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White Star Line plate found on RMS Afric shipwreck at 80 metres!
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Apr 22, 2025
The Titanic was owned by the White Star Line which also operated many other ships including the SS Afric which was torpedoed in 1917. Lying in 80 metres (240 feet) of water it is an awesome technical dive. White Star Line vessels, including both the Titanic and Afric, used identical crockery branded with their company logo. During this dive I penetrate deep into the interior of the wreck to find and recover a third class plate with the White Star Line crest. *Highlights" 00:00 Introduction 04:55 Arrival at the wreck 08:30 Over the side 11:30 Rebreather cell warning 14:00 Deck light 17:00 Entering the wreck 18:17 Finding a plate 22:00 Lots of silt! 29:00 Out of the wreck 33:30 Back at the shot line *Kit I Use* Note, some of these are affiliate links so help support making my videos: - Gloves are Ansell Alphatec 87-063 - https://amzn.to/4jDHhX4 - Main torch is an Orcatorch D630 - https://amzn.to/4jlT4tA
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0:00
the Titanic is easily the most famous ship of the White Star Line there were
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plenty of others though including the SS afre built in 1898 in the same Harland and wolf
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shipyards where the Titanic would be built later in later years it enjoyed a
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long and fruitful life transporting goods and passengers between the UK and
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Australia before being sunk in 1917 by a German
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submarine the re lies in just under 80 M off the Southwest coast of the UK and
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this is the target for our dive
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[Applause] today conditions are fabulous both above
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the water and underneath looks it's going to be another a great
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dive people who've watched some of my other videos will know that I often use a scooter but I've not got one with me
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today as I'm planning on going inside the wreck what that does mean though is that
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the descent is going to take me a bit longer than usual
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this does give me the opportunity though to talk about a few of the issues surrounding the plate that you're going
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to see me finding on the wreck and then bringing up to the surface
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now this is quite an emotive subject and people have strong views either way I'd
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start off by saying that everything you see me doing in this video is completely legal under UK law
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the wreck is owned by a private individual who bought it probably sometime in the 60s or
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70s I've reported my find through the receiver of wreck and the receiver of
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wreck has been in touch with the person who owns the SSA freak following this the plate has been
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given to me in lie of the Salvage to which I would otherwise be entitled to claim what this means is the plate is
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mine in exactly the same way as it would be if I'd bought it from a
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shop now people have strong opinions on this and some people don't believe it
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it's right to take things off wrecks especially ones on which people have died such as the
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afre not surprisingly that isn't a view with which I agree there's lots of
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reasons for for my uh disagreement not least the fact that as you will see the
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plate is not likely to be accessible for much longer when the wreck collapses it will get crushed and destroyed and
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therefore probably won't be there for future Generations anyway I'll look forward to uh reading your views on this uh in the
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comments section of my
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video in the meantime you can see as we descend the water's getting darker
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that's simply because there's less light able to penetrate down to this depth viz remains pretty good though uh which is
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really nice and it often can be absolutely stunning out in this part of um the English
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Channel those who watch some of my other videos know that I don't tend to cut them so you do get the full experience
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of the dive if you haven't seen any of my other videos then obviously I'd really encourage you to have a look at
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them and uh hopefully you'll enjoy them in the same way that this one
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hopefully it's obvious that my video camera is mounted on my head that means you're seeing what I'm looking at so now
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I'm just having a quick look behind me to make sure my budd's okay he's waving his torch in a circle
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which is the signal that we use to indicate that everything's okay we're getting deep now so we must
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be getting really close to the wreck I'm expecting it to come into view any moment oh yeah there it is brilliant
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and you can see actually it looks as though we're off the side of the wreck there's a big bit of plate underneath me
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as the first dive is down our job is to use a waster line to secure the shots to
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the wreck that means it won't get dragged off either by the tide or by other divers before I do that though I
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need to get my strobes on strobes are really useful cuz they find help us find
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the shotline which on a wreck the size of the afek is not always as easy to do as
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you might think so these are a really really useful and important thing and
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you can see it's been sat set a flash there my buddy will be doing the same thing above
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me if you look over the edge of the wreck there you can see the grapple and
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it's just held on with a couple of the tines what I need to do is go down and
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make sure it's in a bit better
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there's a load of net down here in fact the whole wreck of the afre is covered in net to start with I'm going to take
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the grapple down and I'm going to see if there's something down there I can hook it
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on as you'll see it's just net and every time I try and put it in the
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net it's it's no good the net moves and clearly that's not a uh not a helpful
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thing for us
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you see I'm looking around for something else to H hook it onto maybe another piece of wreckage that's falling off the
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side of the wreck but there isn't anything just this Mankey old net so in a minute what I'm going to do
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is I'm going to take it up and I'm going to hook it onto a bit of some sort of rib or
