Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

“Jaws” it ain’t – the Angelshark has more in common with the skate and ray but is now an endangered species. The squat flat shark, appropriately named Squatina squatina, once lived in abundance on sandy and muddy seabed areas on…

This Sunday 11 December, SCUBA divers dressed in Santa suits will once again dive into the sea water at Bulloch Harbour in Dalkey to raise money for the RNLI, the charity that saves lives at sea. The annual diving event…

Tributes have been paid to Col Michael Moriarty, one of the pioneers of scuba diving in Ireland, who died earlier this month. As The Sunday Independent reports, wetsuits were unheard of when he took up diving, and he once described…

Colonel Michael Moriarty, known to most people as Mick, passed away on Thursday, November 3rd, aged ninety. He was a very affable, kind, and generous-hearted man, and all who knew him would agree that he was a fine gentleman who…

Dutch Inspectorate and Cultural Heritage Agency award contract to the Maritime Observatory to continue monitoring important underwater heritage sites The Information and Heritage Inspectorate and Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), both part of the Ministry of Education, Culture…

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been asked to recognise the bravery of two gardai who played a key role in a harrowing cave rescue in north Mayo 25 years ago. Retired chief superintendent Tony McNamara made the appeal at an…

A Balbriggan woman has set a new world record in free diving, as the Northside People reports. Nina McGowan logged the deepest ‘no fins’ dive ever recorded for her age category at the CMAS Outdoor Freediving World Championships in Kas,…

Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound has witnessed great works of art lying on the seabed and chests overflowing with treasure but says, “nothing compares with finding the Endurance....” In an interview with The Irish Examiner, Bound says he can still recall…

A diving team based in Fermoy have captured up-close images of a shipwreck that lay undiscovered in Bantry Bay for nearly 200 years. The French naval frigate La Surveillante was deliberately scuttled by its captain in 1796 during the failed…

Wildlife cameraman Doug Allen and British maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound, who was part of the team which discovered Shackleton’s Endurance, are among speakers at this year’s Shackleton School, which takes place in person this autumn. Nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of…

The world’s deepest shipwreck on record has been found by a team of explorers in the Philippine Sea. The hull of the USS Samuel B Roberts, or Sammy B as it was known, was located at 22,916 feet (6984.7 metres)…

Dundalk Sub Aqua Search & Rescue have been named as one of five finalists in the Sport category on this year’s National Lottery Good Causes Awards, as The Argus reports. It comes just months after the Co Louth diving club…

A perimeter measuring 500m is being implemented to aid the protection of Endurance, the ship famously lost in the Antarctic by explorer Ernest Shackleton. The vessel's position on the Weddell Sea floor was (as Afloat reported) finally identified in March, 107…

A multi-agency search resumed at the weekend for a cave diver missing in Co Clare since the beginning of the month. The missing man is believed to have gone exploring sea caves at the Bridges of Ross on the Loop…

Shipwrecks with no known owner will become State property under new legislation which Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan is proposing. The legislation also proposes that commercial salvage law does not apply to historic wrecks. The Monuments and Archaeological…

The Naval Service has acquired two state-of-the-art recompression units that could help save the lives of divers with ‘the bends’, as the Irish Examiner reports. The larger of the two — at naval headquarters on Haulbowline in Cork Harbour —…