HOT NEWS !

By Meg Purtell

A British shipwreck hunter says he wants to find answers for the loved ones of those killed when the World War II hospital ship the Centaur sank off the Queensland coast.

The Centaur was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine off south-east Queensland in 1943, with the loss of 268 lives.

Martin Pash, 87, was on board the Centaur the night it went down. Of the 268 people who were killed, only 64 returned home, and Mr Pash is one of three survivors that are still alive.

"I was the last one out the quarters and I got sucked back into the ship's hull," he said.

"We tried to get the life boats away and couldn't get them away.

"I left and I said, 'grab something safe until the ship's gone under' and I left and went up to grab the rail on the side of the ship, and before I had a chance to do it, the suction took me down number one hatch.

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From VietNam Net Bridge

Everyday for 20 years Ha Cong Ao and Hoang Dinh Dang have risked their lives diving to the bottom of the Red River in search of discarded valuable materials.

When they discovered a sunken 19th century ship they thought they’d come up trumps but now they’re not so sure.

On the banks of the Red River in Khoai Chau district, Hung Yen province sits a recently salvaged boat that was built sometime in the 19th century. Now broken in two the boat was once 30m long and 5m wide.

The bronze steam-engine and screw-propeller are intact, however, so there is enough evidence to suggest that this ship was a real beauty in its day.

But the divers, who discovered the boat, are now staring at the shipwreck and wondering if dredging up the past was such a good idea. At first, of course, they thought they’d struck gold.

“People say we hit the jackpot but in fact we are sitting on a land-mine,” says 53-year old Ha Cong Ao. “We emptied our own pockets and borrowed a lot of money to fish out the wreck. Now we don’t know when we will be able to pay off our debts.”

Initially, Ao along with his son Ha Cong Chuom and his friend Hoang Dinh Dang estimated it would take a week and cost VND10m to pull the wreck out and that they could sell wood and iron for VND70m.

In the end it took a whole month. They hired nine divers and two crane boats at a cost of VND124 million. There was an additional VND100m spent on oil.

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From Times & Star

The world’s most famous shipwreck is helping to keep Maryport’s Maritime Museum afloat.

More than 400 people visited a Titanic exhibition in the Lifeboat Inn, next to the Shipping Brow museum, on Sunday and Monday and around 60 adults and 45 children watched the only working steam model of the ship as it sailed on the Ellen River on Monday morning.

The exhibition was put together by Cliff Ismay, a descendant of Thomas Ismay, the Maryport-born founder of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic.

Ismay’s son, Bruce, was the chairman of the White Star Line when the Titanic was launched and was one of those who survived its sinking.

Howard Nelson, of the Titanic Heritage Trust in Coventry, brought memorabilia from the blockbuster movie Titanic.

Mr Nelson also brought a book of remembrance for people to fill in, not only to mark the lives lost on the ship but also those whose continuing lives were affected by the tragedy.

On Sunday local sea cadets helped at the exhibition handing out ‘boarding passes’ to visitors.

Tony Johnston, of Scotton, brought his four-and-a-half-foot steam-powered model of the Titanic, which he said he built in two weeks out of sheer irritation.

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By Mark Yost

A small band of pirates operating off the coast of Somalia garnered headlines recently. But if you want to learn about life when pirates dominated both the seas and the news, then I'd suggest a visit to the Field Museum's "Real Pirates" (here through Oct. 25).

The exhibit tells the somewhat familiar story of the Golden Age of Piracy, circa 1650-1720, when rowdy bands of men (and sometimes women) sailed from port to port, wantonly looting, lusting, and -- ultimately -- losing the small fortunes they sometimes managed to amass.

What makes the show engaging and worthwhile is the fact that other stories are told within this collection of artifacts, dioramas and interpretive panels.

The centerpiece of the "Real Pirates" story is the Whydah, a ship that engaged in piracy for such a short time that when it went down off Cape Cod in April 1717 it still had most of its treasure on board.

That loot is, according to the curators, the only documented pirate treasure ever found. The Whydah was originally built for the lucrative slave trade, a story that's told here too.

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From Ground Views

Marine archaeologists have just discovered evidence of a large submerged landmass southeast of Sri Lanka. They believe it could be a legendary lost island closely linked to the culture and history of Sri Lankan people.

The discovery was made by a team of Dutch and Sri Lankan scientists based on satellite maps and underwater sample extractions from the deep sea. Preliminary data need to be verified by a deep sea submersible expedition during 2009 - 2010, according to a member of the research team who did not want to be identified.

The landmass is estimated to be between 450,000 and 475,000 square kilometres, which is about seven times the total land area of Sri Lanka.

“This could well be the long lost island of Irisiyawa, which is euphemistically mentioned in our chronicles and hinted at in the writings of Greek historians,” said Dr Godwin Samarawickrama, a maritime historian at the Indian Ocean Institute based in Melacca, Malaysia.

He added: “The existence of such an island has been speculated and talked in hush-hush terms among divers and archaeologists for decades. This is the Indian Ocean’s own version of Atlantis !”

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From Reuters

The wreck of the first American ship sunk during World War II has been located off Australia's southern coast, ocean researchers said on Wednesday.

The freighter MS City of Rayville, carrying a cargo of lead, wool and copper from South Australia to New York, hit a German mine and was lost on November 8, 1940, a year before the United States entered the war.

One sailor died in the sinking off Cape Otway in southeast Victoria state while 38 other crew were rescued in lifeboats. The United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, the day after a surprise Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbour naval base.

Researchers mapping the seabed for Australia's Deakin University said they located the wreck almost 69 years after its sinking, lying upright on its keel and forming an artificial reef covered in marine life.

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By Clair Horwood

Hanging out at an underwater café, some 20 feet under the Caribbean Sea, a cheeky little yellow and black fish nips my bottom. Welcome to Aruba or Bon Bini as the locals say!

I had always wanted to travel to the Caribbean - but as a fair-skinned redhead the prospect was challenging, and the idea of a week sitting in the shade just didn’t do it for me. I wanted to find somewhere to explore and have an adventure.

So, when the brochure described Aruba as an adventure playground with year-round sunshine, cooling trade winds, vibrant nightlife, and new direct flights from Gatwick thrown into the bargain, I could not resist a week away to this small and friendly island paradise.

Aruba, I later discovered, lies just off the coast of Venezuela, and is the 'A' in the ABC islands – its counterparts being Bonaire and Curacao. As a former colony of The Netherlands, Aruba still has a strong Dutch influence visible in the colourful colonial architecture in Oranjestad, the island’s capital.

Although the official language is Dutch, nearly everyone on the island speaks English, so no worries there, as well as the local tongue Papiamento.

This is a lilting mix of a number of other languages - including Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, English and French with a sprinkling of Arawak – and it’s utterly baffling.

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 From National Geographic News

This mortar and pestle, found in an underwater wreck thought to be Blackbeard's ship Queen Anne's Revenge, probably was used to crush medicine or spices, archaeologists said in March 2009. 

What appear to be ornate designs on the mortar are actually minerals that hardened on the objects, which were discovered off the coast of North Carolina. 

North Carolina state archaeologists have already used an electrolysis method to remove the mineral buildup from the pestle, hence its more uniform finish.