Lost 2007 - Former Bermuda Government passenger ferry, deliberately sunk as an artificial reef and dive site
Not to be confused with the 1609 Sea Venture. This page is about a modern Bermuda ferry that took the name of the famous Virginia Company flagship. The 1609 wreck lies off the East End near St Catherine's Point, is a protected historic wreck under the Historic Wrecks Act, and has its own page on this site. The ferry lies on the opposite side of the island, in the north-west near Eastern Blue Cut, and has no historic-wreck status.
The Sea Venture was a 75 ft passenger ferry in the Government's ferry fleet. Once she was no longer needed, the Ministry of Transport offered her to the Bermuda Intact Wreck Initiative, a non-profit group that had been looking for several years for a suitable vessel to sink as a dive site. The project was led by Michael Burke of Blue Water Divers, and the island's dive shops pitched in together.
Over 2006 and early 2007 she was stripped at Dockyard by Marine and Ports staff and volunteers: seats, machinery, spare parts and plastics came out, the engine room was cleaned of anything that could harm the sea, and portholes and other openings were cut larger so that divers could not become trapped while moving between her decks. Works and Engineering crews helped lift out the engine hatch covers. Sinking also needed the approval of the Department of Environmental Protection. The plan in January 2007 was to sink her in the spring, in front of the fringing reef at Eastern Blue Cut where the reef would shelter her; in the event she went down on 9 October 2007.
The idea was to give Bermuda an intact, easily explored wreck suited to the many novice divers who visit the island, in shallower water than the Hermes or the Xing Da (sunk off Eastern Blue Cut in 1997).
The ferry sits upright on a sandy bottom at about 50-55 ft, with her upper deck within easy reach at around 15 ft, so she suits divers of all levels and is popular for training and free-diving. Although only 75 ft long, she has several decks linked by stairways, with cabins, an engine room and a pilothouse, and the enlarged openings make simple swim-throughs possible. Within a few years of sinking the bare hull was already picking up a coat of encrusting growth and resident fish. Bermuda 100 describes her as an open dive site with a mooring buoy, close to the protected Eastern Blue Cut reef area. As a north-west site she is best dived in settled weather.
Approximate position, for interest only - never use for navigation.