Diving to the Sunken Andelana
A reporter joins a salvage diver to inspect the wreckage of the British ship Andelana, resting deep beneath the silt of the Puyallup River.
The crew employed by the Neptune Salvage company has succeeded in locating the wreck of the British ship Andelana. Worden G. Smith, the inventor of the diving apparatus used, inspected the boat this afternoon. Soundings taken this morning show a depth of 100 feet to the upper side of the ship. She is lying almost crosswise of the stream off the mouth of the Puyallup river, with the masts pointing toward deep water. The soundings show a depth of 176 feet on the shore side of the vessel, which means that the deck is about one-third covered with mud on that side. The soundings on the deep water side show a depth of 187 feet, indicating that the mud has drifted up against the boat from the mouth of the river. A Times reporter accompanied Diver Smith on his first descent to the bottom of the Sound, passing through the muddy surface waters until the bottom was reached at 98 feet, where he could look out of the heavy glass windows.
“The only sense of insecurity that came to the reporter was from his knowledge of his whereabouts. As far as the facts are concerned, he was just as safe and comfortable as though he was on land.”
The Andelana, a British ship that sank in 1899 during a gale, remains a legendary site for local divers today, though the river's shifting silt and industrial development have dramatically altered the mouth of the Puyallup since 1904. It serves as a reminder of Tacoma’s early maritime history, when the harbor was the city's primary economic engine.
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