Monday, October 26, 2026
By Brian Tress | Outer Banks Voice on July 30, 2024
Yesterday’s story focused on recreational diving off Hatteras Island and an account of an excursion on the dive boat Lion’s Paw. The Lion’s Paw is also the modus operandi for the NC Shipwreck Project and for several research projects affiliated with the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.
The NC Shipwreck Project consists of a group of seasoned local divers – including historians, scientific researchers, videographers and photographers, and medical professionals. It was founded over a year ago by Marc Corbett, Jay King and Panda Daniels to identify, document, and tell the complete stories of all of North Carolina’s diveable shipwrecks – not only the stories of their loss, including the tragic human element, but also of their days above the surface.
According to Marc Corbett, who leads the group, “There are 90 to 100 diveable shipwrecks here, that is, under 400 feet deep. I’ve dove 63 of them, some in excess of 250 feet down.”
There is an imperative to the Shipwreck Project, given the impact of severe ocean conditions on the wrecks over time. According to Captain Dave Sommers, “These are ginormous disjointed piles of metal and wood – moving, collapsing, bending – one winter storm does tremendous damage. On many of the shipwrecks, I used to be able swim through rooms and compartments – that doesn’t exist on a large scale anymore.”
Panda Daniels adds, “Sometimes we only have six feet of clearance under the boat. You don’t talk. Just think light thoughts. This happens all the time. The sand is constantly shifting under the water. At Diamond Shoals, the sand will bury shipwrecks.”
Cape Hatteras is the furthest spot out to sea in the mid-Atlantic US, and the Diamond Shoals goes out about another 14 miles. According to Marc, “A ship that doesn’t stay outside the shoals is going to hit it and rip out its bottom. Because deep water surrounds the shoals, German U-boats during World War II could lay in wait, intercept ships going around the shoals, and then escape back into the deep water.” He adds, “The most common wrecks are tankers – torpedoed during World War II. But there are ocean liners, coast guard cutters, almost any kind of vessel you can imagine.”
The Shipwreck Project spends much of its time searching for and identifying wrecks. According to Marc, the group uses “state-of-the-art and innovative technology to hunt shipwrecks. When we find one that isn’t identified yet, it’s a mystery we need to solve through research and more diving and photography, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.”
In the early days, Marc did shore dives to access wrecks, starting in 2010 with the “Winks” wreck in Kitty Hawk, named this by locals because of its proximity to the Winks grocery store on the Beach Road. Marc dove the wreck several times, carefully examining what was there, He knew it was a steamship when he saw the unmistakable side-lever steam engines. His initial research eliminated several steamships that were reported to have sunk in the Kitty Hawk area but had either been salvaged or were too far out to sea.
Then he came across the Mountaineer, a steamship that had reportedly gone down in Kitty Hawk on Christmas Day 1852. The ship was said to have had two side-lever steam engines identical to those Marc had seen at the dive site. As a result, he determined that the wreck was highly likely to be the Mountaineer, whose story is published on the Shipwreck Project’s website (https://nc-shipwreckproject.com/steamship-mountaineer-kitty-hawk-nc). The oldest diveable steamship wreck in North Carolina, the Mountaineer is located nearly 100 yards offshore, just south of Luke Street in Kitty Hawk, in about 20 feet of water.
Since then, Marc and team have continued to identify and document North Carolina shipwrecks, the most recent being the cargo schooner George N. Reed (https://nc-shipwreckproject.com/schooner-george-n-reed-pea-island-north-carolina), which was stranded in January 1915 about 500 yards off-shore and 1.75 miles south of Pea Island Life-Saving Station. After much research and several dives culminating in October 2023, the Shipwreck Project identified the wreck based on its location, as well as its concrete bag cargo and wooden construction, attributes indicative of a cargo schooner at the time.
Marc says he is “on top of the world” after a successful dive. “We see stuff that is so cool you can barely get out of the water. We’re solving the mystery. Why is that bowl there? Why is this metal bent? Then we can fill in the story.”
Shawn Harper leads training and conservation dives for the Aquarium on Roanoke Island. A scientific diver since 2001, Shawn got his start at the University of Alaska diving in frigid water. In 2016, he moved to the Outer Banks and began working for the Aquarium as Diving Safety Officer. Having heard about the world-class diving off Cape Hatteras, he quickly booked a recreational dive with Dave Sommers on the Lion’s Paw. Since 2018, Dave has been running Shawn and his team out to wrecks for various research projects affiliated with the aquarium.
One of them is the Sand Tiger Shark Telemetry Project, which tracks the movement of sharks via acoustic tags across the entire eastern seaboard. Off the coast of Hatteras, acoustic receivers are attached to various wrecks; when a shark swims by one, it is identified by its tag, which allows scientists to learn where it’s traveled. Captain Dave will run the team out to the wrecks periodically to inspect and replace the receivers, and to video and photograph the sand tigers, each of which can also be identified by its distinct freckle pattern.
According to Shawn, “Some of the wrecks have a lot of growth that bring in big species – goliath groupers, sand tiger sharks. There can be very large numbers of sharks and you’ll find yourself swimming shoulder to shoulder with sharks that are twice your size, just chilling out on the wreck.”
“A lot of the behavior we see during the daytime is resting behavior,” he continues. “Humans don’t look anything like a shark’s prey species. We look as big as another shark. They don’t want to interact with us. You respect their space, they respect yours. Just don’t touch them or get in their way.”
According to Shawn, the wrecks act like an oasis. “They create a hard bottom that allows smaller organisms to grow, crustaceans, pelagic fish. The question we’d like to answer is, why do the sand tigers like the wrecks so much? Are they meeting to find mates? Are they pupping?”
Another of Shawn’s projects is the Lionfish Mitigation Project. “Lionfish is an invasive species with no natural predators,” he explains. “They are voracious predators themselves and consume juvenile fish. Cape Hatteras is the northern part of their range. We typically see hundreds of them each year hanging around the wrecks, near the warm water of the Gulf Stream.”
“This is more a conservation project than research,” he adds. “We count them, spear them and eat them afterwards – we have cooking classes, staff cook-offs with Lionfish. It’s not a big fish – the largest is just over three pounds – so it’s good for ceviche and fish tacos. It’s flavorless.”
Whether it’s open-water adventure seekers, maritime historians, or scientists studying sharks, the waters off Hatteras Island are a diver’s nirvana. It’s not for the faint of heart, given the often turbulent ocean conditions and weather. But it is completely gratifying for the advanced diver who is looking for a one-of-kind life experience.
SEE ALSO: PART ONE: Shipwrecks, sharks and science: The wonders of scuba diving on the Outer Banks
See what people are saying:
Russell Blackwood
Capt. Dave Sommers and Capt. Marc Corbett are two of the most experienced and knowledgeable scuba divers in North Carolina.
I have learned many things about our ocean everytime I have gone offshore with them