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Princess of the Orient 18 April 2008

Posted in Business, Diving.

A guest article by Mike Taylor

Matt Reed and Mike Taylor ascending from the Princess of the Orient

On September 19th 1998 having been beaten by Tropical Storm Vicki, The Princess Of The Orient, a 200m long 13,734 ton ferry, sank 40 miles south of Manila on its way to Cebu. She now rests in 125m of water and is the final resting place of some 150 souls that were lost that night.

In the early 2000s world deep diving record holder John Bennett and Ron Loos, of Atlantis Tech in the Philippines, were the first two explorers to dive her. Since that time only 7 other people had had the honour of seeing the 'Princess'.

In April 2008 Matt Reed and myself of Triton Oceanic, using dive propulsion vehicles, became the first explorers to dive her bow and were able to see more of her than any of the previous divers. We both carried 5 stage decompression bottles in addition to the 18L twin steel tanks on our backs. This enabled us to take the 16,720L of Trimix gas and 2,200L of pure oxygen that we needed to safely undertake a dive at these depths.

The wreck


Diving the Princess of the Orient

The wreck lies on her port side with her bow facing to the South. As we reached a depth of 85m the wreck came into view. The sense of excitement and adventure, which had been with us so far on the descent to the wreck, gave way to very somber feelings, which are difficult to put down on paper. A life jacket caught in the ships railings was a very poignant reminder of the tragedy that had taken place here and of the people that would never see their families again.

The shot line connecting us to the surface was hooked to the wreck aft of the rear smoke stack. We quickly got on with the job at hand and began our exploration of the huge ship. The first dive involved taking a look at the twin smoke stacks lying at 115m. Each had the familiar red emblem of diamond enclosed “S”, the insignia of the ship’s owners the Sulpicio Lines.

Inspection of the exterior of the superstructure showed many beds and an upturned TV set, another reminder of the human story which lies behind every exciting wreck dive such as this.

Too soon the clock hit 16 minutes and it was time to return to the flashing strobe attached to the shot line signalling our way home, and the beginning of the slow journey back to the surface. Three hours later we were back on board the support vessel, and had begun documenting the dive and planning the next day’s exploration of the bow.

Day two: the bow

All of the planning and preparation paid off and dive two also went smoothly. After a descent of five minutes and a four minute scooter ride along the upper deck, we reached the bow. Matt videoed as I shone my torch onto the railings at the front of the ship; the three year training schedule had finally paid off..

On the way back to the shot line, we 'scootered' past the ship’s name still showing proudly in two foot high green lettering. Matt became the first person to look inside the wheel house through the now broken windows. It was 16 minutes into the dive and time to head back to he shot line ready for the ascent at the planned time of 20 minutes, this meant that we had to bite back the the temptation to penetrate and leave that experience for another adventure.

Great thanks go to the support team of Ross Hemingway and Michael Junes plus the ace the photographer Dennis Champ ( a tritone himself). Set up, expertise and know how from the very excellent Frank Doyle of vessel Rags II and all the staff from La Laguna Beach Club & Dive Centre Philippines...

A successful operation...

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