Man, I love everything about wrecks. I love the history, I love the juxtaposition of nature and a huge man-made structure and how the lines between the two blur as time goes on. I enjoy the thrill of penetrating wrecks and the ability to explore the ship in all dimensions.
Me too, I love shipwrecks. For years, I explored wrecks off Florida's Emerald Coast, usually diving out of Destin and also Orange Beach, Alabama. They're fun wrecks, but sunk for diving purposes. But in these years, it totatlly prepared me for the real adventure to come.
One year in Bali, Indonesia where I based my operation for sometime, I had a charter for 20 people out the the eastern Indonesia islands for diving and finding a particular shipwreck. The charter was from an American/Japanese diamond mine company based in Sumbawa, Indonesia. I hired this 136' wooden sail boat called the" Ombak Putih" for the charter. Me and 15 other crew set sail to find this shipwreck which one of the Japanese owners had said his father was on. He knew the exact cove it was in when the American fleet pounded it. So we headed there.
Once in the cove we anchored up and lowered the dingys. We headed straight for the little, and I mean little, village on shore. A path as a main road and villagers the size of elfs everywhere. I found the oldest guy in town and asked him and "the mayor" out onto the ship. Once they were well fed, we got into discussion about wartime 1940, and what he saw. He was here on the beach that day and had seen a ship with the flag of sun on fire and sinking. We got him and the mayor back into the digny and had him showw us exactly about where he saw it go down. We marked the spot and took them back to shore. Then the fun began.
Gary Bevin ,the other dive instructor on board, and our Indonesian divemaster, Lin helped me run search patterns over the bottom. We descended down into a currentless sea, with viz a murky 35'. And whatta know....JACKPOT!!! We ran into her after 20 minutes down. I pulled a 50cal bullet (still live) off the deck and came up. Once on the ship, we briefed the guests and told them to get ready, it obviously has never been salvaged or seen.
What we found were skeletons, munitions, machine guns, and alot of mud. A few fish and three frog fish. But just finding it and saying we were the first and probably will be the last to ever see a totally historical shipwreck completely as she was the day she sank in 1940 something.....Truly one of the BEST, MOST REWARDING experiences ever!