Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

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The Miami Herald
By Susan Cocking
June 26, 2005

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary researchers and state underwater archaeologists are investigating a maritime mystery in the shallow waters of Hawk's Channel near Marathon.

Lying in about 20 feet of water less than two miles offshore are the scenic remains of an ancient shipwreck whose name, origin and destination are unknown.

The wreck doesn't look much like a ship anymore. It consists of a coral-covered pile of ballast stones undercut to reveal some thick ship's timbers. The site is frequented by Goliath grouper, angelfish, lobsters and the occasional nurse shark. Local divers and fishermen have been visiting it for years, and some salvage work was conducted under state contract in 1972, which yielded artifacts such as potsherds, fire bricks, lead shot and hull fasteners. But nothing has turned up so far to positively identify it.

Stephen Beckwith, Upper Keys regional manager for the sanctuary; state underwater archaeologist Roger Smith; NOAA archaeologist Bruce Terrell; and their colleagues have spent the past week mapping the site and documenting it with still photographs and video footage.

Smith said he believes the ship is Spanish and that it ran aground sometime before the 1820s -- due to a number of earthenware olive jars already recovered that the Spanish were known to use for storage containers. If there ever was any treasure aboard, Smith said, it is long gone.

''I think the ship struck this coral mountain, and it may have been with other ships and couldn't get off and was salvaged,'' Smith said. "That was a pretty common thing. The Spanish had pretty good salvage crews.''

Since large mountainous star corals cover the site, researchers have taken a core sample from one of the coral heads to help narrow down the age of the shipwreck. Those results are not complete yet.

After the scientists' work is done, Beckwith said the sanctuary may install a mooring buoy and publish an interpretive guide to the site so that divers and snorkelers can understand and appreciate the natural and cultural resources.

''I think people can come out and appreciate it,'' Beckwith said. "It's for beginning divers, and snorkelers can enjoy it.''

Added Smith: "I'm amazed at how well preserved this shipwreck is, compared to some of the other sites we've seen in the Keys. Everybody wants to know what its name is, how big it was, when it went down. A lot of these, you can't put a name to.''


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Australian Herald
June 27, 2005

ALMOST 200 shipwrecks in South Australian waters will be protected under new laws.

Environment and Conservation Minister John Hill said today only 44 shipwrecks were presently protected from being damaged, plundered or even destroyed.

He said that protection would now be extended to another 145.

The Government has moved to declare all wrecks as being of historic value, and therefore protected, once they become 75 years old.

Previously shipwrecks were assessed on a case by case basis to determine if they had historical significance.

Mr Hill said South Australia had a rich maritime history and a coastline that evoked stories of tragedy, hardship and disaster, with ships foundering on reefs and rocks or lashed by storms.

"These ships were often bringing new settlers or important cargo and supplies to our fledgling colony," he said.
"These shipwrecks mark a very significant time in the development of our state.

"It is so important that we retain these wrecks in their watery graveyards and stop plunderers from stealing our history."

Among the wrecks to be protected under the changes are the Charles Carter, a wooden brig which sank on Troubridge Shoal in the Gulf St Vincent in 1854, and the Apollo, an iron barque, which sank near Whyalla, in the Spencer Gulf in 1889.


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Correio da Manhã
June 28, 2005

Os vestígios de um galeão afundado há 300 anos e de um bombardeiro da II Guerra Mundial são as duas ‘jóias’ subaquáticas que os amantes do mergulho podem descobrir ao largo de Faro, no Algarve, a troco de 50 euros.

Estes ‘mergulhos’ são organizados pela Hidroespaço, uma das poucas entidades privadas que, a nível nacional, explora circuitos arqueólogicos subaquáticos, através de um protocolo formado com o Centro Nacional de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (CNANS).

As visitas, possíveis desde Agosto de 2003, ao que resta do avião e do navio – descoberto por acaso há oito anos por dois mergulhadores em lazer – são as mais procuradas da panóplia de locais para onde aquele centro de mergulho organiza saídas.

Os destroços do avião mantêm-se relativamente intactos. No entanto, o mesmo não se pode dizer do navio, do qual ainda só foi descoberto o que se julga ser a carga – peças de artilharia, canhões e ferro.

Os vestígios encontram-se em frente à Barrinha (extremo Oeste da Praia de Faro), a uma milha da costa – cerca de dois quilómetros –, mas a estrutura do galeão em si ainda está por descobrir.

GUIA CERTIFICADO
De acordo com Fátima Noronha, sócia da Hidroespaço, o navio faria parte de uma frota de 400 embarcações inglesas e holandesas atacadas por espanhóis no Cabo de São Vicente.

