There are still places seemingly untouched in Bermuda and one avid scuba-diver hopes to keep it that way after happening upon a decades-old shipwreck over the Labour Day holiday.

Scuba diving enthusiast and RG Magazine editor Becky Zuill takes advantage of Bermuda's ocean surroundings whenever she can to snorkel and scuba dive.

On Labour Day, along with her two daughters Honor and Zoe Brady, 12 and 15 respectively, and a boat load of other Bermudians, Ms Zuill, a member of Bluewater Divers and Watersports, went for a dive far off the West end.

"We were way off on the western point of the Island and could barely see Bermuda from where we were," she said, clearly excited about her find but careful not give up the boat's exact location.

"While I was diving I noticed crystalline rock, which is something you would see in rivers and streams in Europe," Ms Zuill said. "It was used in the ballast in the bottom of boats to keep them balanced and it would have been taken from gravel sources.

"Seeing the gravel floating is an indication that there is something of interest in the water."

Also on board was Bluewater Divers owner Michael Burke who dove down and after about 20 minutes confirmed that they had discovered a sunken ship, Ms Zuill said.

Although Ms Zuill was hoping they had happened upon a newly discovered wreck, Mr. Burke, who contributed to the book "Wonders of the Deep: Underwater Bermuda" said, from the layout of the wreck, it appeared that others had also come upon the ship which wrecked long ago on the dangerous reefs surrounding Bermuda.

"They used to bang up the coral a lot back then when searching for ships and there is a pretty big scar where there should have been a big build up of coral if it hadn't been touched before," Mr. Burke said.

He speculated that the wreck was known as the `Christmas Tree Wreck' or the `Porcelain Wreck' and, according to Ms Zuill, a close look at the sand pit revealed it was filled with china and pottery.

Mr. Burke was confident however that the ship dated back to the 1850s after he examined a bottle with a "torpedo-shaped bottom".

"The bottles near the wreck didn't have a flat bottom so they had to be laid on their side to keep their corks wet," Mr. Burke said. "The new types of fizzy beverages have been coming out since around the 1850s and this was they way they aerated drinks or kept them from going flat. Bottles evolved over the years so the timeline of the wreck can easily be figured out."

Other interesting artefacts that Ms Zuill saw on the dive were rings from the mast and large nails which she said may have held the boat together.

Since the Historic Wrecks Act now protects Bermuda shipwrecks, none of the artefacts were taken from the ship by the scuba divers.

"The history that courses through your blood and the fact that we came across this shipwreck and we hadn't been going to it was all part of the excitement," Mr. Burke said.

He explained the find with scuba diver's exhilaration and also mentioned that the area was not known for recreational diving.

Ms Zuill said she could only imagine the fear that had probably captured the crew of the ship before it went down and if they knew how close they might have been to land.

"Back then the `wreckers' would use lights and wayward ships would see there was land.

"The ships wouldn't be able to navigate through the reefs. I can imagine how desperate the `wreckers' must have been to go out so far from land to get to the sinking ships," Mrs. Zuill said pointing out an area rife with reefs on a scuba diving map on her desk.

Ms Zuill believed the find may have been the work of a `wrecker'.

But she said she did not want to give specifics on the actual location of her find for fear the area would be destroyed by overuse.