Deep Sea Detective Richie Kohler has scuba dived many shipwrecks around the world. The WWII American submarine USS Lagarto, whose final resting place was only discovered three years ago in the Gulf of Thailand, is among the most important to him. Chris Mitchell finds out why.

Deep Mystery - USS Lagarto in Fah Thai Magazine

This article was first published in Fah Thai magazine, Oct-Dec 2009. The article appears here in a slightly different form.

Fah Thai is the inflight magazine of Bangkok Airways, Thailand's boutique airline.

To see more of my stories for other scuba diving magazines, visit my Scuba Diving Magazine Stories page.

3rd May 1945: even though the war in Europe is days away from ending, the war in the Pacific rages on. The USS Lagarto submarine meets with the USS Baya in the Gulf of Thailand to take on supplies. The two ships separate, agreeing to stay in radio contact. The Lagarto and its crew of 86 submariners is never seen or heard from again.

60 years later, almost to the day the Lagarto disappeared, the lost sub is rediscovered 70 metres down in the Gulf, far below the depth to which most scuba divers can dive. For a hardy few, like Richie Kohler of the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives show, deep diving is a way of life, with all the rigorous training, special equipment and danger that entails. Driven by a fascination with the histories and mysteries of lost ships, Kohler traveled halfway round the world from his native New Jersey in 2007 to dive the Lagarto and film a forthcoming PBS underwater documentary to honour the crew of the lost sub and analyse how it met its fate. "I was hired by the Wisconsin Maritime Museum along with John Chatterton to do photodocumentary evidence of the wreck, having documented submarine wrecks before," explains Kohler. "We can apply a forensic approach looking at it. We're technical divers, deep divers with an expertise in shipwrecks. We were shooting hi-definition movie footage using rebreather technology which allowed us to stay underwater for 3 hours at a time."

Chatterton and Kohler's previous experience documenting submarine wrecks is already the stuff of legend, thanks to Robert Kurson's bestselling book Shadow Divers. The book documents the duo's six year quest to identify a German UBoat and its crew that was inexplicably discovered off the New Jersey coast. The book gained a huge audience because it deals not only with high adrenalin deep diving but also with the history and human drama of trying to understand the events that led to the Uboat's demise and give the families of the dead crew closure. While on the Shadow Divers book tour Kohler first heard about the Lagarto. "An older woman came over to me and says she was especially touched by the story, " he explains. "Her father had been lost on an American submarine in the Gulf of Thailand and she wished that somebody would tell her what happened to him. Almost a year later she emails me this amazing story about how her dad's submarine had been discovered by two British divers."

Those two divers, Jamie MacLeod and Stewart Oehl, had sunk their life savings into buying their own boat, MV Trident, so they could pursue their dream of deep wreck diving from their base on Koh Tao. They'd purposely set out to discover the Lagarto, working out an ocean floor survey plan from the last place where the submarine was seen, taking on supplies from the USS Baya. Both assumed it would take them several years to find the Lagarto, but they had a spectacular stroke of luck.

Thai fishermen can occasionally be persuaded to part with the GPS marks of where they find the best fishing -- and as fish congregate around wrecks, this can lead divers to wholly undiscovered ships on the bottom. Stewart having acquired a new set of marks for 500 Baht, Jamie drew the short straw of having to be the first one to go down and see what was there. There's no guarantee that checking a virgin set of marks will produce something interesting -- it could be a pile of stones or debris or, more dangerously, a submerged pinnacle covered in lost fishing nets which can ensnare and trap an unwary diver -- "the billowing wall of death" as Richie's wife, Carrie, also an accomplished technical diver, calls it.

"I followed the shot line down to 70 metres," recalls Jamie, "and suddenly, I realized that the line had landed just in front of the bow, so when you get to the bottom, you're right in front of it, right in front of the bow and looking up at it. It's unmistakable. The Lagarto is sitting upright on the bottom so when you're in front of it it's like it's coming towards you. You never forget it."

"It was the best 500 Baht I ever spent," laughs Stewart.