“Supõe-se que os destroços do navio estejam enterrados na areia mas o Governo diz que não há dinheiro para mais campanhas arqueológicas”, lamentou-se a bióloga marinha.

O avião – um B-24 com 36 metros de envergadura e quatro motores – caiu no mar a 30 de Novembro de 1942, em plena II Guerra Mundial. Seis dos seus onze tripulantes acabariam por ser salvos por três pescadores algarvios, um dos quais ainda está vivo.

Os destroços encontram-se em frente à Praia de Faro, a uma milha e meia da costa. As asas e os motores ainda estão relativamente intactos – falta apenas a carlinga –, e já foram encontradas partes da cauda, hélices, peças de metralhadoras, balas.

“Estamos a tentar fazer um pouco de arqueólogos e a fazer buscas para encontrar mais peças, para depois ligá-las todas e fazer um roteiro. Mas está tudo muito disperso”, declarou Fátima Noronha.

Mas nem toda a gente está apta a ‘mergulhar’ nas profundezas da História, principalmente na zona onde está o navio, a cerca de 30 metros de profundidade, cujo mergulho é orientado por um guia certificado.


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GMA
By Gil Francis Arevalo
June 27, 2005


THESE centuries-old Spanish gold and silver coins are
among the treasures found in the sunken galleon off Rapu-Rapu
Island in Albay. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER SOUTHERN
LUZON BUREAU.

LEGAZPI CITY-Museum officials here found out too late that fishermen on Rapu-Rapu Island had discovered late last year a sunken Spanish galleon that contained gold and silver coins, jars and other valuable treasures.

More than a thousand 17th- and 18th-century Spanish coins were recovered from the wreckage but only fewer than 20 pieces could be left because the fishermen had quietly sold the items to treasure hunters and collectors, Legazpi Museum curator Erlinda Belleza said, citing a report by two residents of Barangay Viga in Rapu-Rapu.

Rapu-Rapu is about two hours by motorboat from this city. However, it would take another one-and-a-half hours to reach Viga.

The business was so brisk and profitable that fisherfolk in Barangay Viga and neighboring villages temporarily stopped fishing.

Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino businessmen and collectors coming from Manila had frequented the village to buy as many coins and other items as possible, the two whistle-blowers said. The price of each coin ranged from P6,000 to P10,000.

Belleza said she had asked the National Museum, through Assistant Director Cecillio Salcedo, to send coin experts and divers to Rapu-Rapu to look for the remaining treasure and other sunken galleons in the area.

She said that as early as November last year, she had heard stories about the treasure found off the island but could not find people who could confirm them.

Risky
Nilo Asuncion, 29, of Viga, and his cousin, Charles Asuncion, 36, who now lives in Barangay Rawis in Legazpi, disclosed that some of those who bought and hid the coins wanted to sell them to the Legazpi Museum so they could make more money. But they were reluctant to do so for fear of being penalized or imprisoned.

"This is the very reason why it took us quite some time before we revealed this and why we consulted Mrs. Belleza instead of the authorities in Rapu-Rapu, the police or the military," Nilo said.

He said there were several instances since late last year when local government officials and policemen collected coins and tolerated risky underwater treasure-hunting so divers could find more items.

Out of curiosity, Charles said he bought four gold and five silver coins, which he believed were the only ones left of the old Spanish coins recovered from the sunken galleon.

He said he bought the coins for P5,500 each.

"I was just interested to see for myself, so I asked one fisherman to show me a sample. At first, he was reluctant to show it unless I would really buy it. So I bought it and the others. But from the time I showed them to Mrs. Belleza, I became aware of the coins' importance and decided not to sell them to a certain Japanese collector," Charles told the Inquirer.

Isabel 2
The four gold coins were dated 1862, 1863 (two pieces) and 1868, while the five silver coins were dated 1792, 1801, 1867, 1882 and 1887.

Belleza noted that the name of Carolus III de Gratia was inscribed on the 1792 coin; Carolus IV de Gratia on the 1801 coin; Isabel 2 and Porlag de Dios Y La Const Reina on each of the 1863 coins; Alfonso X Porlag de Dios on 1868, and Alfonso XII Porlag de Dios on 1882.

"Most of the remaining Spanish coins that Charles has bought have determinant value upon considering its physical condition of being discernible and exceptionally fine, for only two of the silver coins have slightly worn features--the 1801 and the 1887," Belleza said.

Numismatists collect coins not just because of their historical importance but because of their investment value. A coin's value usually increases with time. But most of all, rarity is the foremost determinant in grading coins.

An official of Barangay Viga, who also has a house in Barangay Victory Village in the port area of Legazpi, confirmed the stories about the sunken treasures quietly gathered by the fishermen. Due to his position in the village, he requested not to be named.

