“Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are in no way enhanced by extreme caution”
– Kptlt. Erich Topp, famed U-Boat Commander
About Richie Kohler
Richie Kohler’s passion for technical scuba diving and maritime history has led him to explore some of the most challenging shipwrecks in the world, including the Andrea Doria and HMHS Britannic. Searching for lost ships has led him to locate and help identify numerous lost vessels, including the U-215, a German mine laying submarine on the Georges Banks off Nova Scotia, USS Murphy, a WWII destroyer that was crushed and forgotten in the New York approaches, and others. But it would be the identification of a German U-Boat, the U-869 that would catapult his diving career into the world of television and documentary filmmaking.
Richie’s Project Files
Dry Tortugas Wreck Diving
Just seventy miles from Key West lie a tiny group of islands, set like gemstones that rise from the cobalt blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Discovered by famed Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513, the low-lying islands are harsh and mostly barren, with only patchy mangroves and scrub brush to cover the arid coral outcrop. An unusually large abundance of sea turtles on the sandy beaches prompted the infamous Spaniard to name this small archipelago the turtle islands, or “Tortugas” and with no natural water to be found, the description “dry” was added to warn future…
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