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something that's sticking out of the side of the wreck and actually it will hold on there much better so here I go
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now I'm lifting it up trying not to bash through all the pink sea fans that are on the side of the
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hull and there you go that's nice and secure there my buddy's got the waer which is the blue line and he's going to
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secure it on there meanwhile you'll see I've got a yellow boy in my right hand we call that
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the pill or the pellet once the uh shotline is secured on I'm going to let go of that and it
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will go up to the surface and let the other divers know that they can start their descent
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there you go you can see it's blocking the camera at the moment I'm just waiting for the other diver to finish tying off there and then you'll see me
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release it
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yep I think he's done so time to get rid of the pill and it's
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gone what that means it's also time for us to go and start our dive really I
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know I'm on the side of the wreck it's really obvious from the amount of plate and the afek the way
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it's collapsed is it's largely Fallen inwards all the decks and all the SIDS
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of the hull have basically folded inwards and the inside is almost like a big
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bathtub so we're just heading up there
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now as you can see there's loads of old net all over the wreck this is just one
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bit of it here but you can see it's actually become colonized so removing it would actually
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take off an awful lot of marine life all the pink sea fans and the various other bits and pieces that there are around
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there I'm afraid I'm not particularly good at identifying underwater animals
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of any sort now we're in we've gone over the top of the side and we're looking in and you can see what I mean about how
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it's all folded in and we're in the bow area here that's pretty obvious the
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stern was largely the passenger accommodation the bow and front of the bridge was where they had all the
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cargo you can see it's collapsed in and in a moment we're going to see a load of pipes there they are and various other
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bits and pieces once again just a whole load of net all over
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it there's a particular part of the wreck that I'm heading for because I've heard that's where there are plates to
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be found as I head there obviously I'm having a good look around the a is well
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known for having all sorts of interesting bits and pieces on
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it as you can see the visibility is actually really nice it's dark but
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there's not too much in the water to stop us from seeing quite a distance this is actually looking off the side of
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the wreck this bit of the hull hasn't collapsed inwards it's collapsed outwards and as you'll see I'm about to
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swim along the side of the hull for a bit I always like to do this you sometimes find interesting things off
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the side of Rex as well as inside them
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this bit of the dive shows the hull folded inwards really well you can see the seabed is down to the right and you
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can all you can actually see the crease in the hole just to the left of my torch there and the actual big bit of plate to
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the left is folded in towards center of the wreck
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you'll hear a beeping noise and that's me looking at the handset on my AP
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inspiration as you probably saw there's a red line that said cell warning that's not great it means one of the three
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oxygen cells is misaligned with the other two that could be an indication that one
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cell is bad or that two cells are bad fortunately when I looked at it you'll see there's not much difference between
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them as you'd expect I continue to keep an eye on it through the dive and you may hear and see a couple of other
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warnings uh over the next 20 minutes or so but I'm all over it it's all
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good as you can see I think we're getting close to the what was the bridge area here and there's a few interesting
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bits and pieces I've no idea what that brass thing is I'm going to pull it out and have a look at it and then put it
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back again
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you'll also see me having a look at a few other bits and pieces Once Again difficult to say what they actually are
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that thing there may be a lamp sh I have no
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idea the afre was a really big ship it had capacity for 320
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passengers when it was sunk there was about 170 people on board of whom very
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sadly 22 lost their lives
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this thing's really interesting it's a deck prism so it would have been mounted the opposite way up to which you
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can see it here what it does is allow daylight to go between the decks I.E from a deck
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that has a clear view of the sky down to one where there is no natural light
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the thing my torch is shining on there is actually part of the deck it's folded in which is why it's at that kind of 45°
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angle this is the first bit of Crockery it's actually a second class White Star
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Line plate or a small fragment of one anyway and identical plates would have been carried on board or in fact were
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carried on board the Titanic
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this is what I'm looking for I know that under the wreck here are places where
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bits of plates have been spotted before I'm hoping that if I go in and look around I may be able to find an intact
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one in order to get there though I'm going to have to swim inside the wreck
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under parts of the hull that have folded over I'm just letting my know my buddy
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know that's what I'm going to do
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also going to leave in my camera it's one less thing for me to get snagged on
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having left my camera safely with my buddy I'm now going to start to go
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inside doesn't take long before I bump my head for the first
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time as I go inside you can start to see there's all sorts of bits and pieces on
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the floor loads of broken plates that's good news as it means I'm in the right