Because the Lagarto is a war grave, Jamie and Stewart had made contact with the Lagarto US Submarine Veterans of WWII Association to ask their permission to search for the submarine and to keep them aware of their ongoing efforts. When they broke the news that they had discovered the Lagarto, the US Navy sent a team on the USS Salvor to verify the wreck themselves, while the footage from Kohler and Chatterton's documentary provided definitive evidence that the Lagarto had been sunk by a depth charge dropped by the Japanese minesweeper Hatsutaka. For Kohler, there was also a vital task he had to carry out on his first dive to the Lagarto: "As I was heading out to Thailand I received a phone call from Nancy Kenney. Her father died when she was 3 years old on the Lagarto - she has nothing to know him by but the black and white photos she has of him. She knew that the diving was very dangerous and we would be filming the documentary. What she wanted me to do was rap on the side of the hull and say to her dad that her and her mum were OK and that they loved him very much. And that I did for Nancy."

After the flurry of international publicity that surrounded the Lagarto's discovery, the submarine has been left in peace. Only Jamie, Stewart and the US Navy know the exact location of the Lagarto, and there will only be the occasional custodial dive on her in the future. For Kohler, coming to Thailand led him to not only discover the Lagarto, but to also appreciate the Gulf as a still largely unexplored haven for wreck divers. He recently returned to lead an expedition of US technical divers, which was such a success that it could become an annual event. As he explains, "This is true adventure. This is a last frontier when you go down there and you don't know what to expect. Everytime you poke your head into these wreck doors you just don't know what you're going to find."

Previously:

• Diving On The USS Lagarto - a first hand account by Ayesha Cantrell with photos of the Lagarto
• Return To The USS Lagarto - Ayesha's account of one of the custodial dives on the Lagarto, with new Lagarto photos

Last year several airplanes and helicopters were sunk off Phuket's Bang Tao beach to create an artificial reef. Now the Coral Reef Squadron has been destroyed by savage monsoon currents

Sad news from Phuket - the Coral Reef Squadron, a collection of decommissioned military aircraft that was sunk last year to create an artificial reef and become a tourist attraction for divers, has been all but destroyed by monsoon currents. I dived on the Coral Reef Squadron back in January 2009 - I'm glad I got to see it before it disappeared.

The Phuket Gazette reports

PHUKET CITY: Phuket’s ‘Coral Reef Squadron’ sunk off Bang Tao Bay last November is 90 percent missing or destroyed, the Thai Dive Association admitted today.

Rainer Gottwald, head of the Thai Dive Association (TDA) technical committee, said TDA divers visited the site on Wednesday and were only able to find one of the 10 aircraft that formed the artificial reef.

Storms and heavy monsoon season currents were to blame, Mr Gottwald said.

Failure to follow instructions by some members of the team who chained the aircraft to large concrete blocks, and subsequent damage by trawlers,may also have played a role, he said.

You can read my report about diving the Coral Reef Squadron and see some (very murky) pictures here on Divehappy.

There's a new challenge for divers in Thailand - freshwater cave diving in the newly discovered underwater cave system of Khao Sok National Park. Ayesha Cantrell was one of the first to explore it.

My friend Ayesha has written up a fascinating story about exploring the newly discovered underwater cave system in Khao Sok National Park for Underwater Photography magazine.

Khao Sok National Park in Thailand is an area usually visited for the ancient rain forest, jungle trekking and wildlife spotting opportunities. This lush area is dominated by 165kmsq lake which was created by a damming project, limestone pinnacles tower out of the water creating a stunning vista all around. Transport is by traditional Thai longtail boat only and the area is peaceful and serene. The damming heightened the water, flooding some amazing formations that have all but passed into history. Careful exploration and research is beginning to locate some of these submerged sites and this is what I was here to document.

Unlike diving on a coral reef, these caverns are home to very little life, only curious catfish. It was abundantly clear that they were very confused by these noisy bubble blowing creatures who seem to be carrying slices of the sun in their hands. They seemed to pop out, swim around and then rest on just the surface I was entertaining as a possible platform to steady the camera. Evidently they were going to be as constructive to photography as a kitten with a ball of wool.

You can read the full Underwater Photography article about Thailand cave diving online - and you can also read Ayesha's personal account of the same trip too. If you're interested in exploring the caves yourself, you can read the info on how to get there and the next trip that's being organised to the Khao Sok Underwater Caves.

There's not that many women currently involved in Technical Diving in Thailand, but Technical Diving Instructor Ayesha Cantrell reckons that might all be about to change...

