Please note this page has been specifically designed for viewing with Google Chrome. Diving has probably been carried out in Sri Lanka since earliest times. Nevertheless, the first accessible account of diving was published during the Portuguese period by Riberio and later by Robert Percival and Sir Emmerson Tennent during the early British colonial period. All these writers concentrated on the pearl diving industry in the Gulf of Manaar and the associated Chank shell fishery. However 19th century Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) newspapers carried advertisements for Siebe Gorman diving equipment and the bulk of treasure of, for example, the "Malabar" was salvaged by divers using early versions of the "Standard diving equipment). Much information on 20th century diving is now lost. However it is clear that Vicki Athukorala is the spiritual founder of modern free diving in Sri Lanka. Athu (as he was known) was taught to dive by the leader of a group of Samoan entertainers who were stranded in Ceylon at the beginning of WWII (c. 1938). In veneration of his "Master" Athu refused to use swimfins or speargun, hence his only equipment consisted of a face mask and hand-spear. By the mid-1940s to early 1950s diving had become a popular pastime. Members of the Kinross Swimming and Life Saving Club formed a subgroup, the "Kinross Reefcombers" which was active for a short time after which it cut itself loose from the Club around 1947 and became an independent entity called "The Reefcombers of Ceylon". Rodney Jonklaas, Gerd von Dincklage-Schulenburg, Tissa Ariyaratne, Hugh Stewart, Langston Pereira, Mike (Hilmie) Khalid and a few other enthusiasts formed the core group. Contrary to popular belief, SCUBA was used by Sri Lankan divers prior to 1954 (the advent of Arthur C. Clarke and Mike Wilson to Ceylon). SCUBA was actually introduced to Ceylon around 1950 and Langston Pereira, Rodney Jonklaas, Tony Buxton, Carlyle Ranasinghe, Hugh Stewart and a few others each had their own sets. (Langston Pereira additionally owned one of the very few war-surplus oxygen rebreathers to be used in our waters). There are some suggestions that Tissa Ariyaratne made an underwater housing for his Kodak camera as early as 1948. In 1950/51 or so Franco Prosperi and his associates took some of the earliest underwater photographs in Ceylon to be published. In 1952 Rodney Jonklaas took some excellent underwater photographs using a Robot camera in a waterproof housing. It is perhaps relevant to mention here that Rodney Jonklaas was the first ever to dive on the iconic aircraftcarrier "Hermes" in 1967. (My article "Legendary diver - Rodney Jonklaas", which is in press will deal with this in more detail). (A listing of the known surviving members of the "Reefcombers" appears towards the bottom of this page). My research on the history of diving in Sri Lanka continues and I hope to include all information in a book to be entitled "A history of diving in Sri Lanka". Bearing in mind that history must be written objectively and from a distance I have therefore arbitrarily set a cutoff point at 1st January 1990. This means that I hope to include information relating to the history of diving up to and including this date. I request readers to send in information, images etc. and assure that anything used in the book will be acknowledged. So please bear with me and treat this page as a "work-in-progress". I hope to update this page regularly so keep revisiting. Some images, arranged at random, which have a bearing on Sri Lanka's diving history are included below. Note that all images are © copyright and must not be used without permission.     Tony Buxton, Turab Jafferjee and Rodney Jonklaas. Rodney Jonklaas and friends.  Diving legends: extreme left, Gerd von Dincklage-Schulenburg, 5th from left Hugh Stewart, and 2nd from right Rodney Jonklaas (note the war-surplus "Barakuda" swimfins that Rodney is holding). Photo c. late 1940s. Kneeling third from left Hilmie Khalid.  Gerd von Dincklage Schulenberg arguably one of the greatest of Sri Lanka's pioneer divers from the 1940s. Gerd became famous in 1956 when he became the first person to swim from Perth to Rottnest Island through 9 miles of shark-infested waters at night.   Left: The old Kinross Club - Diving started here in the 1940s. Right: Tony and Gunilla Buxton diving on the "Hardingham".   