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À la carte: Nova Scotia’s treacherous waters | Lights in the darkness | Wherefore the weather in Nova Scotia? | Preserving our shipwreck heritage | Shipwreck diving — The thrill of discovery | Advances in navigational technology | From the CG Archives

Descending into the cool, ice-blue water, anticipation rises as surely as the temperature drops. This is a place of mystery, a place that elicits questions and inspires the need to explore. It is fairly shallow here, and visibility is good. Suddenly a distinct form becomes visible on the bottom, broken up and spread out, but recognizable — the divers have located a shipwreck.

Diver Terry Dwyer films one of many wrecks encountered around St. Paul (Photo by Jim Johnson)

Dwyer shares his enthusiasm with upwards of 200 new divers he trains every year through his Halifax-based company, Splash Watersports. He also researches wrecks, having had his most exciting discovery in the summer of 2000 — a previously unrecorded shipwreck off St. Paul Island, a treacherous area known as "the Graveyard of the Gulf." Uncovering the history of the wreck proved a challenge since the ship, last recorded with the name "the Anna," was identified here as the Clymene by the name on the ship’s bell, a rare find discovered during a second dive in the summer of 2001. "It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle," Dwyer says of the research.

As part of his company policy and in agreement with the provincial Special Places Protection Act, Dwyer and those who take part in his tours and expeditions never bring artifacts up from the wrecks. Instead, he documents the sites using still photography and video, which he often shares at public presentations.

Not everyone obeys the "look-but-leave-it policy" of the Special Places Protection Act, but Dwyer say he doesn’t think most people set out intentionally to collect or take things from wrecks. He incorporates the Act into the diving training he offers since most people seem to be unaware of the legislation. However, he believes the Act is weak because it is not well enforced, and says more resources are needed to increase public knowledge of this issue. "There was a wreck in Halifax Harbour — the Havana — that had bottles, clay pipes, cups and saucers," Dwyer says. "About two years after its discovery, the wreck had basically been stripped. It was plundered in [the government’s] own backyard, right off a government wharf."

Still, Dwyer is inspired by people’s interest in shipwrecks and their exploration. "The public has an insatiable appetite for shipwreck information, even if they’re not divers."

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