Modern underwater photography can capture beautiful but eerie images of sunken vessels, transporting us to places we might not otherwise see. Many shipwrecks now provide a much-needed habitat for coral and sea life, while also serving as a tourist attraction for scuba divers. Others, sunk by war or accident, can only be reached by robotic cameras and their images give a ghostly glimpse of that silent world beneath the sea. Click or scroll as we explore the remains of these amazing sights. 

SS Baron Gautsch was described in its day as 'a beautiful ship' and the pride of the passenger fleet operated by Austro-Hungarian company Österreichischer Lloyd. The luxury paddle steamer, named after a former Austrian prime minister, was launched in 1908 and stationed at Trieste on the Adriatic. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, ships were requisitioned by the navy for use in transporting troops and refugees between Trieste and Kotor.

On 12 August 1914, the Baron Gautsch was returning from Kotor carrying more than 300 men, women and children, who were en route home from holiday. It accidentally sailed into a minefield, struck a mine and sank within minutes, killing 127 passengers. The wreck was discovered in 1958 in the north Adriatic and has since become a favourite destination of scuba divers. However, the poor state of the ship has meant exploration is now much restricted.

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Built in Hamburg in 1911, the steamship Umbria was designed to carry around 2,000 passengers and 9,000 tonnes of cargo. She routinely sailed between Europe and Argentina taking passengers and bringing back raw goods. In 1935, she was sold to the Italian government and refitted as a troopship to transport soldiers to the Italian colonies in East Africa and later to the Middle East.

Although Italy had not yet entered the Second World War, in June 1940 Umbria arrived in Port Said loaded with bombs, trucks and other cargo to help the Italian war effort in East Africa. She was followed by the British warship HMS Grimsby, but when the captain of the Umbria heard on the radio that Italy had formally entered the war, he did not want his cargo to fall into British hands. He evacuated the ship and immediately sank it.

The wreck now lies under the Red Sea off the coast of Sudan and is popular with scuba divers. The ammunition, vehicles and tonnes of electrical cable are all still visible. However, since the wrecked cargo is highly explosive, the dive is a dangerous one. 

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In the early 1950s, famous undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau was diving in the Red Sea. He had heard stories of a shipwreck nearby and with the help of local fishermen located the site. Cousteau found it was packed with armaments, vehicles and weapons of war and he recovered a motorbike, the safe and the ship’s bell from the wreck. Cousteau had discovered the remains of the steamship Thistlegorm. 

Classed as an armed freighter, Thistlegorm was built in Sunderland in 1940. She had been collecting steel and aircraft parts from the US, grain from Argentina and rum from the West Indies. In June 1941, the vessel set sail bound for Alexandria in Egypt, carrying motorbikes, guns, armoured cars and train locomotives. But, on 6 October, German planes targeted the ship and bombed it near Ras Muhammad, Egypt, in the Red Sea.

Nine crew members were lost as the ship sank, although most were rescued. In the 1990s, Sharm el Sheik was developed as a tourist resort and the wreck became an exploration ground for scuba divers. Huge amounts of cargo can still be seen in situ making for a fascinating visit – the wreck is often tipped as one of the best diving sites in the world.

The Caroline Islands are a scattering of little islands in the Pacific Ocean, north of New Guinea. Among these islands, at Truk Atoll, the Japanese Imperial fleet was stationed during the Second World War. On 18 February 1944, while the ships were at anchor in port, the US Air Force struck in an attack called Operation Hailstone. Many of the ships were sunk.

One of those hit was the cargo ship Fujikawa Maru, which had been launched in 1938. In peacetime, it had carried raw silk and cotton as well as passengers in luxury accommodation between South America and India. During the Second World War, Fujikawa Maru was requisitioned and refitted with naval guns on the bow and stern.

The wreck has since become a favourite site with scuba divers for its sheer size and the quantity of objects that lie nearby. There are gas masks, bottles, brass lamps and rice bowls. The vessel is also now a haven for beautiful coral and other sea life. The eerie rooms, engines and guns tell a silent tale of a horrific night nearly 80 years ago.

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This cargo ship is named after Doc Poulson, a man famed for his pioneering treatment of decompression sickness, and was originally launched in Japan to lay cable. She was purposely sunk in 1981 in Grand Cayman to produce an artificial reef and a site for divers. The wreck is now encrusted with coral and provides sanctuary for a wide variety of fish such as the goliath grouper and queen conch.

Launched in 1969, the general cargo vessel Giannis D was built in Japan. The ship had several changes of both ownership and name and had been known as the Shoyo Maru and the Markos. But by April 1983, the ship was called the Giannis D when she set off from the Croatian port of Rijeka, loaded with soft wood on her final sailing.

The cargo was bound for the Saudi port of Jeddah and then onto Yemen. It was a beautiful day and the ship sailed across the Adriatic and Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea. It was here that the Giannis D struck the hidden reef of Shaʽb Abu Nuħas. The crew abandoned ship before the vessel sank beneath the waves. It now lies in three separate sections on the seabed and is a favourite haunt of scuba divers.

