- info@drenchedprodutions.com
Expedition Drenched
21 August 2022
We sailed to the Solomon Islands to find a ghost cruise ship abandoned in a tropical paradise. We found the MS World Discoverer, and we swam right in!
The first season of Expedition Drenched sent us sailing towards the Solomon Islands and one of our most memorable shipwrecks. Resting at a roughly 45-degree angle, nestled up against the coral–dotted shoreline in Roderick Bay, the MS World Discoverer is slowly being destroyed by the nature that forced it aground. While it’s not nearly as large as the cruise ships we see on the oceans these days, the abandoned cruise ship is still a huge, imposing sight in the remote, tropical Solomon wilderness.
After a quick stop to clear the Solomon Islands immigration process, we continued towards the Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, and the recorded location for the MS World Discoverer.
Our first impressions of Roderick Bay included words that are usually bleeped out in our YouTube videos, but we couldn’t help ourselves when our eyes actually saw the indescribable beauty of this little tropical hideaway. The shoreline of Nggela Sule Island was lined with towering palm trees that were blowing gently in the warm island breeze while locals paddled past in their traditional, hand-carved canoes. Our floating home, the Sylfia, looked almost high-tech as she sailed through the scene from ages past.
But then, as we sailed around the corner into Roderick Bay, there was this huge, rusted shipwreck almost dwarfing the island itself. The contrast between the untouched natural setting of the Solomon Islands and the rusted-out symbol of human advancement was shocking for the Expedition Drenched crew and it’s this contrast that has given the MS World Discoverer a big place in our memories of Expedition Drenched Season 1.
The Solomon Islands are roughly 1,800km northwest of Australia, right in the middle of the Oceania region, but the island nation looks like it belongs in the pages of a tropical fairy tale.
It’s believed that the islands were originally settled somewhere between 30,000 and 28,800 BC, and they remained in this ‘undiscovered’ state until Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendana visited the islands in 1568. Mendana didn’t give the islands their name, rather it’s believed that they were named ‘the Solomons’ by the people who received word of his voyage and mapped his island discoveries.
Britain got involved in the Solomon Islands in June 1893 when Captain Gibson of the HMS Curacoa declared the region a British protectorate. The region remained part of the British commonwealth until it was granted independence on July 7, 1978.
Some people may not know exactly where the Solomon Islands are located on a map, but many would recognize its landscape and scenery from several blockbuster World War II movies and TV series. The Solomon Islands campaign raged from 1942 to 1945 and saw some of the fiercest fighting during the second world war. It was here in these clear waters, against this pristine landscape, that the United States and the British Commonwealth clashed violently with the Empire of Japan.
World War II statistics say that the Solomon Islands campaign cost the Allied Forces roughly 7,100 men, 29 ships, and 615 aircraft. The Empire of Japan was said to have lost 31,000 men, 38 ships, and 683 aircraft. While the history of this area is sombre, the relics left behind make for excellent exploration opportunities for people who love to gear up and SCUBA dive below the waves. It is estimated that there are roughly 200 shipwrecks and 590 submerged aircraft wrecks in the area near where the historic Battle for Guadalcanal occurred.
But clearly, World War II wrecks aren’t the only thing that the Solomon Islands Archipelago has to offer. While we did do our fair share of diving some of the historic war wrecks, our first official stop in the Solomon Islands was Florida Island, Roderick Bay, and the wreck of the MS World Discoverer.
The MS World Discoverer isn’t the normal military-oriented shipwreck that we tend to be drawn toward, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an interesting history.
This travel and leisure vessel was originally built in 1974 in a German shipyard but just as it was ready to hit the water, it was purchased by a company called BEWA Cruises and was renamed the BEWA World Discoverer. In 1976, the ship was sold to another tourism company, Adventure Cruises Incorporated, and the name was changed back to the original MS World Discoverer.
The ship was sold again in 1987 to Society Expedition Cruises and shortly afterwards it was refitted with a hull that could withstand small ice impacts. This meant that the ship could be used for sailing trips around the Arctic and Antarctic. The MS World Discoverer did run special expedition-style trips to the Antarctic and southern Chile regions for adventurous travellers looking to have an unforgettable experience for their holidays.
Even though the MS World Discoverer was outfitted for the extreme conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic, the ship could not run trips in those regions year-round. The reality is that during the winter months those regions become inaccessible for any ship carrying paying passengers. So when the conditions at the poles got worse, the MS World Discoverer would sail to another part of the world and continue to run leisure cruises in better conditions.
This is why the MS World Discoverer found herself in the Solomon Islands in April of 2000, navigating through the Sandfly Passage between Nggela Sule Island and Mbokonimbeti Island. This straight of water belongs to the aptly-named Iron Bottom Sound area of the Solomon Sea.
Even though the MS World Discoverer was a double-hulled ship that was fully equipped to handle strikes with small icebergs, she began to take on water on April 30, 2000, at roughly 4 pm local time, when she collided with an uncharted reef in the middle of the passage. The captain of the vessel steamed it towards nearby Roderick Bay before the ship could no longer float.
Captain Kruess’ decision to bank the ship along the shoreline in Roderick Bay also had a second purpose – to drop the ship in a location where it wouldn’t sink so that salvaging it later was a possibility. He tucked the rather large boat into a location with a shallow lagoon and extremely calm water to lessen the environmental impact on the steel ship. But the damage to the ship’s hull was too extensive for any quick repairs. Eventually, Society Expedition Cruises decided that the costs of salvaging the stranded vessel would be far greater than their initial investment, so they abandoned the ship to its watery prison.
A few years after the accident, Society Expedition Cruises filed for bankruptcy and shut down operations. This meant that the abandoned MS World Discoverer now has no legitimate owner and will likely sit in Roderick Bay until the ocean finally takes her back, piece by piece.
If you don’t have a trusted sailboat like the Expedition Drenched crew, you can still really easily get yourself over to visit the Solomon Islands and the MS World Discoverer shipwreck. Solomon Airlines, the national airline, flies directly from Sydney and Brisbane to the capital city of Honiara. If you’re coming from Europe or North America, the most common route is via Australia.
If you have time, do make a stop in Australia to enjoy the incredible underwater world around the big Aussie island. Check out our YouTube page to follow our current adventure – sailing over to the stunning Lord Howe Island between Australia and New Zealand. We’re definitely not holding anything back for Expedition Drenched Season 3.
Happy sailing and exploring from all of your Expedition Drenched crews!
Web: https://expeditiondrenched.org
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DrenchedDivers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExpeditionDr…
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/expeditiond…
Merch: https://expeditiondrenched.org/collections/products
Expedition drenched is a U.S. based marine educational non profit 501c3 made possible by our donors and patrons. If you love scuba, sailing, travel, adventure, exploration, conservation, and all things aquatic, we really hope you will continue to follow us on our journey. Our goal in making these videos is to show the world all the amazing, beautiful, and strange inhabitants of the ocean in the hopes that we will all be inspired to protect it.
If you liked our video, keep watching them! Subscribe! Thumbs Up!
Let us know what you think in the comments! Share us with all your favorite mermaids and mermen in your life!
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DrenchedDivers
Cameras we use:
Underwater:
Lighting:
Expedition Drenched has long since grown from its humble beginnings to now being an Ocean Advocacy Lifestyle Brand that houses many International Artists from all over the world.
