An incredible story
In May 2007 we went out to Altnes, a Norwegian cargo ship that sank in 1998. The waves were quite strong on the way out, but it was mostly aftershocks and the forecast looked stable. We surfed at 20 knots and reached the wreck after about 70 minutes. The position we had been given was very accurate and we could clearly see Altnes rising on the echo sounder. The shallowest depth was about 24 meters, which was confirmed when we came down just past the stern.
We took a turn a little deeper aft, but the visibility was not very good there. A layer of sediment was 33 meters deep, and below it the water was very murky. Above the layer, however, the visibility was really good, and we continued on to the enormous rudder and propeller. We also took a trip forward and looked at the crane arrangements. There was plenty of fishing line and tackle on the wreck – which was not hard to understand, as we saw a lot of cod down there.
When we later surfaced, Thomas lost his camera. It disappeared in the waves and sank to the bottom somewhere in the Kattegat, about 30 minutes’ drift from Altnes. We assumed that the camera would never be found.
In November 2008, a year and a half after the camera was lost, we were out diving at the German miner Ostmark. When we were finished and about to leave, some fishermen, Team Bonanza in Glommen, came up alongside us and chatted for a while. They told us that earlier in the day they had been fishing at Ostmark and had lost one of their rods, and wondered if we had seen anything. We hadn’t – but as a joke we asked if they had possibly managed to get a camera on the hook out at Altnes. To our great surprise, they replied: “Yes, we have. Last year.”
We described the camera, and sure enough, it was Thomas’ camera that they had found. On a cod jig! Thomas got the catcher’s phone number and was able to pick up the camera later that day. The pictures from the dive were still on the memory card!
An incredible story – but completely true.
