Underwater
Underwater Archeology School Fort Bovisand, Plymouth 1961.
24 Photos
Underwater
60 Photos
Underwater House – Plymouth. A couple of years after the expedition to Paradise Bay (see Underwater House Malta), David Baume from Enfield College of Technology and his team of sub-aqua enthusiasts, made another attempt to construct an underwater home, this time off a breakwater in the middle of Plymouth Sound. Instead of using rubberised fabric, the new structure featured a massive cylindrical steel tank. This was lowered into the harbour and weighed down with several tons of pig iron ingots. These were lowered to beneath the tank by means of a fairly primitive pulley system and then had to be manhandled off the trolley and positioned under the ‘house’. When I arrived at Plymouth on a bleak and chilly winter’s day it was to find progress had been far slower than expected. In order to speed things up and meet my magazine deadline, I offered to lend a hand as one of the sub aqua labourers transferring the pig iron. The water of the Sound was almost pitch dark, extremely mucky and very cold. It took us a total of more than 200 dives to complete the operation and ensure that, when filled with air, the cylinder would stay on the bottom of the harbour rather that rising rapidly to the surface and turning turtle, with potentially fatal consequences for those inside. But finally the underwater house was ready for occupancy and fitted with the special air scrubber that David and his team had developed to ensure the air remained fresh. Several members of the team spent considerable periods of time living beneath the waves, turning the workbench into a bunk bed for overnight stays.
14 Photos
Underwater House – Malta 1969. An inflatable ‘house’ equipped with lighting, telephone and immersion heaters with which the inhabitants could make hot drinks was constructed by teams of engineers and diving enthusiasts from Imperial College of Science and Technology and Enfield College of Technology. I went along the photograph the construction. The underwater ‘house’ was 9ft long and 6ft wide. Constructed from rubberised material on a steel frame it was anchored to the sea floor off Paradise Bay, Malta, and weighed around 500 lb. Team leader was David Baume who hoped it would be the first of a series of low cost underwater living spaces from which sciences to explore the seas. Construction was carried out successfully allowing David and some other team members spent a night 30 feet below the surface. In order to take pictures inside the house I had to bring down a Nikon with a 21mm lens. Unfortunately on the return trip the waterproof container in which it was being transported developed a leak and the camera was destroyed. Fortunately some of the negative survived the soaking thanks to quick development in a makeshift darkroom on the beach. The following day a severe storm caused the house to collapse. The pictures show various stages of the construction, David and some of the team inside the house and attempts to salvage equipment after the storm.
89 Photos
Wreck Hunting
40 Photos
