Andreas Franke gives sunken ships new lives by installing artwork on them. This year, Franke has photographed models in period clothing and superimposed the images onto the deck of the U.S.S. Coast Guard Vessel the Mohawk, which, before her demise, enacted 14 attacks on German U-boats and rescued 300 torpedoed ship survivors.

Previous works include the USS Vandenberg , also off Florida, and the SS Stavronikita, off the coast of Barbados.

The gallery is approximately 28 miles off Florida’s Sanibel Island and divers can visit the site  until September 15th, 2013. The exhibit in will also be in Fort Myers (on land) from October 4th-26th.

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pfk

New Jersey high school student and inventor Justin Beckerman has made three successful dives with the Nautilus, which he put together in just six months with drainage pipes, a recycled skylight hatch and $2,000 USD.

The submarine propels at a speed of 1.5 mph and has, so far, reached a depth of 30 feet.

Check out Beckerman’s website to see what else he’s constructed.

CNN

Modeled after the fastest fishing schooner ever built, Bluenose of Canada, Zaca is a 118′ schooner once owned by Australian actor and playboy Errol Flynn a commissioned to be the most luxurious yacht constructed in her day, and for years, laying dormant in a ship yard in the south of France, she was haunted.

Zaca was built to replace a 75′ ketch of the same name which had been lost the previous year in Mexico during a revolution. Her keel, too large to fit in any shipwright’s shop along San Francisco Bay, was laid right on main street in Sausalito, alongside the Nunes Brothers’ shop in August of 1929.

She was taken to the south pacific for exploration on her maiden voyage in 1930, and in 1941 she was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy for WWII. Decommissioned shortly after the war, Errol Flynn purchased her in 1945.

Sailing to Acapulco, Flynn rented her to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth for the filming of “The Lady from Shanghai.” Mr. Welles did not return her until 1947, when Flynn was in Jamaica. Flynn, Zaca and a Jamaican crew crossed the Mediterranean in 1950, finally resting at Club Náutico in Palma de Mallorca, where he lived aboard with his third wife, Patrice Wymore.

Flynn passed away in 1959 after years of drinking and self-medication with heroin. Zaca, too expensive for Patrice to maintain, began to fall into disrepair and was entrusted to English millionaire playboy Freddie Tinsley, who ultimately left it in a Villefranche boat yard to accrue storage fees beyond her worth. At some point, she was claimed for non-payment of rent, and continued to sit and rot even further.

The people of Villefranche claimed that Flynn would walk the deck of Zaca (now considered a “ghost ship) at night, and the sounds of laughter and glasses clinking (by which it should be understood that he was always accompanied) were heard by the people throughout the town, until an Anglican-Catholic exorcism was reportedly performed in 1979, from which point on the sounds of Flynn were never heard again (so the story goes).

 huckberry and thesailingchannel

Eight shark warning signs were posted around Pleasure Point, a popular surf spot on the east side of Santa Cruz.

The notices stated that there had been three shark attacks on Wednesday at Capitola, Private’s and Rockview beaches, only no one had reported any sightings or attacks, and no one had seen any sharks.

“Due to the highly aggressive nature of these encounters,” the notices read, “it is strongly advised to stay out of the water for 48 hours or surf Cowells instead”,  which is a popular surf spot on the other side of town where something of a rivalry exists.

Whoever it may have been that posted the signs was clearly trying to clear the waves for a couple of days, but effectively did just the opposite:

“It didn’t work,” said Pleasure Point local and surfer Neal Kearney, “it was super crowded!”

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ksbw

18 years ago, Pascale Honore was left paralyzed after an automobile accident. Determined to get her surfing, Tyron Swan (a friend of Pascale’s sons) and Honore were discussing possibilities over a few beers and came down to the old ‘if you can’t duct it…’ philosophy.

Video:

After countless rolls of duct tape and several trial runs in flat water, they were towed into this not-so-modest wave at the famous Blackfella’s reef break:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Honore and Swan have since surfed on several other occasions and a big wave off of Kalbarri, up the western coast of Australia, is their next target.

Fanatic Surfboards has sponsored them with a new board, but they’d really love a “duct-tape sponsor”, says Ty, “we go through a whole heap of it.”

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shockmansion, news.com.au

The Jascon IV, a West African Ventures tugboat, went down in heavy weather off the coast of Escravos, Nigeria last Sunday (May 26th), taking 10 lives along with her. Two days later, by some miracle, the ship’s cook, Mr. Okene Harrison, was found a live aboard the sunken vessel — 30 meters below the surface.

“The fact this person survived is incredible,’ commented former US Navy Salvage Officer Patrick Keenan. “After spending two days at 30 meters of depth, he had become saturated, meaning his body had absorbed all the pressurized gases and equalized with the surrounding water pressure. Bringing him to surface from that depth, and after having been saturated at 3 or 4 atmospheres, could easily have killed him.”

