Steve Clowes, 57, was diving with friends on a shipwreck 15 miles off Portland Bill, Dorset, when he disappeared as he was ascending and his body has never been found
A last photo of a scuba diver entering the water before he mysteriously disappeared off the south coast of England has been shared by his wife.
Steve Clowes, 57, was diving with friends on a shipwreck 15 miles off Portland Bill, Dorset, on May 25 last year when he suddenly vanished. The moment he stepped off the boat and plunged into the sea for his final tragic dive was caught on camera. At the time Mr Clowes, a qualified diving instructor with 25 years’ experience, had been wearing his late father’s Rolex Submariner watch he had hoped to pass on to his own son one day.
Mr Clowes was last seen 15 metres from the surface as he made a controlled ascent back up at the end of the routine dive. A large scale air and sea search was launched but sadly Mr Clowes was not found. The operation was called off the following day.
Fellow divers from the close-knit community carried out their own search of the wreck site but could not find him. As the anniversary of his disappearance approaches his wife Vivien said she will be ‘forever searching’ for her husband of 35 years.
Mrs Clowes, 57, said: “Steve was my rock, he was the one person that was always there for me. Despite extensive search efforts, his body has never been recovered. A year later I’m still searching. I still check the news every day, searching for diving incidents in Dorset, hoping someone might find Steve.
“I like to think he is safe on an island somewhere, sipping a coconut. But I know he is not with us anymore and I know if anything was found it would be a body. Part of me is desperate for him to be found so I can hold his ashes, but not having him home means I can pretend he’s just stuck somewhere.”
She added that finding his body would not only bring closure to her but also mean the return of a sentimental family heirloom. The couple met when they were teenagers and went on to have five children together – Beth, Becka, Kayla, Jack and Will.
Mr Clowes, from Sheffield, was an electrical engineer but had a passion for diving and had trained as a TecRec technical instructor and PADI Master Instructor. He was very outdoorsy and loved hiking, camping, rugby and spending time with his family and was also a scout leader.
Mrs Clowes also wants to highlight how stressful is the bureaucratic process loved ones have to go through when there is no body to prove someone is dead.
At the same time as dealing with the emotional trauma of losing her husband, she had to battle to get a presumption of death certificate from the High Court. Without it Mr Clowes’ life insurance would not pay out and she would have lost their house.
Mrs Clowes said the process is long, costly and draining. She said: “You have to submit an application to the High Court, place public notices in the paper, often people need to hire legal representation, that can cost about £7,000.
“I was lucky I had a friend with a legal background to help me, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. But the public notice costs about £1,000 and you have travel costs to the High Court.
“All this at a time when you’re grieving and barely functioning, the mental strain of it, it’s a horrendous process. I raised the issue with my MP, hoping to spark reform but the response she got from government was just that’s the process, it’s the law.”
Mrs Clowes added: “I hope to honour Steve’s memory by sharing his story, keeping the possibility open that someone might come forward with information, or that future searches might be feasible with the right equipment. And to shine a light on the quiet, often invisible grief of families who lose loved ones at sea.”