Spidge Hunter Colin's Page
Spidge (Sorry - Artifacts) from the S.S. Indus -
Wrecked off the North Coast of Cornwall in 1886
Discovered on the 21st June 2010 after an all night planning session in the pig and strumpet, where a cunning recovery was carefully planned and forgotten. Monday evening after work, towed the boat up to Rock and launched onto a perfect oily flat sea on the North Coast of Cornwall.
On the way out to the Indus, we were met by a school of dolphins who escorted us the the wreck. Upon entering the water, we found ourselves in 20 metres of visibility. 20 minutes into a 25 minute dive at 48 metres, I glimpsed about 3 inches of the rim of the bell. Removing my trusty specialist archeological freeing tool (or lump hammer to the uninitiated) I carefully liberated it from the surrounding crud! With little air and time left, fixed a lifiting bag and sent it up. Seconds later I heard the RIB engine and knew it was being recovered by our specialist surface recovery team (Terry the Magician!). After a nervous 45 minutes deco, I surfaced to the most fantastic sunset on the longest day of the year! I was greeted by Terry ringing the bell for the first time in 124 years.
All these artifacts were properly declared to the Receiver of Wreck.