Scuba Diving on a Sunken Chinese Smuggler
In the summer of 1999, four mysterious ships slipped into Canadian waters and made various landfalls off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It would soon be revealed to the astonishment of everyone that these ships carried almost 600 chinese migrants so desperate to leave China that they actually paid money to brought across the Pacific Ocean in ships so small, so decrepit, in living conditions so horrific that I can not even fathom it today. The Chinese migrants were rescued, brought ashore and the ships were seized and towed into Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada. Two of the ships subsequently sunk at the wharf and had to be raised.
The Port Alberni Reef Society bought three of the ships for the purpose of sinking them again. The usual efforts were put into cleaning the vessels up, making them safe and environmentally friendly enough to put on the bottom and have divers swim around them. The condition of these ships was so poor that it was uncertain as to whether they could even be towed out to site chosen to be eternal resting spot.
It was a bright, sunny autumn day. The water was flat calm. I tagged along behind a group of divers as they descended down the steep, muddy slope of the Alberni Inlet. A thirty foot deep fresh water lens caused by the outflow of nearby river acted a sun shade, so that even though we were diving at mid-day, it was as dark as night at 80 feet. The wreck appeared suddenly from out of the gloom. Our divemaster had warned us not to penetrate the wreck and to even be careful on how we touched it. The ship was jagged with bent metal and rust. The wreck sits on a very steep incline. We encountered the back deck at about 75 feet, swam down and around the wheel house at 100 feet and returned back up along the starboard side to the stern. It is eerie and foreboding. Every minute of the encounter conjured up images of poor Chinese migrants crowded into the hold, in unimaginable conditions somehow surviving a crossing of the Pacific Ocean under the care of pirates in a vessel so decrepit that it sunk at the wharf upon being unloaded.
Ships that are prepared and then purposely sunk for the benefit of scuba divers are called artificial reefs. They are made as environmentally safe as possible. Studies have shown that these reefs can in time foster the growth of organisms equal to their own mass. Many coastal communities have greatly benefited by the growth in tourism contributed to by these artificial reefs.
Special training and equipment is usually necessary for the scuba divers who visit artificial reefs. But the thrill of seeing a ship wreck laying on the bottom is worth the extra time and expense.
About the author: Rocky Boschman is a marine biologist and founder of Scuble.com. (http://scuble.com/) He has been actively promoting conservation for many years. Scuble.com is an online community and a great resource for information about the oceans. Join now, its free.