Technical Diving is increasingly popular in Thailand, due to the favourable conditions and wide collection of shipwrecks to explore, especially in the Gulf of Thailand. However, it's a pretty much male-dominated sport - which is why my friend Ayesha Cantrell, who is a Technical Diving Instructor as well as a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, wrote up this interesting article on female technical divers. For women interested in taking on the next challenge in diving, Ayesha has some great advice.

Ayesha is based on Koh Tao in Thailand - she runs both PADI scuba classes and technical diving classes. She also recently wrote a great story for Travelfish about how to become a dive instructor on Koh Tao, including not only what you can expect to pay for all the courses before you qualify as an instructor, but also what you can expect to earn.

For a convenient overview of why Koh Lanta is one of the best places to go diving in Thailand, check out AmazingLanta's quick guide to the best diving and where to stay on the island

Koh Lanta is my favourite island in Thailand - I've been going there for the last five years and while the island has been getting increasingly popular over that time, it still remains largely untouched with fantastic, largely empty beaches and a great, laid-back feel to it. (Mind you, it does get pretty busy over the Christmas / New Year period). Besides the island itself, Lanta is positioned to get to some of Thailand's best diving - and this is the reason I keep going back.

The dive sites of Koh Haa and Hin Daeng / Hin Muang are spectacular in their diversity and what might turn up - everything from manta rays to whale sharks to tiny, beautiful creatures like harlequin shrimp. You can do daytrips to these sites or go on a liveaboard. My mate Rob, who lives on Koh Lanta, has recently written up a very handy overview of Koh Lanta Diving on his site AmazingLanta.com which is well worth checking out if you're looking for somewhere less crowded than Phi Phi or Phuket as your base for diving Thailand's southern dive sites.

Want to become a scuba diving instructor and do your training in Thailand? Find out exactly how much it costs to pass your instructor course and what you can expect to earn teaching scuba diving in Thailand

It was five years ago that I did my scuba diving Instructor Development Course on the island of Koh Tao in Thailand. It was a fantastic experience and I made a lot of good friends while studying there, one of whom was Ayesha. She still lives and teaches diving on Koh Tao after stints working as a scuba diving instructor in Koh Phi Phi, Honduras, the Red Sea and the Maldives. (If you're interested in Ayesha teaching you to dive, see her website LearnToDiveOnKohTao.com).

Recently Ayesha wrote a great article for Travelfish.org outlining exactly what you need to do to become a certified PADI scuba diving instructor. She details the various dive courses you have to progress through - Open Water, Advanced, Rescue, EFR, Divemaster and then the Instructor Development Course (IDC) - and also gives a realistic assessment of what you can expect to earn, along with the costs of the training. It's essential reading if you're interested in doing your instructor course in Thailand. While she focuses specifically on Koh Tao, what Ayesha writes about has a lot of relevant points to consider wherever you do your IDC.

Thailand is an extremely popular place to train as an instructor, so competition is fierce for jobs - see Divehappy's previous article on Scuba Diving Jobs for a rundown of how you can improve your prospects of getting work in the scuba industry.

My story about my friend Kiera who teaches both scuba diving and yoga on the island of Koh Phi Phi in Thailand - and the connection between the two - has been published by Fah Thai magazine.

Last December I went to visit my friend Kiera on Koh Phi Phi to find out more about the connection between yoga and scuba diving. I'd never tried yoga before but I was curious to give it a go - and, much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. I think the spectacular outdoor setting beneath Phi Phi's limestone karsts at sunset helped, and Keira was a great teacher too for a complete novice like me. Below is the complete article that was recently published in Fah Thai magazine. You can find out more about learning yoga or diving (or both!) with Kiera at Keiritasyoga.com.

Sea Salutation

Scuba diving and yoga don’t normally get mentioned in the same breath, but Chris Mitchell discovers on Koh Phi Phi that together they provide a new form of enlightenment

“Scuba diving is the new yoga.” It sounds like a complete contradiction in terms: scuba is usually seen as a high risk adrenaline sport that involves close encounters with sharks, while yoga is considered a serene, mystical experience practiced by impossibly flexible devotees. Yet there is a growing recognition that scuba and yoga actually complement and reflect one another, and that practicing both together can be extremely beneficial for your physical and mental health.

