It’s an unusually calm fall day on the Avalon Peninsula, and Neil Burgess and Ysabelle Hubert are preparing to take advantage of the mirror-like conditions on Conception Bay to pursue one of their passions.
The name on the side of their aluminum boat, Wreckfinder, gives it away. This married couple loves to explore shipwrecks, and on this day they’re heading to a location that attracts divers from around the world.
The four merchant steamships — all laden with valuable iron ore — that were torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats in the waters off Lance Cove, Bell Island are a sombre reminder of how the Battle of the Atlantic brought death and destruction to the waters around Newfoundland and Labrador during the Second World War.
Burgess and Hubert have made many dives to these wrecks, which lie in waters ranging from 15 to 50 metres deep, and each time they …