Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Shipwreck Hunters Australia’ on Disney+, Where A Team Takes The Plunge To Find And Film Relics Of The Oceangoing Past

In the six-episode Disney+ docuseries Shipwreck Hunters Australia, a dedicated team of divers, underwater filmmakers, and maritime archaeologists traverse the vast oceanscape of Western Australia to register long-dormant underwater finds and discover the wide array of marine life that call the region home. The thrill of the chase glimmers here, that spark to find something first that fuels vocational reality entries like Gold Rush and the like. But the overall vibe is more wholesome.  

SHIPWRECK HUNTERS AUSTRALIA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An archipelago stretches for miles where the red-tinged hills of Dampier in Western Australia meet the wide open sea. “I was out with my good mates at one of their fishing spots,” Johnny Debnam says in voiceover, “and there was one random spot in the middle of nowhere just teeming with marine life, which made us really curious.”

The Gist: Debnam is part of Terra Australis, a group of underwater cinematographers that also includes Ryan Chatfield, Nush Freedman, Andre Rerekura, and ship captain Ash Sutton, and when an underwater camera dropped at that mid-ocean fishing site revealed a mast on the seafloor, the team went into action. Diving for more information, they discover bits of timber, corroded metal, and numerous fish – including sharks – swimming in and out of the large ribs of a vessel’s hull. Out here on the western coast of Australia, there are more than 1600 shipwrecks resting in over 20,000 kilometers of ocean, but Debnam and the crew have located an undiscovered find.

Back in the coastal shipping hub of Fremantle, where Terra is based, the team takes their information to the Western Australia Shipwreck Museum and maritime archaeologists Dr. Ross Anderson and Dr. Deb Shefi, who are intrigued with the unidentified wreck. An expedition is mounted. Ross and Deb join Johnny, Ryan, Nush, and Andre in flying out to the Dampier Archipelago, where they rendezvous with Captain Ash and the research vessel Kuri Pearl II. A sonar survey called a multi-beam echo sounder forms a seafloor image of the wreck, which is now believed to be the Glenbark, a steel-hulled, three-masted Finnish ore hauler, which went down in the area during a cyclone in 1911. As they prepare to dive, Ross reminds everyone that the wreck might also be a grave site.

The considerable pressure at depth means only a precarious five minutes per dive, but the team manages to hone in on diagnostic details that positively identify the wreck as the Glenbark. They also share the sea water with bottle nose dolphins, sea tortoise, massive jellyfish, and curious lemon sharks. And eventually, with more dive site intelligence and further research into the shipwreck’s history, the expedition takes on a vital human element with the revelation that the lone sailor to survive the disaster still has living relatives back in Finland.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Shipwreck Hunters Australia shares a series producer with Aussie Gold Hunters, available on Vudu, and History featured treasure hunter Martin Bayerle and his location of the White Star Liner RMS Republic in the series Billion Dollar Wreck. Shipwreck team member Johnny Debnam has also appeared on Discovery in Shark Weeks of recent vintage.

Our Take: “I might’ve gone down a bit too quick or something, and we were trying to move something, so I might’ve been breathing a bit heavy, and I think I had a bit of nitrogen narcosis.” It’s notable that issues of safety override any thrill-seeking on Shipwreck Hunters Australia. As Ryan Chatfield says, “There’s no wreck worth dying for,” and though a physical setback forces him into a supervisory role on day 2 of the wreck site dive, Johnny Debnam continues to mix professionalism with idealism. A bout with narcosis isn’t going to dampen his enthusiasm for the work occurring below, from the measurements of the bow that will determine the wreck’s size and shape, to the remnants of the ship’s cargo that offer a tantalizing connection backward through history. Shipwreck Hunters and its team proves adept at making these thematic leaps between the technical side of safe diving and effective underwater camerawork, onboard, dry-side dives into investigative archival searches, and the age-old ecstatic thrill of swimming among the various and curious sea life locals that populate the vast oceans of Western Australia.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here, just lots and lots of wetsuits and scuba gear.

Parting Shot: The human touch which concludes the first episode of Shipwreck Hunters  bodes well for its universally positive vibe moving forward. “I’m glad we can share this beautiful story with the whole world now,” Johnny Debnam says in Fremantle, as he holds a miniature replica of Glenbank. “We’ve been working together as a team for a long time, and to be able to live such a beautiful story of this big, old ship, I feel so proud of what our team’s done. There’s still so many out there to find here in Western Australia, so we’re really keen to get out there and see if we can find some more.”

Sleeper Star: With his sun-weathered face and rakish tattooing, you get the immediate sense that Captain Ash Sutton has seen some shit, as in, it’s rather incredible that he’s the real deal and not from central casting for some heist movie set on the high seas. Just listen to the offhand manner in which he describes once getting caught in a category two tropical cyclone.

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s really exciting to be coming out here and do this dive and see the wreck for the first time,” maritime archaeologist Dr. Ross Anderson says in Shipwreck Hunters Australia. “The team that we’re working with, they’re all commercial divers and professional filmmakers, so that’s really gonna be a massive benefit to the recording of the site. This day and age, we know the best thing for the site is to preserve it in situ, so we don’t, as archaeologists, just excavate everything and bring it up to the surface. We just like to record what’s there.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Shipwreck Hunters Australia is conscious of balancing the thrill of the hunt with the allure of underwater marine life, a team working together to solve challenges, and a healthy respect for the scope of history.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges