New Jersey Scuba Diving

Type:

shipwreck, sailing ship

Specs:

( 140 ft ? )

Depth:

45 ft

The "China Wreck" is the partial remains of an unidentified late 19th-century wooden sailing ship, with a cargo of china plates and cups, and miscellaneous articles. This site is believed to be the wreck of the D.H. Bills, a 167'-long wooden-hulled barkentine that sank with a cargo of British-made earthenware during a storm in March 1880.

The wreck must be dived at slack tide, and even then conditions at the mouth of Delaware Bay tend to be muddy. The plates themselves date from about 1875, and are fairly ordinary and of little value except to divers who prize such artifacts; and despite years of plunder, there are still more to be found.