After 3 years planning and hard work by our good friends and PADI TecRec divers Team Blue Immersion and their sponsors OceanReef they finally premiered their full documentary about Iceland and the Alexander Hamilton to an expectant crowd at the DEMA 2013 dive industry show in Florida.
The expedition was based around the discovery in 2009 and a subsequent dive of the Alexander Hamilton in June 2011 leading up to the epic return in 2013.
a US Coast Guard Cutter the Alexander Hamilton named after a US treasury secretary as one of a fleet of Treasury class high endurance cutters. Its mission once America joined the war was to guide ships safely to destinations in the northern Atlantic. In January 1942 though tragedy struck. The German type VIIC Submarine U-132 came in silently and undetected. Firing a torpedo that hit the starboard side of the Hamilton and instantly killed seven crew members onboard and injuring many more. Salvage attempts were made without success and the American Destroyer USS Ericsson fired upon the wreck three times to send her to the bottom of the sea.
Fast forward to the present day and the team travel to Iceland to dive some of the amazing dive locations available in Iceland, especially Silfra a once in a lifetime dive in cold absolutely crystal clear waters between two tectonic plates. I’ve walked between these plates in iceland and its amazing to be able to have the American Continent on your left and Europe on your right..within touching distance! So to dive this must be even more amazing.
But the real reason for the expedition was to dive the Alexander Hamilton once more and place a memorial plaque.
Lying at 30 miles out and 100 meters down tin cold atlantic waters this was a demanding and hard dive, but with the support of crew families, US Coast Guard and Iceland Coast Guard the team managed to successfully place the memorial dedicated to all those still out on patrol.
Check out the documentary and watch as the team dive some amazing locations and honour those who served their country.
Great work Jonas Samuelsson, Aron Arngrimsson, Erik Brown, Chris Haslam and their sponsor OceanReef!
[googleplusauthor]
