Submerged

Sutton Hoo A few years ago I was visiting the British Museum in London when I found that they were having a touchy feely day. This is when the curators get out some of their great treasures and allow members of the public to hold and touch them. One of

I must confess that I have a personal attachment to H.M.S. Belfast, as in 1964 I was doing my seaman ship training at H.M.S. Bellerophen in Portsmouth, where the Belfast was used as an accommodation ship. I slung my hammock in the rear mess deck and so

Five thousand years ago when we were all running around trying to invent the mud hut, Egypt was the dominant World power and one of the earliest cultured civilizations of the ancient world. Amongst their many achievements were the earliest agricultural

One of the most controversial persons of all time was the man they call Jesus of Nazareth, better known to his millions of followers around the world as Jesus Christ. For over two thousand years the religion that he founded has given hope and peace to

The Mary Rose is probably the most famous shipwreck to be discovered in British waters. Named for Henry VIII sister Mary in 1510, the Mary Rose was the Kings flagship and served in the fleet for thirty five years before

In 1782 the Royal George capsized at Spithead and sank with the loss of nine hundred men women and children. All salvage attempts on the ship failed so she was left to rot. Now fifty years on the wreck had become full

Yes, that's right, I found the Mary Rose. Well that is to say me and Able Seaman Swinfield did, and actually we didn't know we had discovered the most famous shipwreck in Britain until months later. Even so, there I was

The thing to remember about the sixties is that virtually nothing was known about underwater archaeology at all. Nobody really knew how wooden shipwrecks decomposed, and preserving artefacts was a very hit and miss affair.

When the vasa was hauled out of the sea she had to be drenched in a solution called polyethylene glycol, P.E.G. This became the standard for later salvage attempts like the mary Rose. How does it work? Well this extremely

S-130 E boats were much more than just fast torpedo attack boats, they were in reality a scaled down warship. Heavily armed and extremely fast (in excess of 34 knots) they could cause immense damage to much larger enemy ships

The SS. Great Britain, built in 1843 at the Great Western Docks in Bristol was a truly innovative vessel. Designed by the great I.K. Brunel, she was the worlds first iron hulled, steam powered, propeller driven ocean

My first efforts at marine archeology were not particularly brilliant as they consisted of finding a bugle in a wreck near Bahrain (The Gulf) which was also full of whisky. I kept the bugle, drank some of the whiskey,

iI first saw the Vasa twenty years ago. I had heard of her many years before that, and so when I was on a business trip to Sweden I made a six hundred mile detour to see her. Then she was in a temporary museum and I

The Edwin Fox was built as a full rigged sailing ship by Thomas Reeves at Sulkeah, in the Bengal Province of India in 1853. She was the last ship built for East India Company, and was named for Edwin Fox a convenor

Ever since Plymouth became established as a town in the 13th Century, the Cattewater has been a main anchorage. Indeed there is some evidence to suggest, that even before that, Mount Batten was a Celtic trading post.