Extract of the book
The Mauritius Underwater Group
Author: R.Latimer
“IN THE BEGINNING “
Chapter 1963 – 1968
The divers in 1963 had never heard of the Mauritius Underwater Group. It did not exist until a year later, but they still enjoyed their Saturday afternoon dive, as much as we do to-day. The main problem was that there were only 2 aqualung sets and 6 divers all wanting to dive. The small compressor took 3.5 hours to fill one bottle, so it was always a short and shallow dive for everyone concerned.
Johnny Wood’s arrival in Mauritius in 1963, with his 2 bottles, regulators and compressor was a we!come one. Now divers could stay on the bottom instead of floating around on the surface. As the dives got deeper, more discipline was needed and after lengthy discussions, it was decided that a group would be formed, it was to be called The Mauritius Underwater Group.
The Group did not form until May 1964. The B.S.A.C. manual and a host of other books on divinq were ordered. The first M.U.G. committee was unanimously elected on Tuesday the 7th July, 1964 ; President Gerry Gaughen, Treasurer – A. Heenan, Ass. Treasurer – S. Koenig, Secretary – V. Latimer. The Training Monitor Committee consisted of Colin Stephens, Johnny Wood, C. Bucklow and James Armstrong. A training programme was started and an order was sent off to Siebe Gorman in London for more bottles and regulators. The membership of the club consisted of 18 divers and one non-diver. The first official M.U.G. dive was held on the 9th July at Black River, the depth was 25 feet, the divers were V. Latimer, J. Wood, J. Armstrong, C. Stephens, G. Gauguen, A. Poncini and S. Koenig.
On the 29th July 1964, a second diving club was formed in Mauritius under the name of the Naval Aquasports Club. The following were elected ; President – Lt. Cmdr. James Armstrong, Secretary – Lt. Torvell, Treasurer – Mr. Rowe, Divinq Monitor – Mr. Tiggs. The N.A.C. was loosely associated with the M.U.G’s, in order to share experience and facilities which were convenient to both clubs.
Towards the end of 1964, a larger compressor was purchased by the M.U.G. together with 4 bottles and regulators whîch were hired to group members.
The membership by this time had increased to approximately 30 divers. Expeditions were set up to locate new diving sites, as most of the dives previously had been along the reef at Grand Bay,
September 1964 was one of the greatest months for the divers of both clubs. The wreck of H.M.S. SIRIUS was located. Vic Latimer with a visiting diver from the French Navy and one of the members of the N.A.C. had let their boat drift, with the wind and the current towards “SIRIUS” reef, in the hope of hitting the reef in the same spot as “SIRIUS” did. However, the boat drifted onto “Petit Pate” reef before reaching “SIRIUS” reef, so, that was where they decided to dive. The divers lost each other on the bottom in poor visibility, moments later V. Latimer came across a cannon with 2 large brass tubes sticking up out of the sand close by, he had re-located the “SIRIUS”. Immediatly he went off to find the other divers to, show them what he had found. Her bow was in sixty feet of water and the stern in ninety. As a result of this discovery the qroups really came to life. Operation Sirius was set into motion with the construction of an air lift built together with a grid, which was set up running the whole length and breadth of the wreck. The plan fell into 3 categories 1) Survey. 2) Cleaning. 3) Lifting of interesting objects, plus photography and keeping a catalogue throughout all operations.
While work went on with the “Sirius”, normal club dives continued all over the island including organised searches for the wrecks of the St. Geran, H.M.S. Magicien and the remaining 75 known wrecks. On the 27th October 1964, the first photographs of H.M.S. Sirius were available and copies were sold to members at Rs. 3.50 a set. This appeared to give incentive to the divers searchinq for H.M.S. Magicien as this wreck came to light shortly afterwards. She was found in twenty feet of water close inshore and very badly broken up. The Magicien was first located by Mr. H.C.M. Austen, O.B.E., who was the harbour master in Port Louis. Hard hat divers were used in about 1932 for this operation. Mr Austen conducted a large scale salvage operation on the wreck using a crane with a grapnel hook, which he dragged across the wreck. He recovered a large section of the side of the ship, along with some cannons, boules, guns, etc, which are today on display in the Mahebourg Museum.