Thailand’s world famous island of Koh Phi Phi is home to one such progressive practitioner of scuba diving and yoga, Keira White. Originally from Ireland, Keira abandoned a burgeoning career in New York in 2001 after discovering scuba diving on Koh Phi Phi, and has returned to the island continually ever since. Already a yoga convert before being certified a scuba diving instructor, Keira traveled to India in 2006 to study at The Yoga Institute in Mumbai and became a yoga teacher. Wanting to teach both yoga and scuba diving, Koh Phi Phi was an obvious choice for Keira to make her home.

Despite its breathtaking natural beauty, arriving on Phi Phi can be quite a shock for those expecting a quiet place to find themselves. The island’s inhabited area is a maze of tiny streets which are thronging with Thais and tourists alike day and night. “It’s like a tropical Manhattan.” Keira laughs. “The lack of space available for development and the high cost of living seem to contribute to the high intensity atmosphere of the island. That actually makes going diving and practicing yoga all the more important.”

Sea Salutation

Keira regularly conducts yoga classes at sunset in the open air on the roof of one of Phi Phi’s beachside bars, with a spectacular view out over Ton Sai bay and the towering limestone karsts that surround it. The bustle of the street below is forgotten as she takes beginners alike through a class that is at once calming and invigorating, outlining the basics of yoga positions and the concepts of meditation and breathing that help bring peace to the mind. Keira is keen to demythologize yoga to make it more accessible, but also stresses that “it’s a philosophy or a way of life, not just a means to physical training and fitness.” Keira teaches the Ashtanga Yoga system, which emphasizes moral principles and personal discipline as the foundation on which the postures and meditational practices of yoga must be built.

So how can scuba diving, with all its heavy tanks and bulky gear, have any similarity to yoga? “The link between yoga and diving is quite significant on a meditative level more than a physical level,” Keira points out. “Meditation has many different levels and most people have a form of personal meditation be it walking, running, reading, singing, playing a musical instrument or, as is the case here on Phi Phi, diving.

Meditation, in simple terms, is being so immersed in an action or contemplative state that all else is blocked out and one has an overwhelming sense of peace and connectedness to the life energy of the earth and universe.

Personally I feel closest to this inter-connected energy when I am diving. One hour underwater can feel like five minutes because I am totally absorbed by what I am seeing – the amazing movement of the hundreds of different fish and the sheer beauty of living corals never gets old.

Like yoga, scuba is all about breathing. The focus on long slow deep breaths, the weightlessness of the body and the silence that’s imposed by being submerged underwater all provide an ideal environment for being at peace with yourself.”

In this way, a regime of scuba and yoga while on holiday can work wonders for quietening the mind and allowing people to focus on both themselves and what is really important within their lives, away from the endless distractions of work.

Despite the benefits of practicing scuba and yoga together, for some the thought of submerging underwater is enough to induce a panic attack – especially if they’ve watched Jaws one too many times. But diving is actually misnamed as an adrenaline sport – most dives are usually peaceful affairs and with little physical effort besides the odd kick of your fins. The sensation of hovering in midwater is immensely liberating, the nearest most people will get to experiencing near-zero gravity like an astronaut.

Thailand’s warm waters provide the perfect place to beat the fear and try scuba diving – the sensation of breathing underwater feels very strange at first but soon dissipates. As Keira points out, “Diving can be relatively stressful when you’re learning the basics, but once you’re through the learning curve there’s not only a great sense of achievement but a whole new underwater world to explore”. The payoff for making the effort to learn scuba diving is huge, both in terms of enjoyment and the escape from the everyday world

As such, what seem at first like complete opposites turn out to be the perfect complement to each other – and Thailand is the ideal place to practice both scuba and yoga, combining as it does spectacular scenery above and below water that allows people to explore the inner space of the oceans and their own minds.

Koh Lanta island in southern Thailand is surrounded by several of Thailand's best dive sites - in particular, Koh Haa, Koh Bida and Hin Daeng / Hin Muang. My friend Rob who runs AmazingLanta.com has shot many excellent videos of the incredible marine life around Lanta - including whale sharks and manta rays. You can browse his videos below, along with a few of Koh Lanta island itself

Whale Shark, Hin Muang, Koh Lanta, Thailand 26th Dec 2007

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Whale Shark, Hin Muang, Koh Lanta, Thailand 26th Dec 2007

2:33
Rating: 5.0
Views: 4,698

Octopus Changing Colors Wow!