Tony Buxton and Langston Pereira 1954 Dinty Ranasinghe CPC diver  Rodney Jonklaas and Hilmie (Mike) Khalid Colombo Port Commission diver Hiran   Left above: CPC Divers Vijay VijayaRagahavan and Dinty Ranasinghe on an operation to cut the raw water inlet in the Kelani Ganga. Right above: Vijay VijayaRagahavan with Seibe Gorman Standard Diving Helmet.  "Stonefish" Joe Rajapakse lost at sea  Left: Tissa Ariyaratne was a pioneer Reefcomber. A cultured individual he was a senior bank officer, connoisseur of western classical music, a fine diver and spearfisherman. There are suggestions that Tissa took the first underwater photographs ever made in our waters when he constructed an underwater housing for his Kodak camera in 1948. Extreme left Tissa Ariyaratne, Foreground Mike Khalid, Extrreme right (in red) Ian Kelly.  Pioneer divers all. (L - R). Rodney Jonklaas, Freddie Tira, Patrick Nicholas, Peter Kao, Vicki Athukorala, Mike Sirimanne (President of Kinross club peering over Athu's shoulder), Graham Arndt, Oswald Forbes,Peter Hettiarachchi, Lalith Munasinghe, A.J. Thaha, An official, Tissa Ariyaratne (in white). National spearfishing championships 1971.  Right: My "New Model" Cernia speargun c. 1966
  George ArndtAbove: Joe Rajapakse George Arndt (Ex SLN diver was the first person to see, what probably was, a juvenile Giant Squid in the Trincomalee Submarine Canyon in the early 1960s.      Dr. Malik Fernando. Malik was a co-founder of the Sri Lanka Subaqua Club in the mid-1980s. Malik, who is a medical doctor has also carried out research on Sri Lanka's marine life, marine archaeology and has published several papers on these subjects. To the right is his "Mistral" regulator.  Left: One of the several regulators I owned. This is a "Nemrod Snark II" c. 1966 Below: Rodney Jonklaas with Dogtooth Tuna
 30th October 2009 marked the 20th death anniversary of Sri Lanka's pioneer diver Rodney S. L. Jonklaas. Rodney, who started diving in 1946, was founder and first President of The REEFCOMBERS OF CEYLON, one of the World's earliest diving clubs. He was a renaissance man, a fine free diver, Scuba diver, spearfisherman, underwater photographer, qualified biologist, musician, marksman, aquarist, writer and much else beside. It was Rodney, who in 1967, pioneered diving on the aircraftcarrier HERMES which was sunk in deep water by Japanese bombers in 1942. Trevor Ferdinands was with Rodney when he made his first dive on the HERMES and has told me the amazing story of this dive. Rodney and Trevor were taken to the location of the wreck by local fishermen. In order to save the SCUBA units for later serious dives, Rodney free dived. Obviously Rodney could not reach the wreck by breath-holding, but he was able to free dive to sufficient depth to confirm identity of the ship. To my mind this would mean free diving to more than 60 feet. Trevor confirms that the water was clear and visibility very good. After confirming identity of the wreck, Rodney made several solo SCUBA dives, including two night dives on to the wreck. His only companion on these dives was his .357 Magnum "Bang Stick" - a gift from Stan Waterman, the famous underwater movie maker. Rodney had a few pet aversions; they were snorkels, wet suits and life jackets (buoyancy compensators). Although he owned a wet suit Rodney seldom wore it preferring swimming trunks and tee shirt. Like most divers of the era he scorned life jackets, claiming that they were only of use to "Weaklings". This amazing man is remembered with great affection and missed by all who knew him, especially by the few surviving Reefcombers.    Kurt Haendl, Rodney Jonklaas and Reg Vallintine (c. 1980).  Sir Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer, scientist and originator of the concept of the geo-sychronous satellite was also a competent Scuba diver and underwater photographer who wrote several books on diving. The best known of these are "The Reefs of Taprobane", "Indian Ocean Adventure" and "Treasure of the Great Reef". Sir Arthur pased away on 16th December 2007. (Read my "Tribute to Sir Arthur C. Clarke" in the "Attachments" below. Thanks to The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka (WNPS) for permission to reproduce this article which first appeared in LORIS).    (Above) Left: Langston Pereira. Centre: in Trincomalee (probably 1940s). Right with Giant Estuary Perch (probably 1940s). Langston Pereira was on of the early Reefcombers. I am proud to acknowledge him as one of my earliest diving mentors. He was an excellent spearfisherman, scuba diver and free diver. Langston owned one of the first scuba units imported to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) around 1949 or 1950. Langston also owned one of the very few war-surplus oxygen rebreathers to be imported to Sri Lanka (c. 1949). He migrated to Australia in 1972. Langston passed away on 12th January 2009. His ashes were scattered in the Indian Ocean.  Frank Mackey was a leading diver from Hong Kong. He dived frequently on the Great and Little Basses reefs in the late 1960s and '70s. Frank, along with Rodney, was part of the 1982 expedition to the Hermes (read about it in "The Hermes Adventure" by Rex Morgan).  Reefcomber Trevor Ferdinands started diving around 1955. A great Freediver, Scuba diver and Spearfisherman, He was one of the finest individuals it has been my privilege to dive with.   P.K. Bandhusena was a pioneer Sri Lankan commercial diver who joined the Colombo Port Commission in 1949. He was a courageous and tough individual. When constructing the Colombo Harbour's South West Breakwater, his hand got wedged between two gigantic concrete blocks pinning him to the bottom. He used his diving knife to cut off his own finger, thereby permitting him to surface. Bandhusena epitomizes the toughness and courage common to the pioneer divers of Sri Lanka. THE DEEPEST DIVES  Ariyaseela Wickremanayake of "Master Divers"was the first Sri Lankan to dive to more than 300 feet. In April 1984 he dived on three consecutive days to 305 feet at Victoria Reservoir (alt. 1,500 feet above m.s.l.) to remove obstacles which prevented the opening of the bottom gates. Each dive was of seven minutes duration and required approximately one and half hours of decompression. He tells me that the water was "black", very cold and there was absolutely no visibility. The dives were all made using compressed air. His equipment included standard SCUBA twin sets and a wet suit. Ariyaseela tells me that at 305 feet his air tasted "bitter". Truly a story of courage and amazing achievement. These dives were documented in the newspapers of the day. I hope to include a detailed account of these difficult and dangerous dives in my forthcoming book on the history of diving in Sri Lanka. Between December 1992 and February 1993 (exact date not known) Oswald Forbes dived to 300 feet 16 miles off Galle to attach a lifting cable to the anchor of a wave rider buoy to bring it to the surface for its 5 year maintainence. Oswald's equipment was a standard SCUBA unit using compressed air.   Left (above) Oswald Forbes in the 1990s and right Oswald in Melbourne March 2011.  Underwater Archaeology in Sri Lanka.  Left Cedric Martenstyn's Standard Diving Helmet
 Peter Hettiarachchi (know as the "last Spearfisherman") shares with Gerd von Dinklage Schulenberg, Rodney Jonklaas, Langston Pereira, Hilmie Khalid, Tissa Ariyaratne, Tony Buxton and a very few others, the credit of being considered one of Sri Lanka's greatest spear-fishermen.  The lead for these weights came from musket balls collected from the seabed off Gale Face, Colombo.   Above L & R. Cedric Martenstyn  Click here for information on Rex I. De Silva the compiler of this page. Click here to view his diving career. Sri Lankan Diver-scientists 1950-2000 George. H. P. de Bruin. PhD: Marine Biologist. Ex. Research Officer Fisheries Research Station and NARA. Marine Biologist Biologist and ichthyologist. (Deceased). M.W.R.N. De Silva. PhD: Marine Biologist. Ex. Lecturer University of Ceylon. Worked for several International organizations. Founder of the Sri Lanka Sub Aqua Club in mid 1980s' Rex I. De Silva. FZS, MIBiol. Ichthyologist (specializing in Sharks); and Marine Ornithologist. Somasiri Devendra. BA (Ceylon) Lt. Cdr. SLN (retd.) Pioneer Maritime Archaeologist. Asha de Vos. MSc. Currently a PhD student, The University of Western Australia, Perth. She has carried out research on marine mammals. S.U.K.I. Ekaratne. PhD. Professor University of Colombo. Special interest in corals and reef fish. Malik Fernando, MB, ChB (Bristol), AFOM. Marine Archaeologist and Biologist. Special interest in marine invertebrates. Rodney S.L. Jonklaas. BSc, FAI. Ichthyologist. (Deceased). Nishan Perera . MSc. Currently a PhD student. He is a Marine Biologist involved in coral reef and fisheries research. Arjan Rajasuriya. Research Officer, Coral Reef Research Programme, Marine Biological Resources Division, GCRMN National Coordinator for Sri Lanka. Authority on Sri Lankan corals. Books related to Diving in Sri Lanka    |
