I was at home preparing dinner one night just after Christmas when I switched on the news and saw a battle being bravely fought to save a ship which had run into difficulties off the coast in severe weather. The Greek-registered ship was heading for Alexandria but was stricken mid-channel 35 miles southeast of Dartmouth.

Over the next few hours the story changed from attempts to save the ship to attempts to save her crew. A joint French and English rescue mission was launched to save the twenty crew, some of whom were injured after being pounded by force seven gales off the coast and with some acts of bravery the lifeboats were brought alongside the massive ship and all were saved.

The Ice Prince sank on 14th January this year, twenty five miles or so from Portland Bill. Her cargo of timber washed up on beaches up and down the south coast and when this was cleared away the story slipped from the headlines. However, just over three months later, DIR UK, a team of deep divers from the UK decided to go and try to visit her in her new resting place…. This is the story.

We arrived at Outcast, our boat for the weekend at 6am and set up our dive gear. The weather looked very good for the three hour journey out, as far as the channel shipping lanes where our small dive boat would face a stream of tankers and container ships like floating ice bergs and just as dangerous to a lone diver in the water.

As the land disappeared behind us, we made our way out of UK waters, into international territory where the French coastguard was broadcasting news and instructions to passing traffic. We had allowed enough time to head for a different 'known' wreck if we couldn't find the Ice Prince but our skipper, Graham Knott, has been operating a dive boat out of Weymouth for many years and was hopeful that he could find it. We neared the co-ordinates that Graham had managed to secure for the last known position of the wreck and he turned on the underwater depth sounder to get ready to start a search.

As the screen flickered into life, the shape of the wreck, rising about five stories off the sea bed was immediately apparent. Graham was most amused, no search necessary even though the wreck was a few hundred yards from where he thought it would be and would have taken some time to find, we had it fixed already.

He tracked backwards and forwards over the wreck, building a picture of how it is lying, working out how best he can get a line on to it to allow the divers to get on, through dark water and fast moving currents. The massive spring tides would give us such a small window when they turned that the first team in would face a struggle to get down. All three teams would then face riding into the shipping lanes at four miles or so an hour on the newly turned tide whilst they hung underwater decompressing from the deep dive so that they could avoid injury from the bends. The dive boat would do all that it could to protect the divers from surface shipping but container ships can't stop on a sixpence so our exposure had to be kept as short as possible.

The Ice Prince sank in 60 metres of water, where your body is subjected to seven times normal atmospheric pressure and air lasts only a fraction of the time it would give you on the surface. Al and I were diving Halcyon RB80 rebreathers which work by cleaning carbon dioxide from the air you exhale so make gas last longer, even on deeper dives. Others on the boat were diving normal open circuit scuba equipment, as was our buddy Mal, although it looks a lot different to that used by those who dive the more familiar recreational depths.

We use a standard configuration of kit as a basis for our diving so standard safety equipment is in the same place for us all. This way, mixing rebreather teams and open circuit teams is not that difficult when we have done good briefings and checks beforehand.

All of us would be breathing a mixture of air and helium, as air alone has an aesthetic effect at this depth, with the oxygen content that it carries able to trigger dangerous seizures or even unconsciousness and death. The presence of helium and the strict limit on oxygen in our diving gas would help us stay alert on the dive if we were able to find her.

We kitted up on the boat, thanking our lucky stars for the beautiful flat conditions and waited for some sign that the tide was starting to turn. I was to lead the first team down and so would be the first person on the wreck since she was lost. Graham, our skipper, came and had a word with me about this. In addition to the hazards of spillages from the wreck like heavy oil and diesel, and potential movement still from her settling, he also wanted to warn me that it could be quite moving to be the first to dive to a new shipwreck, a moment I may not see again.

We sat with hundreds of pounds in weight of equipment bearing down on us until conditions looked favourable then it was time to go. I stood as carefully as I could on a moving boat when bearing well over my body weight in equipment and, when signalled, jumped in and headed as quickly as I could to the buoy Graham had put in.

Alastair and Mal joined me here one by one and we headed down to 10 meters where we could switch on to our rebreathers and make last minute equipment checks. All was good so I indicated that we would head down and I kicked off, following the line.

Down and down, getting darker and darker, constantly kicking against the current which was pushing against us as if we were unwelcome intruders.

I checked my depth and noted that around 30 metres the lights had gone out. What limited light that there was on that gloomy day could not penetrate down here but the line ahead of me told me where to go and the powerful lights that my buddies were carrying told me that they were OK too. Visibility looked reasonable – and I peered ahead into the dark water hoping to catch a glimpse of the Ice Prince.

Suddenly the line ended on a large expanse of blue paint…. Grahame had caught the shot on a small hole on the side of the ship. I was perched on the starboard gunwhale, at 45 meters and the wreck was lying below me. I put my hand out and touched her, no wildlife to disturb here, and signalled Alastair and Mal that I was going to move off from the shot line.

We headed over the side of the wreck down toward the sea bed and back towards the stern where she had more obviously suffered some damage before she settled in this final place.

Her cargo had been wood and there were still a few pieces caught in the wreck which could break loose and, if not completely saturated by now, head for the surface. I made a note to keep a look out for these on my travels.

The white paint on the bridge and superstructure was making the wreck very easy to navigate around, the visibility appearing better than its six or so meters with such vivid marks to follow. A sign to the gents’ toilet made me giggle, so nice to know that no-one lost their life to this sinking.

We hit the sea bed near the stern and a maximum depth of 60 metres. We came up past one of her two large rear mounted cranes, and back along past the lifeboat cradle, to near where we had dropped in. Ropes which were thicker than my arm were still tight and in place, running back to the superstructure, she looked clean and relatively unscathed in parts from her journey down here. We see another team in the water, one of the divers has lost their primary light to a failure and, without the ability to clearly signal or easily navigate, and they have rightly chosen to stay as shallow as possible on the wreck. We check that they are OK and press on.

I tried to imagine the wreck in a few years time, crawling with life and taking on a new personality as a living reef. She will take a while to settle, creaking and collapsing over time.

My time here is over however. I signal Alastair and Mal that it is time to go and find a suitable place to launch our surface marker buoy from, where it won’t get stuck in any part of the wreck. They work together to attach it to the reel and fill it with air to mark our position for Graham who will guard our buoy and the other two teams markers when we drift away from the wreck on decompression.

We drift away from her, concentrating now on the job of safely decompressing, using special gases which we have carried throughout the dive so that we can now decompress safely on our return to the surface. Each of us has two different gases with different levels of oxygen for use at specific depths so we must make sure that we use the right one at the right time, keeping neutral buoyancy in the water, and keeping the team together so that we can help each other if we need to.

Our very bright lights are put away as soon as there is enough light from the surface to allow us to see each other and we start to signal each other about the dive which is pronounced ‘cool’. Many smiles all round underwater and, some time later, back on the boat where all have had fun – and Graham is dying to hear about what we found.

The journey back doesn’t seem so long. It’s flat calm still and the sun comes out. The Ice Prince is still sitting there. A new wreck amongst the thousands that surround our isles. But, as the first person to see her in her new resting place, one that will always be a little special for me.