Kea, Cyclades, Greece

HMHS Britannic

HMHS Britannic was the youngest of the three Olympic-class ocean liners and a sister ship of RMS Titanic. Requisitioned by the Royal Navy as a hospital ship in the First World War, she struck a German mine on 21 November 1916 in the Kea Channel south of Athens and sank in approximately 55 minutes; thirty crew members were lost and her sinking remains the largest passenger-ship loss of the war. The wreck rests on its starboard side at a depth of approximately 122 metres in the Kea Channel, at a position recorded after the dive expedition by Jacques Cousteau in 1976 and re-surveyed by subsequent technical-diving teams. The Britannic is by far the largest ocean-liner wreck in the world that is recreationally accessible and one of the most demanding technical dives in the Mediterranean. Diving is limited to credentialed mixed-gas trimix teams operating under permits from the Greek government and the wreck's private owner, who has acquired the title; the site is also a war grave under UK and Greek law and removal of any artefact is forbidden. Visibility in the Kea Channel routinely exceeds 30 metres.