Responding personnel aboard the dive support vessel (which brought the ship’s cook back to the surface using a diving bell expressed their astonishment at how “cool he was when being rescued.” He spent two days decompressing, and it has been reported that he is continuing to respond to treatment.

Our sympathy goes out to the loved ones of those lost aboard the Jascon IV.

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gCaptain

Somewhere between nursing and changing diapers, Daisy Campbell has found the time to delicately fill out the canvas (or paper) with these rich, fluid, nature-inspired inkings. Check out her website for more.

korduroy.tv

I wrote this post last year, but the trip is happening again and by some miracle, there are seats open. I might go back. For $2600, including everything but airfare, you should consider going. It’s a non scuba trip, so you’ll be snorkeling, making it ideal for people with partners who don’t dive. I don’t get paid to promote this trip, I just believe these Wetpixel are an amazing way to go on an adventure and learn water photography, so I try to promote them best I can. Here’s how to learn more.

I tagged along on underwater photography site Wetpixel’s whale shark trip to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. You’d expect everyone on the trip to have very big cameras, and some, like Alex Mustard, an editor at Wetpixel, did. (Alex, an englishman who lived in Sardinia with his girlfriend, Eleonora, was an incredible host and guide because he is also a marine biologist.) But others were just there to spend time–hours and hours for days on end–swimming with the sharks above an endless depth. I had only a gopro and an iPhone in a 30-meter hard case, but given the clear skies, clear waters, abundant sharks, and plenty of time in the water, I was able to grab a few lucky shots.

The Captain David “Lato” Gallo, told us how we had to sneak up behind the whale sharks when they were botella, bobbing vertically to eat the fish eggs that we could see floating on the surface. The eggs would get into our hair and dive suits, full body too thin to provide any insulation but designed to keep the sun from burning us to a crisp during our 5-6 hours in the water every day. On the way back, the boat crew would fix us some ceviche. We’d be back by 2 or 3pm for a nap or to explore the island or take a dip in the pool of our hotel, Playa Media Luna.

Over the course of a week, I learned how much better my company was–we would head out so very early in the day to catch the whale sharks at their most active feeding times, and to beat the armada of day boats that would bring the splashing, chasing, awkward tourists in their orange life vests that would get on my nerves as often as they seemed to get on the nerves of the sharks. Everyone on the Wetpixel trip was there to observe the creatures, and record them for eternity in photography.

Many city friends I showed these pictures to said I was lucky to go, and that it was a dream of theirs to swim with whale sharks. I agree, I am lucky and it was a dream of mine, too. But, I don’t know why it has to be just a dream when trips like this one are so easy and so satisfying to sign up for.

Without the need for fancy cameras, or expensive dive equipment beyond a mask and snorkel, dive skin and fins, anyone can swim with the whale sharks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Photo above by Neil Rosewarn)

Cyrus Sutton will be living out of his ex-electrician’s van and shooting his new surf film, “Compass_ing”, for the next three months.

Watch the trailer for the film, featuring music by the Blank Tapes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

*korduroy*

Click here to view the embedded video.

The deceased, presumably calf to the female bearing her, may have been dead for weeks, according to Capt. Dave Anderson, who noted that the calf’s flesh had begun to decay. Behind the dolphin and calf (not seen in the video clip) were many other dolphins following.

“In my nearly twenty years on the water whale watching”, said Capt. Anderson, “I have never seen this behavior. Nor have I ever seen anything quite as moving as this mother who refuses to let go of her poor calf.” My hat’s off to him for handling the news gently with his passengers.

*petethomasoutdoors via @aquaken*

Huh.

U.S. scientists have announced the first-ever discovery of a two-headed bull shark, confirming it was a single shark with two heads, not conjoined twins.

Photographs and custom-made wooden frames by Cody Welsh, showing now through March 18, 2013 in Ocean Beach, San Francisco

4500 Irving Street, Ocean Beach, San Francisco

View Larger Map

*goodwinproject*

Click here to view the embedded video.

Subglacial Lake Whillans, which has long been buried in ice, sits in one of the most remote areas of the continent. The WISSARD (Willans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling) project designed a baseball bat-sized micro-submarine to be built, mostly by students of the Arizona State University, so that it could withstand depths of up to a kilometer.

*huffingtonpost*

Forbidden Island (Columbia, 1958)

A skin diver tries to recover sunken treasure before a group of thieves learn of its existence. imdb

*adventuresoftheblackgang*

The Larger Pacific Striped Octopus may be the only species of octopus that mates ‘beak to beak’, which poses danger, mostly for males, as the female will often cannibalize her mate after the ritual is complete. 

California Academy of Sciences senior biologist Richard Ross has issued a spare bedroom in his Alameda home to five of these octopi (3 males, 2 females), which were unknown to science until twenty years ago and still have no scientific name but are currently being referred to as the “Larger Pacific Striped Octopus”, whose size, at 8-10 inches, does not quite reflect their name.

Watch the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus change colors:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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*sfgate, via @stevesilberman*