Bermuda: Sunken ships off Bermuda thrill divers

By Ilona Biro

Published in The Globe and Mail, January 199

BERMUDA -- The ice in my drink had barely begun to melt when the fasten seatbelt lights came on. It was just two hours since I'd left the frozen snowdrifts of Toronto, and already Bermuda's pink sand beaches were beaming up at me through the airplane window.

As we flew over golf courses set dramatically on clifftops, I had the sudden urge to don argyle socks and join the jaunty golfers I saw ambling down the fairways. And as I strapped on my seatbelt, I thought of jumping on a moped and exploring the twisty stone-walled lanes that crisscrossed the island below.

But instead, as the plane circled over Bermuda's famous turquoise waters, I scanned the reefs for any signs of wreckage. Because in addition to its celebrated beauty and charm, Bermuda's reefs are full of shipwrecks - and I had come to dive some of them.

Some might say I was crazy, planning to spend most of my time underwater when I could be sipping Dark N' Stormies in a jasmine-scented garden. But there's something about diving shipwrecks that captures the imagination like an island tour could never do, each wreck adding its own salty chapter to the history of the land above it.

I checked in at my hotel, and met up with the people I'd be diving with for the next two days. The four of them had collectively logged over a thousand dives - many of them shipwrecks, in every corner of the world. Since I had only a dozen dives under my belt, I was glad to be among so many experienced divers - and to hear that Bermuda's shipwrecks are located in some of the most shallow and safest waters in the world.

The next morning we met up with John Stephenson, owner of Blue Water Dive Shop and an old wreck diver himself. Stephenson had chosen three wrecks for us to visit - all of them in shallow water allowing for plenty of "bottom time" for exploration. As we headed out of the harbour to our first dive site, Stephenson explained why Bermuda's reefs have claimed countless ships over the past four hundred years.

As early as the 16th century, Bermuda was used as a landmark by Spanish ships sailing back to Spain from the New World. But the mariners' habit of locating the islands as a way of confirming their position often ended in disaster as they frequently wrecked on Bermuda's unmapped outer reefs.

Similarly, American ships bound for South America and Europe would head to Bermuda in emergencies, and often ran aground on the reefs just short of their goal. It's a legacy that continues to draw marine historians and divers to these waters in search of treasures and clues that might help solve the mysteries of ships that disappeared long ago.

Shipwrecks had always fascinated me, from giant IMAX images of the Titanic to the sunken rowboat under our cottage pier back home. But nothing I'd ever seen prepared me for the thrill of seeing my first wreck - the Marie Celeste.

Stephenson had warned us that she was "up to her gunnels in sand," and at first, all I could see was a huge dark object spreading across the ocean floor beneath me. As I descended, the ghostly outline of a small ferris wheel came into focus. I suddenly saw that it was a paddle wheel, standing perfectly upright in the sand and covered in a thick carpet of corals and sea fans. For a few seconds, as I floated a few feet above the old wreck, I had the strange sensation of being the first person at the scene of an accident.

In fact, the Marie Celeste is a relic of the American Civil War, a paddle steamer that supplied ammunition and rifles to the Southern forces in exchange for cotton and tobacco. Built for speed, these sleek ships, called blockade runners, were designed to run the Union blockades at Charleston, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina, and usually made their risky runs on moonless nights for added protection.

As I swam over the deck, covered by a century of sand, I made out pipes, broken planks and the raised midsection, still intact, where the controls would have been. By the time I'd finished swimming from bow to stern and back again, our hour of bottom time was up. We'd seen a fascinating wreck and had spotted a giant eel tucked under a coral shelf. We decided to call it a day, and returned to our hotel to swap tales over that great Bermudian tradition - afternoon tea.

The next day, after breakfasting on fishcakes and mango chutney, Stephenson took us to three more wrecks. Two of them, the Constellation and the Montana, lay right beside one another, though they were sunk a century apart.

We began with the Montana, a blockade runner that had sunk in 1863. Much better preserved than the Marie Celeste, the Montana sits upright in the sand, her bow intact, and her two paddle wheels lying on their sides like a couple of old wagon wheels. We swam into her bow and out again, weaving our way back and forth through the iron ribs of her rusty skeleton.

Fifty feet away from the Montana lies the Constellation - a handsome four-masted schooner built in 1918. In June 1942 she set off from New York City bound for Venezuela with a 2,000-ton general cargo including several hundred sacks of cement, 700 cases of Scotch whiskey, and thousands of drug ampules full of adrenaline, opium, morphine and penicillin.

When her steam pumping mechanism broke down, the captain headed to Bermuda for repairs, but while waiting offshore for a local pilot, she was driven onto the same reef as the Montana by a strong current.

While the Constellation was a total loss, the U.S. Navy, based in Bermuda, made quick work of salvaging the 700 cases of whiskey. Today all that remains is the cement, which has hardened into a giant mountain of concrete pillows rising up out of the ocean floor.

For decades divers brought up everything that the Navy didn't want - from boxes of yo-yos and nail polish to tennis rackets and iron crucifixes. Intrigued, I searched in vain for buried treasures in the sand, but found only broken glass and chips of crockery. Had I found anything, Stephenson told me afterward, I'd have to surrender it to the government. New laws had done away with the old finders-keepers law of sea salvage.

