Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom
Monday, November 08, 2004
Shipwreck hunter touches history on land and sea
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San Francisco Chronicle
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
James Delgado's favorite time is in the past, and his two favorite places are under the ocean, where dead ships still live, and under San Francisco streets, where Gold Rush ships lie buried.
"The greatest museum of all is at the bottom of the sea,'' he says. Delgado is both a television personality on the cable television show "The Sea Hunters" and the director of Canada's Vancouver Maritime Museum. Delgado, who shares billing on the television program with Clive Cussler, the writer, says the show is seen by 42 million people around the world.
The show allows him to indulge in the passion of his life, which is diving on shipwrecks, exploring the past, and, he says, looking into the lives of the mariners who sailed the lost ships. "The past lives for me,'' he says, and when he dives on a wreck, time stops for him. "I see it frozen, motionless. ''
Delgado will be in San Francisco today for a 6 p.m. lecture at the Maritime Museum at Aquatic Park about the ships buried under San Francisco. He will also be signing his new book, "Adventures of a Sea Hunter.'' The lecture is free, but the book costs $25.
The ships buried under San Francisco have fascinated him for years. A chapter in his book is on the ships buried under the city, and he is doing his Ph.D. dissertation on them.
At the time of the Gold Rush in 1849, the salt waters of the bay reached as far as Montgomery Street in San Francisco's Financial District. The bay was full of ships abandoned by their crews who went off to search for gold. Many of the hulks were turned into stores and hotels. One old ship was even used as the city jail.
Some of the ships were burned in the huge fires that destroyed much of early San Francisco, others just fell apart, and most of them were simply buried as the bay was filled in and the city was built up around the old Yerba Buena Cove. Delgado thinks there are 75 ships buried under the city, but only a third have been identified.
Delgado, 47, was a newly minted National Park Service employee in 1978 when he was assigned to work on the remains of the store ship Niantic, destroyed by fire and buried where it lay under the Financial District.
He also worked on the wreckage of the sailing vessel King Philip, wrecked at San Francisco's Ocean Beach in 1878 and uncovered by winter storms in 1984.
Three years ago, he joined in exploring the wreckage of the 126-foot-long sailing vessel General Harrison, which was burned and buried in 1851 at what is now Clay and Battery streets. The ship's hull was discovered during construction of a hotel, but the dig got scant attention, since the major work was done just prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and news about the old ship was eclipsed by a modern tragedy.
Delgado's real love is undersea diving -- he has explored the wreckage of the Titanic, the ironclad Monitor at Hampton Roads, Va., the battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and dozens of others. The oldest wreck was a ship of the fleet sent by Kublai Khan to subdue Japan in 1281. The ships were lost when a storm came up and saved Japan. Afterward, the miraculous storm was called the kamikaze, or divine wind.
The most frightening dive, he said, was in 1990 at Bikini Atoll, on the Japanese battleship Nagato, sunk during atomic bomb tests in 1946. Delgado found himself in the dark, in 180 feet of water, touching the massive guns of a dead warship. No one had been there for years. Diving like this, Delgado says, "is like touching history.''
Delgado is one of those rare people who always knew what he wanted to do. "The bug bit me when I was 8 or 9, in elementary school in San Jose,'' he says.
He began hearing about exploring the tombs of ancient Egypt, places full of dead pharaohs, high priests, gods and mysterious hieroglyphics. By the time he was a teenager, he was hooked.
His parents couldn't afford to go to Egypt, and letting the boy go on his own was out of the question.
But at age 14, he tagged along on a construction job near Bernal Road and Highway 101 in San Jose. The bulldozers had discovered an Indian burial ground, and Delgado, a fledgling archaeologist, was able to recover the remains of people who lived 2,500 years ago.
He recalls one set of remains: an old woman who had been buried with some sewing tools and a single strand necklace. "I didn't know who she was. I didn't know her name, but she was someone someone else cared about. It was an echo from the past.''
Later, the boy contacted faculty members at San Jose State and the remains were buried with an Ohlone ceremony at the Oak Hill cemetery in San Jose. The occasion, Delgado says, "was very powerful.'' It made him realize something that is one of his themes: The past is never very far away from the present.
"It opened a door that I never knew would open,'' he said. "I suddenly saw that the area I lived in had a history dating back thousands of years.''
