North Carolina

Help Make Diving Safer: Work at DAN!

As diving continues to pick up post-pandemic, DAN is stronger than ever and needs qualified professionals in several key areas to serve our growing international membership.

DAN offers competitive salaries, company subsidized health insurance, a generous 401k program, and other employee benefits that show we value our employees. Open positions include the following opportunities to work at DAN headquarters in Durham, North Carolina:

Divers Alert Network (DAN)

The world’s most recognized and respected dive safety organization, Divers Alert Network (DAN) has remained committed to the health and well-being of divers for 40 years.

The organization’s research, medical services and global-response programs create an extensive network that supports divers with vital services such as injury prevention, safety and educational programs and lifesaving evacuations.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of divers around the world look to DAN as their dive safety organization.

42nd Annual Underwater Treasure Hunt

This event is a true ‘treasure hunt’ where divers get to scuba dive off the rock jetty at Radio Island in Beaufort, NC. They seek treasure in the form of numbered oyster shells.

After numbered oyster shells have been found and collected, we then return to the dive shop for a pig pickin’ feast and the drawing for prizes. It’s all very exciting and makes for a really fun day! This event is one of the largest single-day gatherings of divers and like-minded people in North Carolina.

Previous studies of shipwrecks in the United Kingdom and the Red Sea have shown that such artificial reefs often create new and different types of habitat than natural reefs.

Fish thrive on WWII shipwrecks

In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) undertook a closer examination of the wrecks of the German U-boat U-576 and the Nicaraguan freighter SS Bluefields, using glass-domed submersibles. The two historically significant and deep (200m) shipwrecks sank near one another on the continental shelf of North Carolina, USA, during World War II.

Sea turtles to spend more time house-hunting in the future

In the future, sea turtles in the US will find it harder to find suitable nesting habitat, due to climate change, rising sea levels and coastal development.

A team led by Florida State University came to this conclusion after their research which modelled the suitability of coastal habitats in the eastern United States by 2050 for sea turtle nesting, after considering predicted sea-level rise and future climates.

Their findings were recently published in the Regional Environmental Change journal.

North Carolina: Wrecks & Sharks

Sand tiger shark on wreck of the Atlas. Image by Olga Torrey

The waters off the coast of the US state of North Carolina are treacherous. Bad weather, rough seas, heavy current and inlets that are difficult to navigate are common. So why do underwater explorers consider this area to be a world-class dive destination? Because when you do get offshore, it is extraordinary.

A sonar image of the newly-discovered Civil War-era shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina
A sonar image of the newly-discovered Civil War-era shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina

Shipwreck dating to the American Civil War found off North Carolina

The goal of the Union blockade was to keep supplies from reaching the Confederacy through one of its most important ports and to prevent the export of cotton and other marketable items by the Southerners.

Archaeologists discovered the shipwreck 44 km (27 miles) downstream from Wilmington near Fort Caswell, at the mouth of Cape Fear River — making it the first Civil War shipwreck uncovered in the region in decades, said Billy Ray Morris, deputy state maritime archaeologist and director of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology's Underwater Archaeology Branch.

Photo of the remnants of the shipwreck in the seabed off of the North Carolina coast.

Centuries-old shipwreck located off Eastern US seaboard

Artefacts on the wreck indicate it might date to the American Revolution. Amid the shipwreck’s broken remains are an iron chain, a pile of wooden ship timbers, red bricks (possibly from the ship cook’s hearth), glass bottles, an unglazed pottery jug, a metal compass, and another navigational instrument that might be an octant or sextant.