0:51
Rating: 4.5454545
Views: 3,108

Hin Daeng - Scuba Diving Thailand

2:57
Rating: 5.0
Views: 5,744

Octopus Swimming - Poetry In Motion!

2:05
Rating: 4.3333335
Views: 2,871

Sea Horse Swimming, Koh Bida, Thailand

2:07
Rating: 5.0
Views: 1,386

Long Beach, Koh Lanta, Thailand

0:23
Rating: 5.0
Views: 6,140

Whale Shark Great Surprise!

1:11
Rating: 5.0
Views: 569

Koh Lanta Liveaboard - Southern Thailand 2007

1:41
Rating: 5.0
Views: 1,184

Yellow Box Fish - Koh Ha Lagoon - Thailand

0:21
Rating: 5.0
Views: 486

Octopus on the move

2:05
Rating: 5.0
Views: 660

Scuba Diving Trip Koh Lanta, Thailand

3:40
Rating: 4.3333335
Views: 831

Whale Shark, Koh Bida, Thailand

1:11
Rating: 4.5
Views: 506

Koh Ha Secret Lagoon

0:59
Rating: 4.0
Views: 37

Cuttlefish Face Off!

2:06
Rating: 5.0
Views: 125

Whale Shark Thailand www.amazinglanta.com

0:40
Rating: 5.0
Views: 148

Go Dive Pool for Scuba Diving Training, Koh Lanta, Thailand

0:29
Rating: 5.0
Views: 150

Koh Ha Lagoon - www.amazinglanta.com

0:48
Rating: 5.0
Views: 353

Sea Snake at Koh Bida. www.amazinglanta.com

0:41
Rating: 5.0
Views: 33

Lanta Sand Resort and Spa, Thailand. www.amazinglanta.com

3:02
Rating: 5.0
Views: 1,456

Sea Snake

1:00
Rating: 5.0
Views: 689

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The Similan Islands are Thailand's most famous dive area and rated as one of the world's best dive destinations. Thanks to Thailand's cheap dive prices, the Similans are very popular and there are scores of great videos of diving there

Whale Shark

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Whale Shark

3:17
Rating: 4.788306
Views: 527,822

Flying fox bat fighting a Python

1:26
Rating: 4.891892
Views: 32,070

Peckish Turtle

0:44
Rating: 4.793103
Views: 8,229

Sun & Fun in Similan Islands / Khao Lak

4:07
Rating: 5.0
Views: 15,335

Similan Islands, Thailand

4:57
Rating: 4.6190476
Views: 14,881

Similan Islands

2:18
Rating: 5.0
Views: 10,182

Thailand Islands

9:02
Rating: 4.8
Views: 4,179

Similan Islands Liveaboard Diving Phuket Thailand - Liveaboard Burma

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Rating: 4.888889
Views: 11,883

Sea Bees Diving, Thailand Promo 2010

3:29
Rating: 5.0
Views: 1,514

Murena, Octopus

2:50
Rating: 4.368421
Views: 17,151

Tauchen in Thailand - Similans und Richelieu Rock

6:24
Rating: 4.875
Views: 7,031

Scuba Diving Similan Islands

5:40
Rating: 5.0
Views: 1,658

Best of Giant Manta ray

4:02
Rating: 4.6
Views: 6,240

Expedição TAILÂNDIA * ATLANTES GUARAPARI-ES

4:57
Rating: 4.857143
Views: 1,499

Diving Similan & Richelieu Rock

4:59
Rating: 4.714286
Views: 3,374

Scuba diving with Manta Rays at Koh Bon, Thailand

4:04
Rating: 4.4
Views: 6,803

Christmas Diving in the Similan Islands

9:30
Rating: 4.8333335
Views: 3,103

Similan Islands World Class Diving

4:02
Rating: 4.4444447
Views: 2,335

Manta Ray - Similan Islands Diving

0:47
Rating: 5.0
Views: 806

Scuba Diving Thailand Similans

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Views: 3,896

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