Diver holds his breath on ‘oldest shipwreck’ find

A 500-year-old Portuguese caravel dating back to Bartholomeu Dias said to be lying off Mossel Bay

TO those who do not know its value, it is just another lump on the seabed. To Daniel Rogers, it is the stuff of dreams — a 500year-old lost ship.

The veteran diver from Mossel Bay believes South Africa is on the verge of uncovering its oldest shipwreck, which has been lying under his nose for years.

Rogers said the wreck was one of a pair that showed up “by accident” in a Council for Geoscience survey. One was a common barge, but the dimensions of the other matched that of a caravel, the now famous class of sailing ship used by the Portuguese, who visited the Cape in the late 1400s at the time of Bartolomeu Dias.

Rogers said his “lump” may be a caravel that reportedly disappeared in 1503, two years before South Africa’s oldest known wreck, lying just west of Mossel Bay. “We don’t know how much the sea level has risen since then. But what we do know is that this could be the oldest known wreck on the South African coastline.”

A similar ship was discovered in 2008 near Oranjemund in Namibia by geologists searching for diamonds. It contained a hoard of Portuguese and Spanish gold and silver coins, ivory, cannons and other artefacts.

The latest discovery comes amid mounting concern about the pillaging of wrecks along

A similar ship was discovered near Oranjemund by geologists searching for diamonds

South Africa’s coast, which has about 3 000 known wrecks. Many more remain hidden. More than 30 countries are represented at the bottom of South Africa’s notoriously stormy seas, which some have likened to an “underwater museum”.

Former South African Heritage Resources Agency maritime archaeologist John Gribble said the Mossel Bay discovery could ignite interest in South Africa’s offshore treasures.

“If that is a Portuguese wreck, that is potentially huge,” said Gribble. “We need a good maritime archaeology project in South Africa to fire the public imagination and show that we can do this here.”

But Rogers believes the wreck — situated in rough waters — may also be targeted by wellorganised wreck “poachers”.

He said he was aware there were others looking for the missing caravel. “However, the chances of anyone else finding it are very slim — the location is so unlikely.”

He said bad weather and logistical challenges had scuppered efforts to access the site. He is preparing a team of divers to drop on to the site, renowned for large sharks, using mixedgas cylinders that enable them to stay underwater for longer.

“It is a silly area to dive for pleasure, but my urge to know what is down there completely outweighs any fear I might have.”

This week, the Council for Geoscience confirmed “quite a bit of diving work” with Rogers near Mossel Bay. The new multibeam scan images of the wreck resulted from a project funded by National Geographic.

But technology is also helping poachers. New underwater mapping technology has made wrecks more vulnerable to illegal salvors searching for artefacts and scrap metal.

Last year, a Port Elizabeth man received a suspended sentence for using explosives to salvage metal from a wellknown Eastern Cape wreck site. The case was the first of its kind and signalled tougher sanctions against poachers.

Sophie Winton of the agency’s maritime and underwater cultural heritage unit said it was busy with a survey to pinpoint the location of all known historical wrecks older than 60 years in its database. In terms of new legislation, commercial activity on historical wrecks is no longer allowed.

Agency heritage officer Tara van Niekerk said South Africa’s underwater secrets had prompted collaboration with foreign researchers, notably Dutch archaeologists busy with a worldwide search for sunken vessels of the Dutch East India Company.

Chinese archaeologists are also searching the African coastline for a fabled Ming dynasty junk as well as other ves- sels that reportedly visited Africa long before the Portuguese arrived.

Although archaeologists have welcomed moves to protect historic wrecks, some salvors believe the new regulations may encourage poaching. In the past, salvors were able to sell artefacts to pay for costly operations. Commercial salvors have been responsible for many of South Africa’s biggest ship- wreck discoveries.

One salvor said this week that wreck diving was basically a free-for-all because the country lacked the means to monitor its underwater resources.