“Lost and Found-Legacy of the USS Lagarto,” the Emmy Award-winning documentary about the mission, sinking and — 60 years later — discovery of the USS Lagarto, will debut in Thailand at a Dec. 12 event in Koh Tao hosted by the MV Trident, the famed wreck hunters who found the U.S. submarine sunk by the Japanese during World War II in the Gulf of Thailand. (more…)

The HTMS Kood sinks into Pattaya Bay in September 2006.

The Royal Thai Navy is prepared to sink as many as five wrecks to promote Pattaya as a wreck-diving tourist destination, according to Chesta Jaipiem, a Navy private-sector liaison who attended last month’s joint Pattaya-Tourism Authority of Thailand-Navy seminar on diving in Pattaya.

According to Robert Camp, the owner of Pattaya’s Adventure Divers who attended the Nov. 28 event at the DusitD2 Hotel, public agencies want to work together to preserve Pattaya’s marine resources, promote the city as a diving destination centered around wrecks and promote the city’s dive operators to spur tourism.

To do this, the Navy is prepared to start sinking additional ships as artificial reefs. The first could be sunk by the end of 2011 and, should public- and private-sector organizations work together, as many as four more over the next 10 years. (more…)

From left, Royal Thai Navy Captain Chettha Jaipium, Dhorn Dhamrongsawasdi, advisor to the director of the Marine and Coastline Resources Department, Hans Ulrich, PADI Thailand Regional Manager, Niti Kongkrut, director of Tourism Authority of Thailand’s Pattaya office, Pattaya Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome, Serm Phenjati, consultant for DusitD2 Baraquda Pattaya and Mikamin Charujinda, director of the Marine and Coastline Resources Department.

Pattaya city officials, the Royal Thai Navy and the Tourism Authority of Thailand have joined forces to market Pattaya as a premier wreck-diving destination and with the formation of a new dive operator club and the sinking of another shipwreck within two years.

Tentatively called the Pattaya Dive Club, the association will promote all the city’s dive companies through a joint Internet website that will be advertised worldwide with funds from both the city and the dive operators.

At a Nov. 28 seminar at the DusitD2 Hotel in Pattaya, Pattaya Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome, TAT Pattaya office Director Niti Kongkrut, PADI Thailand Regional Director Hans Ulrich, Navy Capt. Chettha Jaipium and Dhorn Dhamrongsawasdi, advisor to the director of the Marine and Coastline Resources Department discussed ways to development a tourism plan to bring divers to Pattaya. (more…)

Thailand’s premier wreck hunters, the MV Trident, have published their 2010 schedule and it looks like more deep diving fun. From the base in Koh Tao, tech trips will depart every couple of weeks and fall into three categories (based on direction from Koh Tao): northern, eastern and southern routes.

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A team of divers from Davy Jones Locker in Koh Tao claim to have been the first to have located a shipwreck in the Penang straits of Malacca. They say the wreck is an unknown cargo vessel of approximately 2500 BRT.

According to a post on Scubaboard from a DJL employee, the wreck was discovered accidentally while searching for the wreck of a British World War II submarine. (more…)

Diving the HTMS Kood wreck. (Photo: Andrew Jennings)

City officials are promising better patrols and a new buoy for one of Pattaya’s most-popular scuba diving sites after markers anchored by the city and local dive operators to locate an undersea shipwreck repeatedly have gone missing.

The HTMS Kood, a World War II-era landing craft intentionally sunk off nearby Koh Sak in 2006, has become a thriving artificial reef. But technical divers who use the wreck for courses and fun dives increasingly have been frustrated by the disappearance of buoys marking its location 31 meters below the surface. (more…)

When it comes to diving shipwrecks, some feel there’s a distinct difference between diving wrecks sunk as artificial reefs (or insurance payouts) and wrecks on which people died. Many of these underwater tombs are only accessible to technical divers who both feel the thrill of seeing history close-up, but feel the weight of the events that lead countless seamen to their depths.

The U.K.’s Diver magazine has a great take on diving grave wrecks in its July issue. Author Michael Sawyer said he doesn’t dive grave wrecks to be a “ghoul,” but simply because “I’m drawn to wrecks. Period.”

“It would be foolish, however, as a diver, not to address the moral aspect while adding the (ship) to the logbook, considering that it’s a tomb, and a relatively recent one at that,” he wrote. (more…)

The deep wreck explorers at Koh Tao’s MV Trident are back home after their early July expedition to the HTMS Pangan. The three-day, three-night tech liveaboard hosted tech divers from various Koh Tao schools.

Rediscovered in August 2005, the Pangan is Royal Thai Navy ship bult in Japan before World War II. Carrying ammunition and gunpowder for disposal, she reportedy sunk in a storm and fire in 1961. The wreck is about 60 nautical miles from Koh Tao. (more…)