A heavily polluted wreck in the North Sea finally considered clean, thanks to divers’ 10-year efforts

Working with two volunteer diving teams in the Netherlands, Healthy Seas was able to accomplish a lot in the Dutch North Sea this past summer.

Ghost Diving

So far in 2022, Ghost Diving carried out six diving trips, of which five were ghost net recoveries and the other a survey, recovering hundreds of meters of long lines, trawlers and gill nets.

Most notably, the wreck of the S.S. Trevier, that has been the target of dozens of cleanups over the past decade due to how heavily polluted it was, is now considered clean because of our persistent efforts.

The fun fact behind this wreck is that it was identified by the divers in 2019, when they found the identification plate of one of the boilers. Before that point it was nicknamed “Rode Poon.”

The team is now concentating its efforts on the “Vaderdag” wreck. In the meantime, more volunteers have joined the team, amongst them another marine biologist while they are all quite busy keeping our ghost net recovery vessel “MAKO“, well maintained.

Wrakduikteam Zeester

Besides the Ghost Diving volunteer team, WrakDuikTeam Zeester also focuses on clearing the Dutch North Sea of lost or abandoned fishing nets. This team has so far carried out 2 cleanups, one of which resulted to the recovery of a 2.5 tonne net recently lost by local fishers.