The freighter Hilma Hooker was a ship of secrets. In 1984, when the Dutch-built vessel was already 33 years old, she was moored in a port on the island of Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean, but was under surveillance by the local authorities. When the captain was unable to provide the correct paperwork, the ship was boarded and a false bulkhead was discovered. Inside, officials found around 25,000 pounds (about 11,000kg) of marijuana. Strangely, the ship’s owners could not be found...

Hilma Hooker languished in port for months, but began taking on water as the hull disintegrated. On 2 September 1984, the ship rolled over to one side and disappeared below the water. Settled between two coral reefs, Hilma Hooker has become an attraction for divers and a much-needed refuge for coral and marine life.

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Built in the Netherlands in 1962, the Eagle was used as a cargo ship. She changed hands many times and by 1974 was operating in Haifa, Israel and the following years the Cayman Islands. By 1984, she was transporting newspaper and cardboard between Miami and Venezuela.

En route to Venezuela in 1985, the Eagle suffered an electrical fire and was deemed beyond repair. The ship was docked at Miami and it was decided that she would be scuttled to provide an artificial reef. She was thoroughly cleaned and towed out to Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary and sank at Alligator Reef. The ship provides a refuge for grouper fish, eels and sharks, as well as perfect diving opportunities.

Not far offshore from Seven Mile beach in Grand Cayman is the wreck of this armed Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship. Built in the United States and launched in 1945, the Kittiwake saw duty in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Kittiwake not only helped submarines on manoeuvres, but assisted with the rescue of other ships as well. Its most famous act was in 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger blew up. Everyone was searching for the black box, but it was Kittiwake that found it at the bottom of the Atlantic.

In 1994, Kittiwake was decommissioned, but she still had one task left to complete. The ship was donated to the Cayman government to act as an artificial reef. The armaments were removed and everything hazardous taken out. Kittiwake was then sunk to provide a home for sea life and a training ground for scuba divers.

Originally a Russian Destroyer built in the USSR in 1984 for the Cuban navy, the ship was sold to the Cayman Islands and renamed after a local diving instructor. The ship was deliberately sunk off Cayman Brac in 1996 in order to create a natural reef and is home to coral, grouper and scorpion fish.

In the dark days of the Cold War, this minesweeper was launched in 1969 in the former East Germany. She was used to patrol the riverbanks between East and West Germany. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany in 1989, the Pasewalk was deemed obsolete by the German navy. She was decommissioned and her armaments removed.

Pasewalk was sold to Malta in 1992 and became a patrol boat with the name P31. She was used by the Maltese authorities to protect against smuggling and for border control. Pasewalk also rescued 251 immigrants, when their boat was sinking off the south coast of Malta. In 2004 she was decommissioned and bought by the Malta Tourist Authority who cleaned and scuttled her as an attraction for scuba divers and to provide an artificial reef.

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In 1914, explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set off from England on the Endurance in a mission to cross the Antarctic by foot. When the ship became stranded at Elephant Island, the crew managed to escape by small boats before sea-ice crushed and eventually sank the ship in 1915. Everyone was rescued but the Endurance remained undiscovered somewhere in the Weddell Sea. Then, in March 2022, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust finally located the fated vessel – somewhat eerily on the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s funeral.

Looking for the Endurance had been hailed as the world’s most difficult shipwreck search. But after two weeks of combing through a designated search area, cameras spotted the upright ship at a depth of 10,000 feet (3,008m) at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. As the famed vessel is a designated monument, it can’t be interfered with in any way, so detailed records will be taken of its extremely intact structure and surrounding debris.

The team achieved what many said was impossible, having dealt with constantly shifting sea-ice, blizzards and -18°C (0.4°F) temperatures. The distilled-like water clarity and lack of sea-eating marine life has helped keep the Endurance in eye-wateringly pristine condition. Its five-pointed Polaris star, the name of the ship and even the individual spokes of the ship’s wheel are amazingly still all in place.

On 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic slipped below the sea around 2:20am and lay undisturbed on the seabed for 73 years. In 1985, a joint French and American expedition lead by oceanographer Dr Robert Ballard discovered the wreck lying in two sections, around 23 nautical miles from where it had issued the distress signal. A robot fitted with a camera was then sent some 12,467 feet (3,800m) down and detected the ship’s massive boilers and bow.

In 1986, a deep-diving submersible carrying crew again visited and took more pictures. The haunting images of everyday life, such as Captain Edward Smith's bath tub, captured the world's imagination. An expedition in 1987 brought ashore 1,800 objects from the wreck and in 1996, a failed attempt was made to raise a section of the ship. As more than 1,500 people died on the ship, both actions were widely criticised and described as 'grave robbing'.

In 1995, Canadian film director James Cameron made 12 dives to the wreck and used much of the footage for his 1997 blockbuster film. Since then, subsequent expeditions have shown just how much the wreck has disintegrated and how so-called 'rusticles' have covered the structures. Captain Smith's bathroom, for example, has now completely disappeared. In 2020, the British and US governments announced stricter protections for the wreckage.

Now new 8K footage released by OceanGate Expeditions reveals the details of the Titanic in an unprecedented level of detail and colour. The latest mission captured the ship's bow, portside anchor, hull number one, an anchor chain and debris in highest-ever quality. The clip also shows one of the single-ended boilers (which was crucial in identifying the wreck back in 1985) that fell to the ocean floor when the Titanic broke in two. 

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