Steve Pratchett started diving with the BSAC in 1978. He re-trained as a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver in 1995. In 1996 he was trained by the professional underwater photographer Peter Dalton and qualified as a PADI Speciality Diver in Underwater Photography at Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. Steve Pratchett has dived in Madeira, Turkey, Antigua, the Red Sea, the Maldives and the UK.
Some of the photographs in the gallery above were taken on the Wreck of the Bowbelle, a sand dredger, which became infamous on 20th August 1989 when it ran down the Marchioness pleasure boat on the River Thames under Cannon Street Railway Bridge, leading to the deaths of 51 young people. It was eventually sold to a dredging company in Madeira and, while dredging, broke in two and sank on March 25th 1996. It now sits upright on the seabed at a maximum depth of 32 metres off Magdalena Do Mar in Madeira, 28 kilometres west of Funchal. During the week dredgers harvest sand near the wreck causing poor visibility so diving trips take place at weekends. Divers can penetrate the wreck through tears in the hull and swim through the wheel house. The wreck is often frequented by Jacks chasing shoals of Sardines that congregate above and the hull is festooned with Yellow Encrusting Anemones and soft corals including Whip Corals.