DATELINE :- 8th April 2000

INVESTORS LOSE

Zanzibar dive dream ends
Divers and other shareholders who invested a total of £385,000 in Seaquest Explorers (Africa) Ltd will not see a penny from the sale of the company's only significant asset, the RV Seaking, writes Tony Sutton. The 50m ship, which was to have provided upmarket diving holidays off Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean, has been sold for £175,000 to Vesuvius Shipping by the company's administrator, BKL of Southampton. BKL had set out to rescue the company but had been unable to secure work for it. "Creditors' debts were £348,000,"said Nigel Fox, BKL's senior manager, "but only secured creditors have been paid." They were Penzance Dry Dock (£76,500), Penwith District Council, the bank and BKL, whose fees are believed to have been in excess of £60,000. Seaquest Explorers' founder John Elliss, who runs the Seaquest dive shop and boat charter business in Penryn, near Falmouth, said he did not know what had happened to Seaquest Explorers (Africa). "I've had nothing to do with the company since 4 January, when I ceased being a director," he declared.

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