Someone who knew someone, who knew a guy in Holland, who had contacts with a local bloke, who told them, then they told us. This is just the way it happened. We were directed to one small wonderful place after the next. We moved on, feeling our way at night around the coast, anchoring by day. We found WW11 wrecks and dive sites that are hardly known, named or charted, all of them were immensely rich in colour and full of wild life. The remoteness of these sites is such that we would be among only a few fortunate people to have ever seen them. Some of them I am convinced that our team would have been the first.
On one day we had been advised of some wrecks that had been found by some local fishermen off of one of the small villages on the coast. Somehow a message got to them that we would be looking for them early one morning. I was totally surprised that we managed to find them but I guess they found us. We tend to stick out a bit around here.
We negotiated a price for their services which included an extra fee for their Chief. I just thought yeah yeah.. but it wasn’t so much and I was happy to pay them for their services. They were great! Happy dudes with ever present grins and a willingness to help us. After a little trial and error, they located the wrecks for us and we were able to dive and film. At the end of the day I gave them the cash as promised and our boat ran them ashore. First stop was at a beach along the way, one of them ran up into the trees to visit the local chief and to pay him his share of the fee! I felt a little ashamed at thinking that they were trying to make a few extra bucks from the shiny white boat but I was also really pleased at this simple honesty and sharing. This small thing had made my day.
As we set out into yet another amazing sun set, to another place that was suggested by someone, who know someone, who heard of something in or around the area. I was reflecting on the journey and wondered what was in store for us tomorrow, on my 42nd birthday.
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