Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2015 | Page 11

INTERVIEW

My underwater
'space station!'
A special two-part feature by Peter White on the amazing
exploits of deep sea and shipwreck diver Martin Woodward

A

lthough Martin Woodward has
found gold and other treasures deep
down on the seabed around the Isle
of Wight, he has never once sold any of it
for his own gain.
Instead Martin has kept his unique
collection of artefacts to share with the
public, displaying them at his ‘Shipwreck
Centre’ maritime museum at Arreton Old
Barns. There is something of interest for
everyone at the Centre, from Spanish gold
and silver to antique and present day diving
equipment, ship’s bells and portholes, and
a multitude of other intriguing relics from
the past.
Yet Martin is quick to point out that wreck
diving around the Island has merely been a
hobby, saying: “My job was deep sea diving,
with wreck diving a side activity that I have
always loved.”
He explained: “I did a lot of deep sea
diving in the North Sea, mainly off
Aberdeen, which was very well paid. We
worked for one month and then had one
month off. So I could work up there for a
month, and then come back down here
and continue my hobby of ‘playing’ off the
wrecks.”
His deep sea diving work was specialist,
and sometimes extremely dangerous. He
reflected: “I lost a lot of friends in the early
1970s, but I am not one to dramatise,
because you can lose friends in everyday
events. Working in the North Sea I did
everything; cutting, burning, laying
sandbags over pipelines - I was a multitasker, but you had to be in those days. My
speciality was photography so I did all the
underwater inspection photographs and
videos, but I still did everything else because
you had to.”
He spent six years diving in the North
Sea often going down to around 600ft. He
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