San Francisco Chronicle
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
James Delgado's favorite time is in the past, and his two favorite places are under the ocean, where dead ships still live, and under San Francisco streets, where Gold Rush ships lie buried.
"The greatest museum of all is at the bottom of the sea,'' he says. Delgado is both a television personality on the cable television show "The Sea Hunters" and the director of Canada's Vancouver Maritime Museum. Delgado, who shares billing on the television program with Clive Cussler, the writer, says the show is seen by 42 million people around the world.
The show allows him to indulge in the passion of his life, which is diving on shipwrecks, exploring the past, and, he says, looking into the lives of the mariners who sailed the lost ships. "The past lives for me,'' he says, and when he dives on a wreck, time stops for him. "I see it frozen, motionless. ''
Delgado will be in San Francisco today for a 6 p.m. lecture at the Maritime Museum at Aquatic Park about the ships buried under San Francisco. He will also be signing his new book, "Adventures of a Sea Hunter.'' The lecture is free, but the book costs $25.
The ships buried under San Francisco have fascinated him for years. A chapter in his book is on the ships buried under the city, and he is doing his Ph.D. dissertation on them.
At the time of the Gold Rush in 1849, the salt waters of the bay reached as far as Montgomery Street in San Francisco's Financial District. The bay was full of ships abandoned by their crews who went off to search for gold. Many of the hulks were turned into stores and hotels. One old ship was even used as the city jail.
Some of the ships were burned in the huge fires that destroyed much of early San Francisco, others just fell apart, and most of them were simply buried as the bay was filled in and the city was built up around the old Yerba Buena Cove. Delgado thinks there are 75 ships buried under the city, but only a third have been identified.
Delgado, 47, was a newly minted National Park Service employee in 1978 when he was assigned to work on the remains of the store ship Niantic, destroyed by fire and buried where it lay under the Financial District.
He also worked on the wreckage of the sailing vessel King Philip, wrecked at San Francisco's Ocean Beach in 1878 and uncovered by winter storms in 1984.
Three years ago, he joined in exploring the wreckage of the 126-foot-long sailing vessel General Harrison, which was burned and buried in 1851 at what is now Clay and Battery streets. The ship's hull was discovered during construction of a hotel, but the dig got scant attention, since the major work was done just prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and news about the old ship was eclipsed by a modern tragedy.
Delgado's real love is undersea diving -- he has explored the wreckage of the Titanic, the ironclad Monitor at Hampton Roads, Va., the battleship Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and dozens of others. The oldest wreck was a ship of the fleet sent by Kublai Khan to subdue Japan in 1281. The ships were lost when a storm came up and saved Japan. Afterward, the miraculous storm was called the kamikaze, or divine wind.
The most frightening dive, he said, was in 1990 at Bikini Atoll, on the Japanese battleship Nagato, sunk during atomic bomb tests in 1946. Delgado found himself in the dark, in 180 feet of water, touching the massive guns of a dead warship. No one had been there for years. Diving like this, Delgado says, "is like touching history.''
Delgado is one of those rare people who always knew what he wanted to do. "The bug bit me when I was 8 or 9, in elementary school in San Jose,'' he says.
He began hearing about exploring the tombs of ancient Egypt, places full of dead pharaohs, high priests, gods and mysterious hieroglyphics. By the time he was a teenager, he was hooked.
His parents couldn't afford to go to Egypt, and letting the boy go on his own was out of the question.
But at age 14, he tagged along on a construction job near Bernal Road and Highway 101 in San Jose. The bulldozers had discovered an Indian burial ground, and Delgado, a fledgling archaeologist, was able to recover the remains of people who lived 2,500 years ago.
He recalls one set of remains: an old woman who had been buried with some sewing tools and a single strand necklace. "I didn't know who she was. I didn't know her name, but she was someone someone else cared about. It was an echo from the past.''
Later, the boy contacted faculty members at San Jose State and the remains were buried with an Ohlone ceremony at the Oak Hill cemetery in San Jose. The occasion, Delgado says, "was very powerful.'' It made him realize something that is one of his themes: The past is never very far away from the present.
"It opened a door that I never knew would open,'' he said. "I suddenly saw that the area I lived in had a history dating back thousands of years.''
