Each weekday this Summer Seven Seas Scuba is bringing you ocean related trivia, information, and fun! Check out today's entry on our Facebook.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Shipwreck Wednesday brings you the wreck of the BLACK DRAGON, a rusty 139-foot freighter that carried Chinese illegal immigrants to the west coast of the island in 1999, went down in 2003 off Cadboro Point, Canadia while being towed to a salvage yard. ...Resting at a depth of nearly 150 feet, the vessel posed no danger to ships or commercial fishing boats, so it was left where it lay to become an unplanned artificial reef.
The Black Dragon was one of four Chinese migrant ships that generated international attention when they arrived off British Columbia in 1999. Public Works and Government Services Canada sold the ship to the Port Alberni Artificial Reef Society, which then resold it to brothers Guy and Chuck Polkinghorn of Nanaimo.
Saltair Marine Services of Ladysmith was hired to take the Black Dragon to a salvage yard, but it suddenly sank while being towed by a tugboat. A crew member working salvage pumps on the vessel escaped without injury. [courtesy of the AP]
The 'Dragon" is not very well known in the diving community but is can be dove as a shallow tec dive. The danger of diving this wreck is less depth than it is the current which is reportedly often unpredictable and vicious. It is advised that any tec divers interested in diving this wreck do so with an experienced technical charter. :)
CALIFORNIA COAST
Shipwreck Wednesday brings us the wreck of the SANTA CRUZ! Originally stranded while running in the fog at Rincon Point, due to a defective compass on September 19, 1913 she was saved and in service until she was overtaken by winds in 1960 and wrecked inside the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Click here for more info :)