Blast fishers
Both Nilo and Charles witnessed how frenzied the local fishermen in their barangay had become, to the point that most of them stopped fishing for months because of the huge amount of money they got from gathering and selling coins.

Nilo recounted that a group of blast fishers in their barangay accidentally discovered late last year that they had blown up jars containing gold and silver coins.

He said some of the fishermen swam underwater and were surprised to find other items such as antique cups, forks, tablespoons, worn-out garments and metal scraps from the sunken ship.

A buyer of scrap, Charles never thought that what he had bought was a part of the sunken vessel. He bought the piece for only P60 per kilo.

"I often came back to my hometown to buy metal scraps. No one told me that it came from a sunken vessel until my Taiwanese buyer told me that this was not an ordinary metal because of its durability. Compared with the metals today, it is not welded and is made of pure bronze and copper metals," Charles said.

Sanctuary
Historians and anthropologists, both here and abroad, have considered Rapu-Rapu Island a sanctuary for galleons, based on historical documents provided by the Legazpi Museum.

Due to strong waves from the Pacific Ocean, many Spanish galleons coming from Sorsogon found Rapu-Rapu a safe haven for their voyage to other parts of Albay. But some of them reportedly sank off the coast of Rapu-Rapu.

"So, most likely, there are still many treasures left. That's why we are asking for the expertise of the National Museum on this matter before it's too late," Belleza said.

In the 18th century, the Spaniards frequented Rapu-Rapu to prepare for an all-out war against Moro pirates. This went on until 1819.

Belleza said Rapu-Rapu was believed to be the springboard for the Moros who raided big towns in Bicol.


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Jackdonville
By Dan Scanlan
June 26, 2005


Six American divers, including three from the First Coast,
are researching the wrecked CSS Alabama this summer.

French Navy will help team bring up the Confederate raider's aft pivot gun.
Six American divers, including three from the First Coast, are back out in the English Channel this summer researching the wreck of the Confederacy's most feared commerce raider, the CSS Alabama.

Marine archaeologist John W. Morris III of St. Augustine is the field director of the French-American team diving on the wreck 200 feet below the tossing waves of the English Channel. Morris is the executive director of the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program that found the 1764 shipwreck of the British ship Industry off St. Augustine in the late 1990s. He is joined by Curtis Deyo from St. Augustine and Rick Frascello from Ponte Vedra Beach.The Confederate ship was sunk 6 miles off France during a cannon battle with the USS Kearsage on June 19, 1864. Morris has been part of the team diving on the Confederate ship each summer since 1992.


Marine archaeologist John W. Morris III (left) of St. Augustine
and project director Gordon Watts (right) talk with vessel captain
Mike Lavender as they prepare to dive on the CSS Alabama.

The latest round of investigation ended last week, as divers excavated the aft pivot gun, the largest piece of weaponry on board. The forward pivot rifle was recovered in 1994, and cannons were brought to the surface in 2001 and 2002. The divers also recovered a bronze piece of a block and tackle used to secure the aft gun, while two pieces of British tableware have also been recovered.

"Both examples have a naval motif with cable around the rim and anchors inside a garter," Morris said in an e-mail. The divers will try to bring up the aft pivot gun in the next few weeks with help from the French Navy.

Morris and his team conducted its first underwater archaeological survey of St. Augustine's waters in 1996, then salvaged a cannon and other artifacts from the British ship Industry. Morris' team also researched 142 more potential archaeological sites in the waters off and in St. Johns County, including the remains of a colonial wharf site in Guana River State Park.


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June 28, 2006

Odyssey Marine Exploration reports that its Atlas search area has identified approximately 275 targets in less than two months. The shipwreck recovery firm said it has inspected 127 of those targets with Zeus, its remote-operated vehicle.

A new side-scan sonar system allows Odyssey Marine to map the seafloor twice as fast as previous searches. The deep-water, remote-operated vehicle on a second ship to visually inspect targets will result in a more efficient and productive search process, the company said.

At the same time, Odyssey Marine is continuing talks with Spain regarding the Sussex shipwreck project in the western Mediterranean.

The weather window for the Atlas project typically ends in the fall, while work can continue on the Sussex project year-round. The RV Odyssey remains in the western Mediterranean available to do preliminary work on the Sussex site.

"There's no question we'll return to the Sussex excavation in the western Mediterranean, but for now, considering the opportunities currently available to us and the small weather window in which we have to work, we're focused on locating and identifying objects in the Atlas area," said Greg Stemm, co-founder, in a release.

Tampa-based Odyssey Marine (AMEX:OMR) has several shipwreck recovery projects in various stages of development.


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The State
June 25, 2005

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Researchers wonder if the Confederate submarine Hunley gave the world another first - the first vessel to use battery-powered weapons.

