August 10 2008 UK Bogus bends nets Divers £250,000  A pair of divers swindled £250,000 (US$500,000) from the National Health Service for treating bogus cases of the bends.  David Welsh, 49, and diving instructor Michael Brass, 43, are facing prison sentences after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the NHS and perverting the course of justice. Welsh ran the Fort Bovisand diving centre, which had its own recompression chamber.  They paid strangers they met in pubs up to £200 to pose as divers who needed recompression treatment, they only needed only the real names, addresses, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of the supposed victims to work the fraud. Most had never been underwater and some could barely swim.  Welsh billed National Health Trusts from all over the UK £6,500 a time for treating the 37 fake victims.  The fraud was discovered when police investigated two cases of divers from Liverpool who were supposedly treated for the bends at the recompression chamber.    Full story...

August 25 2008 HawaiiArchaeologists have located British whaler sunk by bad weather in 1837 off Kure Atoll Artefacts from the remains of a wreck believed to be of the British whaling vessel Gledstanes lost for 171 years have been found off Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The artefacts include four large anchors, cannons and cannonballs. The Gledstanes is the fourth whaling vessel found in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, evidence of the area's significance as a 19th-century whaling area.  The divers who found the shipwreck were taking part in the 2008 Maritime Heritage Expedition, sponsored by NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries.  Full story...

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New largest intentionally sunk artificial reef

US - Dubbed by some as the ‘Great Carrier Reef’ the 32,000 ton, 271m (888ft)-long, 60m

(197ft)-wide Aircraft Carrier USS Oriskany CV/CVA-34 was sunk in 65m (212ft) of water, 39km (24 miles) southeast of Pensacola, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. The date was May 17, 2006.

Known as the ‘Mighty O’, the keel of this last Essex-class carrier was laid in the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard on May 1, 1944 and she was launched on Oct. 13, 1945. Completing 25 cruises and launching more sorties than any other carrier, the vessel was a combat veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars. She will not only be the largest vessel purposely sunk as a reef, but the largest artificial reef in the world. Decommissioned in 1973 the Oriskany was sold for scrap in 1994 but the buyer reneged on payment and the navy repossessed the vessel in 1997. In 2003 it was decided to make her an artificial reef.

The ‘Mighty O’ was the first ship sunk under a US Navy programme to dispose of old warships by turning them into artificial reefs. Other ships have been turned into artificial reefs, including the USS Spiegel Grove that was scuttled in 2002 off Key Largo, but that was a civilian project.

 
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