When David L. Mearns OBE, OAM, Director at Blue Water Recoveries Limited, was studying for his master’s in Marine Geology at the University of South Florida, a career as a shipwreck hunter was far from his mind. “I didn’t want to become an academic. I wanted to go into the offshore industry. So, I put out my CVs to companies and landed a job at Eastport International,” he recounts.
With skills in high-resolution geophysics, Mearns was hired to support the company’s expansion into undersea search. “We got this criminal investigation for the shipwreck Lucona. It was my responsibility in a small project team to put together the search plan, a search vehicle, and search equipment for very, very deep water. I led the expedition, and we found the wreck. We photographed it, and then I was the expert witness at the criminal court. Right after that, we got contract after contract after contract. It basically built my career [in] deep-sea shipwreck hunting.”
That career includes breaking records – has fascinated Mearns since childhood. “When I was a kid, we had a Guinness Book, and I loved looking through it. I remember trying to set a record with the world’s longest yoyo when I was nine or ten years old.”
That early ambition foreshadowed a lifetime of achievements. While working at Eastport International in 1988, Mearns says: “We were the first to have broken the 6,000-metre threshold with an ROV (remotely operated vehicle).” Through his company, Blue Water Recoveries Limited, Mearns held five Guinness World Records, including for the oldest mariner’s astrolabe and the deepest shipwreck ever found. “They were set over 20 years ago, so some have been broken now,” he adds.
Read the full Interview at Marine Professional.