First dives on Gallipoli

As promised we have for you the first news and photos from under the water from General and Romano. They have already started their adventure with wreck exploration in Turkey. See what they write themselves and what first photos they provided us with via e-mail:

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Underwater photo gallery

SUNDAY 04-09-2011

We apologise for the delay, but we have such a huge amount of work here that we only get a few hours’ sleep and there is still not enough time. It is good that in our old age we do not need so much sleep anymore. Saturday and two British wrecks, the first is the transport ship Lundy , while the second is a ship that was equipped with refineries to convert sea water into drinking water. The troops attacking the Turkish positions on the Gallipoli peninsula had huge problems with fresh water. The lack of groundwater forced the Allies to import water all the way from Egypt, which is why they used floating refineries. These ships were inventoried by us in detail. You will hear about the detailed conclusions of our work later.

Today we are sailing to the Anzac landing stage, which has just been discovered by local fishermen. We need to use sonar to re-trace its position. We are lucky enough to be the first divers to dive on it. I know from an official source that a team of Turkish divers is planning an expedition to this very wreck, but not until October, so we will be a little ahead of them. We are already getting down to cleaning and preparing the equipment.

We will write more after today.

Kassa is happy again. This morning his lost luggage arrived at the hotel. We know from certain sources that it was meticulously counter-checked by the German services, as they left a detailed inspection report inside.

Nurkowanie magazine has become heavily involved in our expedition. His three-person team consisting of Alek Ostasz, Darek Pietruszka and Kasia Pietruszka are here with us. A group of very organised professionals. They are working hard underwater on film and photo documentation. We hope that their materials will soon be available for a wide group of divers from Poland.

Continuation of Sunday

We have just returned from exploring the landing boat. It is lying at a depth of 30 metres flush on its keel. It was really exciting to be the first people to see with their own eyes a wreck that was sunk almost a hundred years ago. It is in relatively good condition. It is in one intact piece. There is an artillery shell hole in the port side, about 15 centimetres in size, which probably caused the sinking of this vessel. Again, everything was very carefully inventoried, and now we have a lot of work to do to put it all together.

This news we wrote about at the very beginning, and we did not want to give away details, is: “Dr Piotr Nykiel, the only expert in Poland on the Battle of the Dardanelles Strait and the land campaign for the Gallipoli Peninsula, has just joined our expedition. We are planning a tour of the forts and battlefields with him tomorrow”.

Soon we will have more news and photos from the first Polish wreck expedition to Gallipoli. Stay tuned!

Source and Photo: Piotr Wytykowski and Roman Zajder, Divers24