1965 saw a big change in the club training, the navy swimming pool became available for pool training every Tuesday at 5 o’clock. Previous to this, all training had been done in the open sea. As a result of this there was an influx of new members, official training records were printed and members qualifications were kept on record. Log books were issued to all members. All day diving trips were arranged, barbecue parties were held on the beaches and some of the first night dives got under way, The first fresh water dive took place in the hole at Trou d’Eau Douce, and still the work on Sirius continued. Every Saturday more of the wreck was being cleared away, guns, coins, bottles, trigger guards from old guns, cannons, the pump housings, ammunition and flints were being charted, photographed and recovered.
August 10th 1965, saw the first A.G.M. of the Mauritius Underwater Group held at Andy Heenan’s house as there was no club house in those days and all meetings were held in different members houses.
1966 started with the members asking the government for official approval of the diving flag, following which a notice was posted in all the police stations informing the public of it’s purpose. The possibility of a decompressîon chamber was looked into for the club. A lecture was given by Dr. Henry Fougere on sharks and oceanographical research. Later in the year the group purchased more bottles and an underwater camera for use by members. The group was also given the use of a store room at the back of the H.M.S. Mauritius wardroom, in which the compressor and all club equipment was kept.
At the end of March 1966, some fishermen found an old ships bell believed to be off the wreck of the St. Géran. Mr Daniel a member of the Club, bought the bell from the fishermen for the historical society of Mauritius. The bell was broken by the fishermen, probably due to them using explosives in order to force it from the coral. Mr Daniel reconstructed the bell from the broken pieces. As a result numerous dives were carried out in the area, Aldo Poncini, Dr Rivalland and Chris Coaucaud found a spot where there were some coins which they recovered, together with a silver fork, a crystal salt celler, some cannons and lead shot, but the actual wreck was not found.
By the middle of the year the club library had become quite popular, books and magazines on diving had been donated by many of the members and more were on order.
Another interesting find by M.U.G. divers was in October 1966, when a motor cycle Triumph Tiger Cub registration S21, was found by Harry Cain and Vic Latimer in the freshwater hole at Trou d’Eau Douce known as “Dutch Well”. The motor cycle which had only clocked 2,000 miles, still in very good order, was ridden to the local Police Station by Harry being towed by Vic in a car. It had apparently been stolen 7 months previously.
At the end of 1966, bottle fillinq tickets were introduced as the membership of the Club had grown, to the extent that it was difficult to keep track on all the bottles filled.
1967 started sadly for the M.U.G. with the death of Charlie Pollard, the groups only non diving member. Charlie did a lot for the group in organising the social side, acting as barman for most of the dive site Bar B Q’s and was a staunch supporter of the group right from its formation.
The membership continued to increase with a further 13 new members accepted on 11th January 1967 followed by the group getting its motto “there are old divers and bold divers, but no old bold divers”. This was followed later in the year by the designing of the Club emblem.
The possibility of the club getting a decompression chamber was looked into, and letters were sent to the Navy, Admiralty and Mauritian Government, in the hopes that a joint venture could be set up to finance the purchase, shippinq and installation of a chamber in one of the local hospitals. Unfortunately, the capital could not be raised and the idea was dropped. About the same time the Government brought out a new law, which required all aqualung divers to have a licence for their spearguns, the licence was obtainable from the Director of Agriculture, Port Louis.
July the same year, HMS Relentless arrived in Mauritius for a short visit and the ships divers spent most of their time underwater with Club divers who took them to the wreck of “Sirius” and other interesting diving spots. During the same month an underwater film team arrived on the island from Lloyd International Films in America. They were shooting a film called “Travelling in an Armchair” and again the M.U.G. divers were called in to help. Later in the year the M.U.G. and N.A.C. held a joint expedition to Flat Island for two weeks, as a result of this some very interesting dive sites were found and a bronze ship’s propeller was salvaged by Ally Hossen and R. Lai Cheong with help from club divers.
January 1968, Ally Hossen and Raymond Lai Cheong made the headlines in the newspapers. While on a spearfishing dive at Coin de Mire, they shot a tunny weighing 154 Ibs the previous record was 122 Ibs. They shot the fish at depth of 75 feet.
In March the same year, M.U.G divers were called in to salvage a large pirogue that had sunk off Coin de Mire in 140 feet of water. They achieved this by attaching ropes to the boat and pulling it to the surface by hand. The first attempt failed when the rope broke, but the second try succeeded after removing all the ballast.