Norway - Narvik (June 2003)

This Arctic Circle location was the scene of intense fighting during April and May 1940. Allied forces, headed by Great Britain, and Axis forces, headed by Germany, clashed fiercely to secure Narvik, which was a main shipping port for high-grade Swedish iron ore. The ore was a key element for the production of high-quality steel, and therefore critical to the armaments industries of both Great Britain and Germany. The fight for Narvik resulted in more than 55 surface ships, submarines, U-boats and airplanes being sunk in the clear water in and around the port city. Diving here is cold but extremely interesting with wrecks varying from merchant to navy shipping.

In June 2003 a team of us dived the wrecks around Narvik from the Liveaboard Loyal Watcher run by Deep Blue Diving, which steamed over from their base in Plymouth. Divers used a mixture of open circuit and the KISS closed circuit Rebreather.

Bikini Atoll (August 2003)

In 1946 Bikini Atoll was the location selected for "Operation Crossroads", a sequence of tests designed to investigate the effect of atomic bombs on warships. A fleet of war surplus American and captured Japanese and German ships were moored in circles about ground zero - the point of detonation. All were fuelled and armed to represent the actual state of the ships during time of war. There were two blasts Able and Baker, which resulted in a total of 9 main diveable shipwrecks, from the immense aircraft carrier Saratoga, to the formidable Japanese battleship Nagato.

Our team planned this amazing expedition for nearly two years. Due to the predominant use of the KISS closed circuit Rebreather the expedition had to overcome many logistical problems. These ranged from shipping out copious amounts of sofnalime and Helium required for the rebreathers months in advance of our arrival, to actually carrying all the KISS rebreathers from the UK to Bikini as baggage! Hard work but with such fantastic diving completely worth all the detailed planning.

Philippines - Coron Bay (May 2004)

Between The Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 and 20 June 1944 and The Battle of Leyte Gulf from 23 to 26 October 1944 the Japanese attempted to reinforce their forces which were occupying the Philippines. For divers, Coron's history started on 24 September 1944 when a US Navy strike force of fighters and dive bombers attacked a Japanese supply fleet of up to 24 ships at anchor in Coron Bay and around Busuanga Island. Today some 11 mainly intact shipwrecks are easily accessible to divers in depths down to 45m.

We first read about this dive location in Diver and the lure of so many diveable ship wrecks in relatively shallow water was a major attraction for our team of UK wreck divers. Although far from the UK, Coron is a great place to dive and the team had a fantastic two weeks exploring the many wrecks. The team used a mixture of open circuit and the KISS closed circuit Rebreather. We booked up our diving and stay on Coron with Discovery Divers who were a great outfit and could provide Nitrox as well as Oxygen for the rebreathers and were very helpful in arranging the delivery of sufficient sofnalime from Manila. I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone planning a trip to Coron.

Guadalcanal - Solomon Islands (August 2007)

The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal, was fought between August 7, 1942, and February 7, 1943, in the Pacific theatre of World War II. This campaign, fought on the ground, at sea, and in the air, pitted Allied forces against Imperial Japanese forces, and was a decisive, strategically significant campaign of World War II. The fighting took place on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands and was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

overland-underwater - UK to NZ (August 2005 to February 2007)

OUR GREATEST ADVENTURE....

Two years in the planning, four friends have teamed up to organise the ultimate lifetime experience... during the next year and a half we will be raising money for CARE International by undertaking a challenging journey of 65,000 km to drive from the United Kingdom to New Zealand. In addition to this amazing journey across 4 continents, the team being avid scuba divers, will also spend time diving en-route, making a complete overland-underwater experience.