The Antikythera wreck was found in 1900 by Greek Standard dress sponge divers, who under the direction of the Greek Ministry of Antiquities lifted numerous marble and bronze sculptures, along with the famous Antikythera Mechanism. Jacques Cousteau and his team aboard Calypso continued the excavation in the 1970’s, and in 2011 a joint WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute), Lund University, and Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities project restarted excavations on the site, which concluded in 2017.
Team members of Dark Water Exploration have been involved in the relocation, survey, and excavation of the Antikythera Mechanism Shipwreck in Greece since 2012.
Dark Water have supplied a Dive Medic, Dive Safety Officer, Chief Diver, Scientific Diver, Guardian, and rigging divers.
The Mentor was used by Lord Elgin to transport the Parthenon Marbles from Athens to the British Museum, but foundered off Kythera. Many of the Marbles were recovered by breath hold divers at the time of sinking, but the ship, her remaining cargo, and personal effects remain buried beneath the sand.
Dark Water Exploration have supplied closed circuit rebreather training to team members and archeologists of the Mentor shipwreck excavations, in addition to working as archeological assistants during the seasons of 2015 & 2017.
The B-24 Bomber Tulsamerican ditched in the sea off the island of Vis in Croatia after a mission to Ordetal during the Second World War, with the loss of some of her crew.
Dark Water Exploration were part of a joint DPAA (Defence Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency), US NPS-SRU (United States National Parks Service – Submerged Resources Unit), Croatian Navy, and Lund University project to survey, record, and excavate the wreck site at 40m.