The Team [Standing left to right] Dave Wilkins, Atil Gelgor, Jeannette Plant, Greg Buxton, 'Hungry Harry', Gary Fones, John Oldham, Louise Trewavas, Nick Hope, Julie Neal, Neil Dobson, Geraint Ffoukes Jones, John Chatterton. [Kneeling from left to right] Greg Mossfeldt, Alex Vassallo, Jonothan Lewis, Carla Madrigal.
Team members not photographed: Jamie Powell, Mark Brill (photographer).

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All photographs on this page © Mark Brill, 2000

Team members Greg Buxton, Jonothan Lewis and Nick Hope worked with Dr John Roberts of Geo Tek to conduct the survey. We used the Koc Foundation's research vessel, Saros, and were able to compare our own data with surveys previously conducted by the Foundation, under their director, Selcuk Kolay. As a result of this we found four possible targets which showed wreckage.

We lost a number of days during the survey due to:
- Difficulties in getting the equipment out of Turkish customs
- Bad weather, in the form of strong north easterly winds
- Continued negotiations over diving permissions

The diving activities were severely hampered by negotiations over permission to dive. Although permits had been applied for many months in advance, and we had been given a verbal confirmation that they would be forthcoming, there were no written permits when the dive team arrived in Turkey.
Without permission, we were also unable to use Saros as a diving base, which we had intended to rely on both as a dive boat and to support the diving logistics in terms of gas and compressors etc.
It took four days whilst we sourced gas supplies and found a boat suitable for diving. We were able to use a large fishing boat, which provided a good, although not ideal diving platform.

The steel fishing boat that was used as our diving platform

Day 1
Our skipper, a fisherman, was an experienced captain but had never put divers or a shotline in the water before. Communication with the skipper was made more interesting due to language barriers and the high position of the bridge - too far to see or hear people on the flat stern where divers were to kit up and leave the boat. We solved this by putting the dive marshal in a position where he could see the divers, but talk to a translator on the bridge, who then gave instructions to the skipper.

We decided to first look at a wreck which local Turkish divers had claimed to be the Struma or "Jews Ship" as they call it. It stands around 7m proud at the highest point in aprox 78m of water.

The first day's dive briefing and the ever present documentary film crew

There were 8 bottom divers (John C, John O, Greg M, Dave, Jamie, Alex, Gary and Jeannette) working in pairs with one videographer per pair. Every diver carried all their own gas, but for added safety there were a further two support divers at 39m and 6m, (Nick and Louise) as well as a lazy shot and decompression station , each with 42% Nitrox and 100% O2 at the appropriate depths. Three emergency drop stations, also with 42% and 100% were set up on the boat in case a diver failed to make it back to the shot line.
The remaining team members provided boat support.
The dive went off well, with the bottom divers each spending around 25 minutes on the wreck. Although dark, the visibility was fairly good and the team was able to take a number of measurements and a great deal of video footage.