Pandora's box (which was really a large jar) is part of Greek mythology. Today it is an idiom meaning "Any source of great and unexpected troubles", or, alternatively, "A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse". "To open a can of worms" would be an even more colloquial equivalent.
Ben Cropp had certainly gone to great and fully expected troubles to locate the wreck of HMS Pandora which on the 28th of August 1791 hit a reef, keeled over and sank on what is now known as Pandora Reef, 120 km east of Cape York. Of course, as we all know, HMS Pandora has since become synonymous with the latter-day Pandora's Box which held fourteen of the Bounty prisoners. For the full story, click here.
For the full story of how in 1977 Ben Cropp discovered HMS Pandora, and the many subsequent dives on the wreck by him and Hubert Hofer, you may have to travel to Cooktown where Hubert lives now and were both recently met up to take another dive into their past memories.
Of course, Ben Cropp is the Australian documentary filmmaker who is already famous enough to warrant his own Wikipedia page. As for his many documentaries, simply do a search on Youtube - click here.
Hubert Hofer has been working on his 15 minutes of fame ever since he became part of the "Merauke Five". What makes them both interesting to me is that Hubert spent half a lifetime working on Thursday Island where I worked for a very "character-forming" year in 1977, and that Ben was born on Buka Island in New Guinea which I never visited but for whose Mr Meyer on Kessa Plantation I did the books when working for a firm of chartered accountants in Rabaul. It's a small world indeed!
