The Lady

The Lady is of course the most well known and visited part of the wreck. The lady and her unicorn used to be in the first class smoking room but in 2000 she fell from her home into the silty bottom. Amazingly she did not hit any of the numerous steel structures below her or the side of the ship but slipped out of the wreck onto the soft bottom. She was recovered by local dive operators, cleaned up and put back in a more accessible location above the door in the galley in the first class dining room.

She is describes as "Lady on Horseback" and is a decorative ceramic three dimensional wall fresco just under 3 feet square. The horse is actually a unicorn but the tusk has broken off and the lady is missing one hand. It's most likely that she was boarded over when the ship was converted for military use. Her original location was at 45m and accessed via quite a bit of twisting and turning through the wreck. This apparently caused many early visitors to be very narced. Now she is at a more moderate 40m and access is far easier.

We visited the Lady twice, once on our second day with 2 other divers and our guide, and the second time on our last diving day when just Jenny and I (and our guide) visited her. This was special as our guide (Aiden) held back and allowed the 2 of us to spend special time with her. We may have been narced but it was a special feeling.