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Displaying items by tag: HMS Drake

Shipwreck divers have been warned not to disturb two protected sites off Northern Ireland’s North Coast, as the Newry Times reports.

Wreck diving has become a popular pastime this summer due to prolonged periods of sunshine and calm seas.

But suspected diving activity at a restricted site near Portballintrae has prompted an advisory to anyone tempted to explore Northern Ireland’s shipwrecks.

Divers are reminded that access to the wreck of La Girona, a Spanish Armada warship sunk more than 430 years ago, is restricted to licensed dives only on threat of prosecution.

Meanwhile, explorers of the HMS Drake, a WW1 cruiser sunk by a German U-boat in Rathlin Bay in 1917, may not remove artefacts from the wreck without prior consent. The Newry Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Diving

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago