This was one of our best trips, seven perfect days. We dived practically every day, taking advantage of the phenomenal conditions in the Baltic. Bornholm is truly a wreck paradise, new wrecks every day. Aside from experiencing the storm of the century on the way back, the weather was perfect. Our last two trips to Bornholm showed that you can still find new wrecks there.
We managed to identify two of them, which are linked by a remarkable story.
In 2017, we ended up in the middle of the sea on a tanker wreck that was badly damaged and axed. And since it's located really far away, we only dived on it once during our trip to Bornholm or Öland. The story kept us busy, especially Tomasz Zwara dabbled in the subject every time we were around. He was the first who drew our attention to the fact that what we interpreted as the bow was in fact the heavily axed stern of the ship.That's when everything started to fall into place for us. The Maritime Institute, at our request, made a multibeam image of the wreck. Then we contacted our friend in Denmark Thomas Nielsen, who hinted that the Russians had sunk the German tanker LISELOTTE in this area on the last day of the war. A comparison of photos and sonar images, and 2 more dives this year, reassured us that this was the wreck. But that's not the end of the story, just 15 nm from the Liselotte Bunker, at a depth of 91m we had the position of a large wreck marked. Two dives - it was no longer so easy, because the wreck was destroyed and the depth was considerable. Nevertheless, we were lucky, because we hit the remains of the superstructure and Maciej Honc made an interesting film, which after consultation gave us confidence that we were dealing with the German torpedo boat TIGER.
And where is this interesting story you ask ?
Well, the TIGER sank on August 27, 1939, during exercises in the Baltic, just before the outbreak of WWII, and the Liselotte was sunk on May 09, 1945, and was the Kreigsmarine's last loss from the war effort (two more went in on stray mines). The two wrecks are separated by a short distance and we identified them during the same cruise. It may not be much, but to us this story seems remarkable.
Both wrecks rest about 100 km from the Polish coast at a depth of 72 and 91 meters.
Information about Tiger wreck
We dived a total of 14 new wrecks, most are beautiful sailing ships in excellent condition.
On the way back to Leba we checked 2 brand new positions.
The first was a steamer at 91 meters and the second was a wooden cutter at 83m.
We will probably return to the steamer on our next trip. The new ones delight, but the familiar ones can also enchant.
During our dive on the beautiful Christine wreck, Bartlomiej Pitala accomplished the impossible in 30 minutes, showing this wreck in all its glory.
See for yourself:
19th century sailship "Christine" - Bornholm
A big thanks to Thomas Nielsen for his help.
The team:
Tomasz Stachura
Tomasz Zwara
Marek Cacaj
Maciej Honc
Maciej Marcinkowski
Kamil Macidłowski
Paweł Wilk
Lukasz Pastwa
Bartłomiej Pitala
New friends, new wreck positions and new plans for the 2023 season.
