I had never given the panther much
thought, due to the lack of talk in the dive community, and the fact that it
had gone down more than a Hundred and Thirty years ago.
As it happened we were expecting some visitors from Germany and
planning a picnic somewhere in the gulf Islands, when I ran into a couple
of the Hunter brothers on Thetis Island. Once divers themselves, many
years ago they inquired about the diving and asked if I had dove the
Panther yet, they recalled it from there days of diving as being
interesting. Well enough said, a Picnic on Wallace Island was just the
ticket, and get another new dive in.
Unfortunately no one could remember where she was and the stories of
her sinking did not reveal much. So a best guess was to start out at the
tip of the point where it would be shallow enough to snag a ship in
passing.
Dropping into about 60ft of water on the
west side and swimming North, we found the usual strewn boulders and rocks
covered in Plumose, sea cucumbers, Anemones, a scattering of rockfish,
crab, and Nudibranch. To my surprise about 20 minutes into the dive I find
something very definitely man made, a steel pipe with a piece of wood
attached. Ah ha I said, but then looking closer I could see paint, then
the wood looked like plywood, now I know they did not have plywood or red
Paint 130 years ago. Not the panther, but an old abandoned reef marker. Ah
well swimming on a bit further revealed lumps of coal, now this was
exciting, the Panther had to be around here somewhere, heading a little
deeper found yet more coal until a sudden drop off revealed a plain old
sandy bottom. Suprised by the sudden change I turned around and looked
back towards where the drop off was, this revealed long copper plated
wooden planks .
I had found her, swimming along the hull revealed about 75 to 100
feet of hull buried in the sand. Swimming all the way forward found the
bow curving up from the sand. Many ribs stuck up from behind the planks
with plenty of copper sheeting to be seen. The hull lies with her
starboard side completely buried and the bulk of her hull filled with sand
and coal, Swimming along the top side reveals many bits and pieces of her
super structure sticking out of the debris.
This dive was nothing spectacular and
would be easy to miss in poor viz, but the wreck has a historic feel about
it that is well worth the time to look for her.