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area
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it's quite tight in here and obviously really silty one of the things I'm Keen to do
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is minimize the amount of silts that I kick up so that the visibility doesn't
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reduce as you can see there as soon as I pick that plate up the visibility vanishes but the great news is I'm me
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luck almost instantly there's a plate which is absolutely
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fantastic there must be more so I'm going to go on a treasure hunt going further in see if I can find some other
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ones just picking that one up there you can see how much silt it's generated so I need to be really
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careful and this also shows how tight it is where I am
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that plate though is a corker look at it you can see the White Star Line on it it's been underwater over a hundred
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years and survived this entire time torpedoing ship sinking 100 Years of
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storms it's incredible
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that
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unfortunately finding another one is proving a bit more tricky there's loads and loads of broken ones and other
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things such as this little cup that I picked up there once again uh broken unfortunately
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while I'm disturbing all the silt you see a little conal there no doubt wondering what on Earth is happening in
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his house
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all
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I think I found another one here unfortunately it seems to be stuck
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somehow sometimes this happens where when things rust and Decay they actually
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catch things in them and as you'll see I have a good go at getting this other one out it just won't move
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I'm hoping by sticking my knife underneath it I can cause it to break free somehow unfortunately I just can't
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get it under it's it's down so um well it's really frustrating and obviously
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what I don't want to do is I don't want to break
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okay obviously this is really kicking up the viz you can see how poor it is with all that silt fortunately I'm really
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close to the exit and I know my way out so I'm not that worried by
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it that's another great view of the plate though isn't it doesn't it look
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great there's so many broken ones down here though it's really sad and a little
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bit frustrating
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not having much joy in that area I decided to try and swim in a bit further and seeing if there's anything up
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here unfortunately as as you can see it becomes really clear that there's no more Crockery up in this area of the
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wreck so it all must be back where I was during the first bit of this section of
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the dive
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it's also getting really tight here and as you can see I bang my head again that's the moment at which I
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decide that enough is probably enough and I'm going to turn around and head back towards the entrance
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probably hear the alarm on my rebreather going off again I've had another look at the cells they're only marginally apart
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so I cancel the alarm with my thumb I
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I'm back near the entrance this is the plate well probably a bowl that wouldn't shift I guess I'm miraculously hoping
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that might have improved since I've been away not really surprisingly it hasn't
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uh
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the other divers very patiently been waiting for me exploring the area around the entrance and keeping an eye out for
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my
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return we're now at that point of the dive though where we need to start heading back to the shot it's a
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reasonable swim for here so that's where we're going to head
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[Music]
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[Music]
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that for
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we're actually swimming relatively quickly at this point Keen to get back we know we've got a lot of decompression
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ahead of us having said that there's always time to have a quick look if you spot anything interesting on the way
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back
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this is the side of the ship again you can see the inside is on the left and the outside is on the right where the
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hull has folded over also a huge amount of ancient
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netting and the afre is absolutely covered in
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it up in front of us Fair distance off just make out the light of another
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diver as he gets closer you can hear the scooter and I'll actually see him go
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past also get the first glimpse of the strobes it's always nice when you're
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looking for them and you see them it knows that you know that your way back is confirmed
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quick glance at my dive computer shows I'm currently sitting at just under two
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hours of Deco to do by the time I've got to the shot taken my strobes off it'll
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be well over two hours
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back on the shot line you see my strobe it's one with green tape on normally I
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actually have a double strobe but I did have it for this dive the double is just in case one of them
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fails it's just another bit of
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redundancy I also want my uh camera back it's quite an expensive bit of Kit if I
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drop it here it's fine I can go down and get it if I drop it while I'm on My Deco stops it's never coming
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[Applause] back I'm sure it goes without saying
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that I'm extremely pleased with the result of this dive these plates are identical to ones that were carried on
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the Titanic and it's great to have that link with something that I own and not
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only that that I've recovered
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myself well that's it dive complete other than the several hours of decompression that needs to be done I
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hope you've enjoyed it please leave a comment or like it or subscribe subribe
35:28
tell your friends all that stuff would be great thank you and goodbye
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