading them now means that we don't have to do it at the surface whilst holding on to a piece of rope next to a rolling boat. It also makes for slightly more comfortable stops.