Ben Cropp

[1] Since then, he has resided on his vessel Freedom 1V, mostly in the Trinity Park marina area, when not at sea diving, boating, fishing, and searching for uncharted shipwrecks.

His "bucket list" includes finding a shipwreck that pre-dates James Cook's 1770 arrival in Australia, as he believes one exists.

Cropp was Ron Taylor's partner in the making of The Shark Hunters, a 60-minute black and white documentary sold for television screenings in 1961.

[3] He became a conservationist after an experience off Montague Island in 1964 where he filmed diver George Meyer riding on the back of a whale shark.

[1] In 1977, he discovered the wreck of HMS Pandora, almost concurrently with another film maker John Heyer and a boat owner Steve Domm.

At that time, John Heyer had done extensive research to establish the area the Pandora wreck was likely to be found in and had launched an expedition to locate it with the help of Steve Domm.

[1] His searching techniques include wearing polarised glasses while looking along reef edges for signs of anchors, chain, hulls or timbers.