ABOUT

Avid outdoorsman and underwater photographer, Barry Brown has spent the last seven years documenting life above and below water in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. Focusing on the island's coral reefs, he has worked hand-in-hand with several businesses and environmental groups, including SECORE, a marine conservation organization based in the Netherlands. His image of a research submersible was recently featured on the cover of DIVER magazine.

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Jul 21, 10     Comments Off

Good evening friends, guess what I did today??  Yep, I went down in the sub to a depth of 450 feet and got to see and explore the big sunken ship called the “Stella Maris”.  As the story goes, the Stella Maris was seized by local authorities many years ago because it was found hauling illegal drugs into Curacao.  It then sat empty for years and years in the harbor.  Dutch told me today that after all the court cases it finally became a liability to the Curacao government and the Sea Aquarium received permission to make an attempt to use the ship as a dive object or artificial reef.  So 18 years ago the boat was pulled out of the harbor by tugboats and slowly made it’s way to it’s chosen location out in front of the now Mambo Beach.  The plan was to sink it in 120-140 feet of water which would have made it a great deep diving spot but as you know things sometimes don’t go as planned!  The charges were set and the boat began to sink and all looked good until it all of a sudden decided to turn the wrong way because of a big air bubble inside the hull.  The tugs tried and tried to force it in the right position but may have ended up doing more harm than good.  I was talking to people today that were on location when it was sunk and they said, “the back went down first and then the front came out the water like a breaching whale and you could hear this terrible whistling sound!  Then the ship was gone, never to be seen by anyone again, until now!  What happened years ago was that the ship slid down an extremely steep vertical slope, (in fact it looked like a sheer wall to me today) and then came to rest in the sand at 450 feet!  So now as luck would have it anyone can visit the Stella Maris as it’s going to be one of the main trips that will be offered thru Substation Curacao.  Today we took a young man and his father down and upon returning the son wanted to go again so at 2:30 we loaded him up and off he went again, talk about great parents!  I can hardly wait for you all to take a journey of a lifetime, for me just getting to see all the weird fish and corals was worth the trip, the ship was a bonus!  For more info go to www.substation-curacao.com
 
Well, my head is spinning with images from today, I am so tired!  It’s off to bed, I have a day off tomorrow with Aimee.
 
Sunken Regards, Barry
Copyright © 2009 Barry B. Brown in partnership with Wild Horizons Publishing, Inc.

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