Stefan Panis

Stefan started diving at the age of 6 through his father. In 1992 he did his first “official” course in the Nelos dive club “Amphora”. Since than he moved on doing courses like nitrox and trimix, and he started diving an Inspiration rebreather in 2009, and Started photographing in 2013. Meanwhile he developed a great interest in wrecks and researching the history of the wrecks in the archives. He spent many dives on wrecks in the North sea (This year he was there when a virgin VOC ship from 1735 was found, and they are pushing to get a TV documentary done in 2023), the English channel, where he is part of the expedition-team, and abroad in Sardinia, Portugal and Cuba just to name a few. He was involved in different successfull expeditions searching for new wrecks, like the identification of the 1852 “Josephine Willis”. 
In 2014 he also obtained his full cave ccr certificate. Since then, Stefan has participated in many cave dives as in Sardinia, France and Spain, and he became a “specialist” in researching Belgian mine sites with the team he founded: “Mine Exploration team” and he is photo-documenting them often with breathtaking pictures! 
  
In 2020 Stefan was awarded the membership of the renowned New York “Explorers Club”. 
  
Meanwhile Stefan has written more than 50 articles for international magazines: 
  
- DUIKEN magazine (NL) : Permanent writer, monthly article 
- Wetnotes magazine (DE) : Permanent writer, article nearly every issue 
- Diver magazine (UK) : Frequent writer 
- Diver 24 (PL) : Permanent writer, article every issue (including covershot) 
- Neptune magazine (RU) : Frequent writer 
- Magazine Plongez (FR): Frequent writer 
- Duikersgids (BENELUX): Permanent photographer (including covershot)   
  
And Stefan has co-written 4 books: 

• Duiken naar goud en kunstschatten (NL + ENG) 
  - Duiken naar het onbekende 
  - Duiken naar oorlogswrakken 
    
  The first book of a new serie is now published:

- Shipwrecks of the Dover Straits

Title of the presentation: 10 years of exploring shipwrecks in the Dover Straits.

Since 10 years I’m involved in intense research and exploration of shipwrecks in the Dover Straits, UK. Through the years we have made some amazing discoveries and still we find new thrilling wrecks every season. Meanwhile I wrote a book on the topic and in this presentation I want to show the past, present and future of our explorations with some new images that have never been published and some new stories.