Ghost Diving · Turkey

In September 2026 I spent a week in Turkey with Ghost Diving. The goal: clearing the historic wrecks of Gallipoli of lost and abandoned fishing nets. This is day one, filmed and edited by me.

Ghost nets on war wrecks

A ghost net is a fishing net that was lost or dumped and stays snagged on a wreck or reef. It keeps fishing, for years, without anyone ever coming to empty it. Fish, turtles, everything that gets entangled dies in it. Recovery is the only way to stop that.

Off Gallipoli lie the wrecks of the Dardanelles campaign of the First World War. Historic material, and at the same time exactly where nets like to snag. On day one the team located a net, secured it, cut it free and brought it to the surface with lift bags.

Who took part

The mission was a collaboration of three organisations:

• Ghost Diving, the volunteer organisation of technical divers that recovers ghost nets worldwide.
• Healthy Seas, the foundation that has the recovered nets recycled and helps make the missions possible.
• Gallipoli Wrecks, the local party that knows the wrecks and organises the dives.

Filming a recovery

I have done this before, with Ghost Diving in Greece, and it remains the hardest work I know. A recovery does not stand still. There is cutting, lift bags go under, and then all sorts of things come up, sometimes suddenly. As soon as a net comes free, a cloud of sediment comes with it and visibility is gone in seconds. What you do not have at that moment, you will not get that dive.

So your position decides everything. Not too close, or you are in the team’s way. Not too far, or you have nothing. And your own safety comes before the shot, always.

A side effect of this week: I dived on borrowed fins the whole time, and that became a review.

More from Turkey

This is day one. Footage of the rest of the mission, more wrecks and more recoveries, is coming.