The Dive Site

Why don't we use all these wrecks?

05/08/2011

After my post last week on the KZN shipwreck, Shane Erlank sent through the following thoughts:

"Your recent postings regarding the ships left abandoned on our coast left me thinking that these ships present a wonderful opportunity for the navy to pull them offshore, cut off all the cables etc, cut access holes all over the ship, drain the oil and remove the dangerous items and sink this ship as an artificial reef and dive destination.This is done so often in America, why can we not do this here in SA? Political will, cost, think what this could do for diving if we had our very own ''shipwreck'' dive tourism will spike, thers plenty of precedents for this all over the world".

I guess as the reason we don't do this includes the usual, lack of money and political will, but it would be nice, wouldn't it? And I know that in many instances it may be impossible, but is this option even considered? If it's going to lie there anyway, turning an eyesore and source of pollution into an artificial reef that benefits both the environment and the economy would seem to be a no-brainer.

Divers decend on the Vandenberg, sunk as an artificial reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

The USS Kittiwake, sunk a decommissioned US Navy vessel sunk as an artificial reef in the Cayman Islands