In the early years, she served as a torpedo training ship. Because of her three engines, she could reach a top speed of 20 knots. During the outbreak of the First World War, she served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Ehler Behring. At this time, she was converted to carry two seaplanes. She was the first ship of the Imperial Navy able to carry and launch seaplanes.

  

John Moyer is a legendary American explorer. He will be turning 70 years old soon and has lived most of his life in Vineland, New Jersey, about a one-hour drive from the ocean. Throughout his life, Moyer has always had two passions: shipwrecks and motorcycles.

In the past, he would dive on shipwrecks all year round, and the only thing that would stop him would be high winds, or if the dive boat was frozen in ice at the dock. He has dived on wrecks all the way up and down the US East Coast, from Canada to Florida.

I learnt to dive in 1989, doing my initial training dives in the quarry at Stony Cove in England, a popular inland dive location about 125 miles north of London. I remember, to this day, doing my first training dives. It was January, in mid-winter. The water temperature was 4°C (that’s the recommended temperature for drinking Heineken) and I was in a wetsuit!

To aid visiting divers, a newly created Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit (UCHU) has been formed within the Heritage Malta agency under the country’s cultural ministry to manage the deep historical wreck sites of Malta. The UCHU provides information regarding the history of the wrecks, how to appreciate them and what the proper etiquette is when visiting these war graves.

Currently rated as the world’s tenth smallest and fifth most densely populated country, Malta is the biggest of the three islands of the Maltese Archipelago, which also includes Gozo and Comino islands. This archipelago sits in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, 93km south of Italy and 288km north of Africa, surrounded by warm clear waters and year-round temperate climate.

They are big shoes, err, fins to follow. The 66-year explorer and author has made over 2,000 decompression dives including more than 200 dives on the Andrea Doria, and has published 58 books—38 on diving including his best sellers,

The Technical Diving Handbook, Shadow Divers Exposed, and shipwreck Dive Guide series, along with 17 science fiction novels. He has also published more than 3,000 photographs.

The man is truly prolific!