The Márcia

Localized between Pau a Pino island and Palmas inlet in Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro, lies the wreckage of the ship "Marcia" who sunk due to bad weather in 1953. Despite her appearance in the nautical charts of the area, this shipwreck it is not visited by divers and diving operators.

Avid wreck diver, Carlos Bersan was the first to notice the presence of this shipwreck and his will to explore it. Aware of the difficults and practical necessities that a search like this produce, our team wait for a couple of years until we have at hand a good dive boat and a good sonar. The boat we use was a 22 feet Utility boat with a 100 hp engine, owned by Bersan, that was perfect to this operation due to the maneuvering capability and speed.

We decide to start the search operations in the coordinates presented in the nautical chart. Using the sonar and the GPS and after one and a half hour of search , we´ve made our first dive that reach a depht of 18 meters but nothing was found. The reading of a sonar screen demands practice and attention to achieve the best results.

Decided to find the shipwreck, Bersan started a new search and once again he command to me to drop the buoy. A few hours have passed since we´ve begin the operation and the bad weather was arriving to Ilha Grande, warning us that our time to find the ship was about to end.

Another friend of mine, Zé Luis, made the second dive and found the wreckage in the depht of 17 meters. Soon I reached him in he bottom and after a fast visualization we prepared the fixation of the cable for the others divers. Them we surfaced to tell everybody the good news. The visibility was only one meter and the water was cold.The "Marcia" have iron hull and it is capsized.Through the ship it is possible to see several small holes in the hull and our impression is that the " Márcia" is not a small vessel.

Maybe in better dive conditions, this holes in the hull will provide points of penetration. It is possible to see fishing nets along the wreck.This nets make necessary an extra dose of attention of the divers who visit the "Márcia"

Many thanks to the divers who participate of this operation: Jose Luiz, Marcos Alvaredo, Fernando Sacola and Carlos Bersan.