According to Greek Mythology, Pandora’s curiosity led to her opening a box which was left in care of her husband and thus releasing physical and emotional curses on mankind.

Upon realising what she did, Pandora then quickly closed the box, but in doing so, trapped mankind’s hope in the box.

On 1st May 2022, Felldivers curiosity got the better of them and they adventured out to dive the ship wreck outside of Blyth harbour called Pandora. The divers wanted to find a wreck that the club had never dived before and thus release Hope to mankind that there is going to be a good and adventurous dive season ahead.

Pandora was a steamship which was heading into the port of Blyth as an accommodation ship for the submarine base at Blyth, she struck a mine in 1939 when under tow on her way into the port.

On Sunday of this Bank Holiday weekend, 4 of the Felldivers (Bryan H, Steve Mc, David W & Graham W) took the newly refurbished club rib – Felldiver1, out of the Tyne for her first dive adventure since the engine was replaced and powered up to the Pandora wreck.

At exactly 10:37am Felldiver1 and her trusty crew set off at a planning speed of 18 knots up to Blyth which took approx 15 mins.

Arriving in time for low water and arriving at our previously logged coordinated, a Buoy was deployed and it landed exactly spot on the wreck.

With Surface temperature of 14 degrees and a water temperature of 7 degrees and what appeared a nicely calm sea state was slightly deceptive as whilst the divers were kitting up, the drift on the rib from the buy was substantial, thus indicating although this was slack water, there was still a current which needed taking into consideration when diving this wreck.

At 11:25am the first 2 divers (Graham W & Dave W) headed down the shot line and descended to a depth of 20 meters and as the divers descend we found that the visibility was not as good as it appeared on the surface. Upon arriving at the wreck the visibility was 2-3m and quite dark.

Upon arrival of the wreck we noticed it was very broken up and sunken into the sand.
The lack of visibility kept us pinned to the small area of wreck that we plotted, however Felldiver1 sounder did find more areas to investigate, but that is for another day.

After a 30 mins dive on the wreck and the first pair of divers returned to the rib, which then permitted for the second pair to dive the same location. All divers took a conservative approach to this dive and returned with a rule of 3rd’s gas left in their tank, if not more.

Upon return to the Tyne slipway, the sea took a turn to the worse and the power back was substantially reduced and a slow cruise return was called for.

However, this lack of viz did not take away from the enjoyment of the dive, a new wreck to us and the first sea dive of the season, means it has wet our appetite to get out Felldiver1 and start hunting down more elusive wrecks out of the Tyne port.