On June 5, 2016 when the world was celebrating World Environment Day on land, I was surveying the last remains of the majestic Minnie Breslauer underwater, which was off Bermuda?s South Shore. Being Open Water PADI certified divers created the perfect circumstances for my mum and I to explore a site of possible threat to the marine life. Just as the sun rose, we reached the Bermuda?s dive center. We ensured that our dive equipment, including our oxygen tank, fins, dive masks, BCD and wet suits, were not rusty and fitting us well. We were also introduced to a few of the dive instructors and the captain of the ship whose iconic name was Jack.

The waves were rough as we stepped onto the boat along with 8 other divers. But that didn't faze any of the divers nor Captain Jack. Ms. Kiera Ferris Glesson, our Dive Master briefed us about the dive site while on the boat. She mentioned that the Minnie Breslauer was one of the unluckiest ships to sink in the Bermuda waters. This ship, built in 1872, was on her voyage from Portugal to New York with a cargo of wine, dried fruit, and bales of cork when she sank in 1873.  As of today, the ship wreck hasn't posed any threat to the diverse marine life of the ocean however marine biologists and environmentalists still need to keep their fingers crossed. 

As we reached the site of the ship wreck, all of us put on our gear and we were more than buzzed to have a look at the infamous Minnie Breslauer. It was time to go and Captain Jack helped my mom and me to the edge of the boat. My mum stepped off the boat before me and soon it was just me. The weight of the oxygen tank on my back was weighing me down and I was more than excited to take that leap into the waters of Atlantic Ocean in Bermuda. Almost immediately Captain Jack gave me an OK sign to go.

I put my oxygen regulator in my mouth and placed my tiny palm on my dive mask that covered almost half my face. I took in a deep breath through the regulator, inflated my BCD and took that big  positive step towards the ocean. I kicked over to the other divers and we began our descent. The aim is to slowly deflate the BCD and to keep equalizing our ears to make sure the pressure doesn't get too much for our delicate human body to handle.

In about 2 minutes, we reached the ocean floor and we started moving towards the ship wreck. I was beyond anxious to see the ship that had single handedly caused uproar in the entire island. We swam around and observed the diverse marine life. Just as I was starting to get a little impatient I spotted a piece of rusted metal through the corner of eye. At first, I didn't think it was significant, but then as I remembered one of the dive instructors informing us that more than half the Minnie Breslauer was made with pure steel, I immediately knew that I had just made the first sighting of the magnificent ship wreck.

The large single boiler and propeller were easily recognizable as it lay on the ocean floor. It was beautiful really the way the rusted steel parts of the ship we're scattered around the ocean bed. Prolonged submersion in the salty waters of the ocean had actually caused the steel parts of the ship to rust. As more parts of the ship started revealing, I noticed that there were several corals growing on the steel. This meant that thousands of fish practically made their homes on the broken parts of this once intact ship. We moved around the ship wreck site and observed the way the ship could go unnoticed because of the presence of coral reefs on the propeller and other part of the ship. We stayed underwater, looking around and calmly taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity, for about 20 more minutes.

On the 42^nd minute of our dive, we slowly started to ascend, again taking care of our ear pressure. 5meters below the surface of the water, we made a safety stop and we look down at the ship wreck which was now, not very clearly visible as we were meters about it. In about 5 more minutes we ascended to the surface of the water and we climbed back onto the deck of the boat. Everything looked a little more appealing, the calm waves of the jet blue waters of Bermuda were taunting me, asking me to dive back in and spend some more time with the Minnie Breslauer.

After a while, when the boat was on its way back to the island, Ms. Kiera, our dive instructor, came up to us and informed us that, The Fisheries (Protected Areas) Order 2000, which grants exclusive fishing and underwater management rights, states that Minnie Breslauer is declared to be a part of one its protected areas and taking of any marine organism at any time is prohibited.

We were elated to know that the Bermuda?s marine life is indeed safe and sound for now and divers like me are going to be surveying this site for years to come.

And that, my friends and fellow environmentalists at Eco Generation, is how you celebrate World Environment Day in the most unique, exciting and most of all wild way underwater. This is just the beginning of my ?Wild for Life? days.