As we headed to shore for lunch, Stephenson recounted the story of the Cristobal Colon, a luxury liner that ran onto the Bermudian reef in the 1930's. The Colon quickly became a favourite weekend destination for Bermudian families who'd row out to the stranded ship, and spend the day picnicking on her broad decks. When dusk came, they'd head home - but not before selecting something from the first class cabins to take home as a souvenir. After the Colon was relieved of most of her furniture, paintings and fittings, she was used by the American Air Force as a target for bombing practice. Scattered over a wide area, she's still visited by divers who can see her eight massive coal burning boilers, propellers and an unexploded artillery shell that sits among the wreckage.

After lunch, we set off to dive our last shipwreck. The Lartington was a cargo ship carrying cotton from America to Russia when it began taking on water not long after leaving port. The captain headed to Bermuda for repairs, but ran the ship aground like so many seamen had done before him.

The massive ship was a grand finale to two days of memorable diving. Here was a shipwreck with its own topography - a hilly continent of tangled beams, pipes, twisted metal and broken boards. My last image was of a magnificent grouper hiding under the Lartington's huge propeller, blinking back at me.\

Fittingly, Bermuda itself was founded as the result of an accident at sea when the Sea Venture - a ship full of settlers on their way from England to America - crashed into coral around Bermuda in 1609. The castaways got to shore, and built two new ships from the wreckage of the Sea Venture. The next year they completed their journey to the New World. As soon as news of the beautiful islands reached England, King James I awarded a land grant to the Virginia Company so they could be colonized. By 1612, a group of Englishmen had become permanent inhabitants of Bermuda, and a British colony it has steadfastly remained ever since.

It was time, after exploring Bermuda's waters, to spend my last day exploring the island itself. I started at the Maritime Museum, part of the Royal Dockyards complex, which has shops, galleries, a pottery and pub within its old walls. Still under the spell of the sea, I spent most of my time in the museum's Treasure House, lingering over its collection of coins, jewelry, clay pipes and navigational instruments salvaged from some of Bermuda's earliest shipwrecks.

In the capital city, Hamilton, where sidewalks overflowed with pre-Christmas shoppers, the elegant Front Street department stores were doing a roaring trade in British cashmere and china. I took a break from the crowds in a harbourfront pub, and watched the late afternoon sun dazzle off the whitewashed cottage roofs across the bay. And precisely at 5, I watched dozens of businessmen setting off for home in their neatly creased Bermuda shorts and matching woolly knee socks, swinging their briefcases to and fro.

I caught the ferry back to Newstead, an elegant old hotel that four days earlier had welcomed me with open arms, extra towels and the Canadian flag - flying alongside the Union Jack by the pool.

I ordered a Dark 'N Stormy from the barman, settled in among antique games tables and overstuffed sofas, and watched a game of skittles begin in the lounge. At that moment, surrounded by this very English version of paradise, I couldn't have been farther away from the underwater wreckage I'd come to see.\

IF YOU GO:

Home of the most northerly coral reef in the hemisphere, and warmed by the jet stream, Bermuda is only two hours and one flight away from Toronto. Air Canada has several flights weekly from Toronto to Hamilton.

HOTELS

Many hotel bargains are available January through March, when Bermuda's unique temperature guarantee program means that should the temperature fall below 20 degrees celsius any day during those months, 10 percent will be deducted from your room rate for that night. All of the resorts and many of the small hotels are members of the temperature guarantee plan. In addition, the guarantee includes free admission to Bermuda's cultural attractions and a free one-day public transit pass.

Newstead is a cosy, well-situated Bermuda hotel, with a pool, clay tennis courts, access to the exclusive Coral Beach and Tennis Club. Winter rates at Newstead are 111 US dollars per person double accommodation, including breakfast or 119 dollars including breakfast and dinner.

The larger Sonesta Beach Hotel and Spa has similar room rates, several restaurants and bars, and a dive shop on the premises. The Sonesta is offering a five-day, four-night scuba package, including three two-tank dives, admission to the hotel spa and accommodations for 756 per person, double occupancy. Less expensive housekeeping cottages and apartments range from 35 to 60 dollars per person, without meals.

SCUBA DIVING

Since diving in Bermuda is relatively easy (the wrecks are in fairly shallow water with terrific visibility), many novice divers enjoy diving here, after being certified in Canada through a local dive shop. This allows you to spend time in the classroom at home and not while you're on holiday. The two shops in Bermuda I dove with - South Side Scuba and Blue Water - were both very well run and provided good equipment and information about the dive sites. A useful book to get is Bermuda Shipwrecks, by Daniel and Denise Berg, widely available in Bermuda. It lists all the wrecks with their history and is useful for determining which dive sites interest you most. There's a decompression chamber in King Edward Hospital in Hamilton, where the director of emergency is himself a recreational diver.

INFORMATION

Visitors get around the island on rented scooters, available through most hotels. Taxis cost about a dollar a minute, while public transit (buses and ferries) is efficient and a bargain.

Bermudians dress for dinner - after 6 p.m. men are requested to wear ties and jackets in many restaurants and hotels. For more information, contact the Bermuda Department of Tourism, Suite 1004, 1200 Bay Street, Toronto, M5R 2A5, or call (416) 923-9600.