wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

[Harpooner]

wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

Hello from Poland,
I m interested in any information about wrecks on the coast of Tunisia and Libya.
I know that most of the people in this forum are from US, but there is a group of enthusiasts from Poland reading all the posts everyday. Florida is far away from us , but we do a lot of diving in Med.
Best reg,
Slawek

 

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[Monty]

Re: wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

I spent a year and a half in Libya when I was in the USAF before Quadafe (sp?) took over. I don't know about shipwrecks but there are Roman ruins all along the coast near Tripoli. I'm sure these Roman settlements had harbors and there should be a wealth of under water relics. The water was crystal clear on the coast then. When I was there they had a fabulous museum in Tripoli but they wouldn't even let you take photos of any of the exhibits for some reason. I have no idea what the official government position is now regarding relics or salvage but I think that will be your biggest problem. There are several web sites that have information about Libya that you might try.

 

[Cablava]

Re: wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

I recall some stories from my divers working in Derner is Libya. they were working on the oil loading jetty for the power station.

The Port captain knew of a place a few miles down the coast where an old man picked up 6 to ten 10 gold coins from the beach every year. Non of the divers were treasure hunters and although they did see some of the coins they did not take any notice of the detail.

The same port captain also talked of a German plane crashing just offshore reputedly carrying gold for Rommel, again no one followed up. also it was very difficult to get equipment into Libya to work for them let alone for yourself (this was in 1993)

I guess there is something there but lots of hard work to gat anywhere

 

[modrian]

Re: wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

I don't neccesarily know of any specific wrecks there, but have heard of several ancient ones in the area. There's a great story of Count Byron De Prorok diving on some of these back in the early 20th century(the Mahdia wreck)- check his book "Digging for Lost African Gods" and "In Quest of Lost Worlds". In many cases researching these early explorations could lead to may great finds- back in the early days of helmet diving, many of these wrecks were explored and everyting visible was slavaged, but much could remain below these sand. Since they didn't usually conduct thurough archiological surveys, much is still down there. A good number of these early explorations have been forgotten, and looking deeper into these could lead to their locations, and a more thurough exploration could have a great yield. Imagine a sweet bronze for you living room....

...and here's a good database for some Mediterranean wrecks.

http://www.sportesport.it/wrecks.htm

 

[cthunter76]

Re: wrecks in Tunisia & Libya

Dont forget, most countries its extremely illegal to remove anything old from land or water! I know for a fact Tunisia and the rest of N. Africa and South Europe its not allowed except if youre doing scientific research! In Turkey they have random searches for relic hunters on sea and at port, also most shipwrecks are recorded and removing will lead to jail time. Of course there are always those of us who risk it!

Be careful !

Rob