South China Seas

I've uploaded some pictures to my website following a weeks wreck diving in the South China Seas out of Singapore. Most of this was concentrated on the wreck of HMS Repulse, however we also dived HMS Prince of Wales, and a couple of recent merchant losses.

The diving was generally in the 35 to 70 meter depth range with visibility mostly in the 15 to 20 meter rang on the wrecks and better shallower. We did have lower vis on a couple of dives, and the Prince of Wales was down to only about 3m at 70m depth.

All pictures taken using a Canon 20D with Aquatica housing and one or two Ike DS-125 strobes.

If you're interested in wreck photos, the full album can be seen here -: South China Seas Album.

Cheers

Chris

70 meters - wow! I'm off to check out your gallery.

Cheers

James

Hi Chris

i have seen the amout of stuff the tech divers carry at Seven Skies....it is amazing you can still cope with a DSLR Setup with all those stuff around your body.

Eric

Hi Eric,

We weren't carrying tooooo much equipment on this trip. A number of us used rebreathers, and we only had 1 side mounted stage cylinder as bailout. The DSLR system is certainly reasonably large, but still manageable.

The fun comes with the UK diving where we normally carry multiple stages for dives in the 70 to 80m range in the English Channel. Carrying a large camera starts to clutter things up, but I'm slowly getting used to this and hope to take the camera on more of these dives next season (I only took it on one 70m UK dive this year).

The Seven Skies was a nice dive - unfortunately I'd knocked the camera into manual focus while putting on the zoom ring so most of the pics were lost.

Cheers

Chris

How was the Mata Ikan? I've used the Grace and Empress but haven't used the Fisheye people yet. Not that I want to go back to the Repulse and PoW.

Did you do any of the subs? Esp the dutch one off the 7 Skies?

The first time I did the Repulse she still had her screws intact. Then I went back and somehow someone pulled it off to sell the brass. I've been told the screws would be worth 70k in brass alone. What's the state of my favorite upside down wreck, the PoW now?

I remember there was a military society that wanted to ban diving on those wrecks since they are a war memorial. I personally believe in just diving it and take no souvenirs. But I've seen many men take stuff with crow bars and stuff. Pretty sad.

I still remember the gentleman at the tanglin club telling me about how they were the first to dive the wreck in 83 and recovered the plate from the Repulse.

Quite interesting historically and challenging diving.

Thanks for the post and gallery.

Jack

The PoW still has all 4 screws intact - the Repulse has had 2 screws removed though.

Both wrecks appear in quite good condition. The PoW being completely upside down, there's not a lot to see on the seabed - at least around the stern. The Repulse however isn't totally upside down, and is an excelent dive. The main guns can be seen, as can many smaller armaments and AA guns.

The military did try and stop diving on these wrecks, however they settled on a "look don't touch policy". I personally agree with this, and diving these wrecks where so many lost their lives really makes you think. If the wrecks were simply made off limits, people in my generation would forget about what happened in the past, and I don't think that's what people want either.

These wrecks certainly have a lot of history - it's not all about the diving.

We didn't dive the subs - just the Repulse and PoW, Seven Skies and the Maritime Fidelity. Most of the diving was spent on the Repulse.

Cheers

Chris

Shows you how long it's been since I dived the wreck... I got my battleships switched screwwise.

I agree with the look no touch policy. Invariably some nutter will hack a piece off, there are morons even on tech dives.

I do understand about the history of these magnificent ships and their role in the making of history. Thanks again for refreshing my memory on the 2 ships.

Nice photos and very interesting!I love compositions and lightning. Good job, thanks for sharing wuth us