Shipwreck Discovery in the Cook Islands

New shipwreck discovered on deep dive in Rarotonga, Cook Islands

A new shipwreck has been found in Rarotonga (Cook Islands) by Carina Wenzel and Patrick Jaletzky.
In February 2018, Carina and Patrick were doing an exploration dive in front of Avatiu. Visibility was very clear and even though the maximum depth of the dive was around 30 metres, looking down and towards the open sea they spotted outlines resembling a ship’s shape laying deep on the drop off slope.

Return to the shipwreck

Weeks later, Patrick managed to find the site again and started to explore it. The ship’s shape turned out to be a vessel, laying in 70 metres of water depth and leaning on it’s port side. The shipwreck appeared to be a smaller sailing yacht and was half filled up with sediment. Inside the vessel, moray eels and smaller reef fish had made it their home. Furthermore, a few whitetip reefsharks were laying on the sand in the vicinity of the vessel.
At the centre of the stern of the vessel he discovered a big prominent letter “R”, however no further clues to the identity of the ship.

Wreck identity remains a mystery

After subsequent dives to the wreck, no new clues could be found to help with the identification of the vessel. Even after talking to many locals we are yet to identify the wreck’s identity. No one on seems to know or remember the vessel, nor the accident leading to it’s sinking. As for now, we call it the Wreck “R”.