Britain’s Prince Charles reminisced diving with archaeologists during his visit to the Mary Rose Museum.
The heir to the throne has told how he dived down to the "lentil soup" of the Solent river almost 40 years ago to see the historic wreck of Henry VIII’s flagship naval vessel, the Mary Rose.
The Prince of Wales returned to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Hampshire, on Wednesday (26.02.14) to visit the purpose-built £35 million museum, where the ship’s remains now rest.
According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, he said in a speech to fundraisers and volunteers: "I remember my days of diving on the ship out in the Solent in the most impossible conditions, it was like swimming in a kind of lentil soup, you couldn’t see anything, or so I thought, until it was under your nose.
"What I could never get over was the sheer expertise of the archaeologists operating under water … I think it was worth taking the risk as we have this truly remarkable example of a Tudor warship which is unique."
The ship capsized in the Solent in 1545 and was raised from the sea bed in 1982 thanks to the work of the Mary Rose Trust, of which Charles is patron and with whom he has worked over the years to preserve it for future generations.
The royal, accompanied by his wife the Duchess of Cornwall, tried out a 80lb long bow at the Mary Rose Museum, exclaiming, "I don’t want to put my shoulder out."
Charles and Camilla posed for photos with some of the 19,000 artifacts on display at the museum, and the duchess even took home a cuddly toy of the ship’s dog Hatch and colouring books for her grandchildren.
The couple continued their maritime duties by making a visit to helicopter carrier HMS Illustrious in the dockyard and Charles also flew out to climb aboard HMS Dragon, the fourth of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 destroyers.
Prince Charles reminisces about diving down to Mary Rose wreck
