If you plan to dive deep into the open sea and stay down there for a while, then there are some dangers to be wary of, but the dangers do not, as many none-divers suppose, come from encountering a shark. The greatest danger for any untrained or poorly trained diver could well be in the … Continue reading The Dangers of Diving Deep and Staying Long
A little booklet of almost true stories of the funnier side of life at sea and ashore in the Royal Navy.
Sometime in 1963 I joined the Diving Team at RNAS Culdrose, in Cornwall and discovered that the Diving Officer was a man after my own heart, who loved to take any and every opportunity to get into the water to catch crayfish, crabs, lobster, scallops or any type of fish and sell them to make … Continue reading R N Divers Top-Secret Dive Expedition.
The English county of Cornwall, situated as it is, jutting out like a gnarled finger into the Atlantic Ocean, has long been a natural trap for unwary or unlucky mariners. Its coastline is strewn with thousands of shipwrecks, as are the Isles of Scilly, which are situated some 50 kilometers to the west of Lands’ … Continue reading Cornish Wreckers, and a Ghost Ship
From the first world war and through the 1920s and 30s, most countries with submarine fleets had been experimenting and trialing various methods of getting trapped men out of a sunken submarine. The Americans, with their vast resources, had developed a diving chamber that could be lowered from a specially adapted rescue ship. The … Continue reading The Squalus Submarine Disaster
I started my ‘adult life’ in the Royal Navy and often look back fondly to those times, especially at midday, tot time, sitting around the mess-table drinking my navy issue tot of rum and listening to mess-mates telling wildly exaggerated, humorous, often alcohol-enhanced yarns of their navy escapades, both at sea and ashore. Sadly, many … Continue reading Navy Daze
There are a number of intriguing mysteries that surround the loss of the Steam Ship Mohegan on Cornwall’s Manacle Reef in October 1898 that no one, as yet, has managed to satisfactorily explain any of them. The Manacle Reef has sunk many fine ships and claimed many thousands of lives, but the story of the … Continue reading West of England Lifeboats
When, on the first of June 1939, the new British submarine HMS Thetis dived for the first time in the open sea, everything was done in slow time and each step was carefully checked and rechecked. The captain, Lieutenant Commander Guy Bolus, evaluated each operation before allowing the next stage of the diving procedure to … Continue reading One of our Submarines is Missing.
Recently I have been contacted by a couple of readers and asked to explain more fully the meaning of the phrases ‘the Bends’, ‘Nitrogen Narcosis’, ‘Air embolism’ and ‘Oxygen Poisoning’. These are phrases that have appeared in a couple of my blog stories. Well! I am no scientist, but as a former Navy diver who … Continue reading Diving Physiology.
Situated as it is, jutting out like a gnarled finger into the Atlantic Ocean, England’s westernmost county, Cornwall has long been a natural trap for unwary or unlucky mariners. Its coastline is strewn with thousands of shipwrecks, as are the Isles of Scilly, which sit off Land’s End some 50 kilometers to the west. For … Continue reading Cornish Wreckers of Old
Roger (Jan) Meecham 