|
The Forgotten Ship Wrecks |
|
Saturday, 19 April 2008 |
 The HMS Strongbow sunk several ships off the west coast of Siam in September 1944
The first one, in front of Poda Island is only a hull, filled with scrap, while the second one , a little out in the sea, has a huge body and you can still see something that looks like a large steam boiler on the ship and some long masts and ropes surounding the wreck. A lot of fishing nets are also entangled in the wreck.
Unfortunately, all dive centers in the area of Ao Nang have lost their sense for adventure and are only doing their standart trips to the big King Cruiseer Wreck, Shark Point and Koh Phi Phi.
Way back in 1993, when we opened up our dive shop in Ao Nang, it was one of our first duties, to dive the two wrecks. For the small one at Poda Island we just needed our Boat Man from Ao Nang to find it but for the second one, we had to hire an old man, who found the wreck in the middle of the sea, only by some landmarks far away. It's still a miracle to me how he did that. Today, with fishfinders and GPS it would be much easier, of course. The sea battle between Ao Nang and Phuket of the HMS Strongbow is even mentioned in Wikipedia and some other sources, but who ever wants to find the wrecks should know, that the coordinates mentioned in the articles are not right, they might be the coordinates of the submarine, not of the wrecks itself.
|
