I've gotten National Geographic since I was 13 years old and when I went home last weekend, I found 3 National Geographics waiting for me (I obviously hadn't been home in a while...). I was surprised to find that in the February issue was an article on artificial reefs! It featured a map that showed all of the artificial reefs off the eastern coast of the United States. I didn't realize how many of them there are. However, most of these were put into place before regulations were implemented requiring a certain procedure to be followed before the reefs are implemented to reduce environmental damage. I'm not going to post photos from National Geographic website because that would be copyright infringement, but if you want to check out the article, here's the link.
One of the artificial reefs mapped is the German submarine U-352, which is a popular recreational dive site due to its abundant marine life. While I was in the DR this winter, Paul let me borrow the book Shadow Divers, which was about a dive team off the coast of New Jersey that found another German submarine, the U-869, that over 200 feet deep in 1991. It is one of the best books I have every read and if you are into adventure books or diving, it is a must-read. A fisherman had sold the location to the divers because he had believed that a wreck on the ocean floor was attracting the abundant marine life that was found in the area. Three divers died while trying to discover the identity of the wreck because of its extreme depth and rudimentary diving technology at the time. One of the discoverers was John Chatterton, who is one of the most famous wreck divers in the world. He is currently working in Samana Bay in the Dominican Republic searching for wrecks, very close to Miches.
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