As Morski writes on the 20th of October, 2019, an ordinary dive in Molunat near Dubrovnik turned into quite the spectacle with a fantastic discovery. Namely, at a depth of 85 metres, divers found the ”grave site” of a German submarine which sank in World War I, more than one hundred years ago.
Molunat, a quiet and quaint little fishing village in the extreme south of Croatia near Prevlaka, close to the Montenegrin border, turned a page in its history today. Locals didn’t suspect for even a second that such an important part of history had been hidden in the sea just a couple of miles from the harbour for more than a century. Despite the shock of the locals, this remarkable discovery did not happen by accident, and it seems that Molunat’s sunken submarine was actually formerly mistaken for something quite different indeed.
”Back in 2006, our host Vlaho Ljubenko went with Damir Mlinarić, who was the first to dive into this wreck. After that, in 2007, Damir and I went together and took the first shots of the wreck. Reviewing the footage and studying the historical data, we came to the conclusion that it was a D2 minesweeper,” stated Dražen Gorički, head of the Dragorsub diving team, in conversation with HRT.
After thirteen long years, Dražen Gorički’s diving team Dragorsub, which specialises in deep diving, returned to the site with special equipment and the intention to determine exactly what lies beneath the sea’s surface in Molunat.
”The depths at which we dive are over 60 metres to 130 metres. The equipment is special and it’s configured to maintain basic life functions and is most similar to the equipment used by astronauts in space,” explained technical diver Uroš Jelić.
Quite the contrary to the most modern diving equipment used by the team is the dive boat – built in 1906. At 113 years old, it’s older than anything Dražen’s team hoped to find.
”When I dived in I was surprised that the wooden deck was on top of the wreck. My first impression was that it was a ship then because it could see that the deck had collapsed, the beams could be seen, and then I learned that submarines from WW1 had wooden decks that the crew could walk on when on the surface,” said technical diver Ivan Miloš.
The vessel lying below the surface near Molunat was 55 metres long and, after sailing from Boka, it was struck by a torpedo in the right flank and then sunk by the French submarine Circe.
”This is the only submarine in the Adriatic. It’s great that it lies at a depth of 85 metres and will be accessible to most technical divers. We hope to dive to it many more times,” said Dražen Gorički.
It’s worth mentioning the valuable contribution of Dražen’s diving team, which already has two underwater discoveries under its belt, after having discovered a couple of very historically important ships – the Italian “Palestro” and “Garibaldi”.
”It’s certainly a great find. It’s a WW1 submarine where we know that they were less frequently in military use, and finding an almost complete and very well preserved submarine is really unique and rare for us archaeologists,” noted Igor Miholjek, head of the department for underwater archeology of the Croatian Conservation Institute.
This archeological site near Molunat will now likely attract diving teams from all over the world and put a spring back in the step of the tourism of this sleepy little area in Dalmatia’s extreme south.
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