Those examining the sub say several items, like a rectangular copper plate and coils of wire, suggest the crew might have had a battery-powered torpedo when it sunk the Housatonic during the Civil War.

"It's the kind of thing if I were trying to build a battery in the 1860s that I would have used," said Mike Drews, a material science professor at Clemson University. "Having a piece of copper sheeting by itself isn't that strange, but this piece doesn't look like what you'd expect."

The rectangular plate had holes drilled in it. Scientists found trace amounts of zinc.

The evidence is far from definitive, but it raises hopes.

"It is not enough to say there was an electrical system on the Hunley, but we cannot rule it out," said Paul Mardikian, the sub's senior conservator.

Clemson researchers are going to analyze the plate, starting next week. But already, those working on the Hunley think the sub experimented with battery technology.

The copper and zinc plate was discovered in the captain's compartment - commander George Dixon was in charge of the torpedo - and found close by a coil of wire and a second strand of wire that may have been used a trigger.

At the time the Hunley was launched, leaders on both sides of the Civil War were experimenting with electronics.

Confederates allegedly sank the USS Cairo with the first electric mine, which was attached by wire to the shore.
The Union Navy's submarine, the Alligator, was meant to take divers underwater to plant electrically detonated charges beneath enemy ships, but it was lost before it ever saw action.

In August 1864, more than six months after the Hunley sank the Housatonic off Sullivan's Island on Feb. 17, Confederates used electric torpedoes to sink a Union ship in the James River.

Scientists had thought the Hunley's torpedo was triggered by a rope lanyard. They've speculated that friction or something else then detonated the 90-pound charge of gunpowder.

And that's still possible since other research has shown the Hunley came prepared with alternative methods of getting the job done.

"We had two pumps and deadlights reinforcing the glass ports along the top of the submarine," said Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the Hunley Commission. "If the torpedo could also have been electrically detonated, this would be right in line with the Hunley to have fail-safe measures in place for all her critical functions. This would be a cutting-edge upgrade to an already state-of-the-art firing system."

Still, some think the wire could have been used as the lanyard trigger since wire would be less likely to tangle and would be hard to be seen by the enemy.

Drews says several parts of any onboard battery, like zinc plates, would have disintegrated over time, along with paper or cloth separating the plates. If traces of such items are there, Clemson's research would find them.


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The Scotsman
By Sarah Bruce
June 27, 2005

POLICE have warned people not to endanger their lives treasure-hunting after ancient coins and gold were found off the Scottish coast.

Four divers from Glasgow made the discovery earlier this month while exploring two wooden wrecks.

They took ashore samples of gold and coins they had found on the floor of a cave in a sea cliff, believed to be in the Cullykhan bay area, near the Local Hero village of Pennan.

Among the sample of goodies they took ashore were bottles of irregularly shaped granules of 23-carat gold and a box of coins.

A spokesman for Grampian Police said: "Given the dangers of reaching some parts of that coastline from land and sea, we'd advise people not to rush out there."

The bronze coins are badly corroded, but some have markings of an emperor-like figure and a Saltire.


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Palatka Daily News
By Al Krombach
June 25, 2005


The USS Columbine.

When Bill Rivers discovered in 2003 that the wreck of the Civil War-era USS Columbine wasn't where Florida records said it was, he thought state officials would be grateful for the information.

Instead, the Keystone Heights diver spent a year and a half trying to convince the folks in Tallahassee that their historical documentation, called the Master Site File, was wrong and he was right.

The hulk of the Columbine, Rivers maintained, rests nearly a mile farther south along the St. Johns River than many would have us believe.

Earlier this month, Rivers said, the state finally came around. An official of the Department of State wrote to say they had accepted his findings and would change the Master Site File to reflect it.

"We didn't do this for ourselves," Rivers said. "We just took it upon ourselves to discover what the facts were. I believe we have done that."

The Columbine was a steam-powered, sidewheeler tugboat that the Union Navy converted for use as a gunboat. She and other craft patrolled the St. Johns River during the Civil War to interdict Confederate efforts to ship cattle and other supplies northward.

Union forces controlled most of the state east of the St. Johns. Palatka was more or less under bluecoat control, but Confederate cavalry led by the legendary J.J. Dickison prowled the western riverbank at will.

On May 23, 1864, Dickison laid an ambush for the Columbine. As the northbound steamer rounded a bend near Horse Landing, the Confederate sharpshooters and artillery opened fire. The Columbine ran aground and was soon captured by Dickison's cavalry, one of the few instances where a Navy craft was destroyed by land-based forces during the war.

Dickison's troops killed many of the boat's occupants and took prisoners, including surviving members of the boat's crew and soldiers of the 35th United States Colored Troops who had been aboard. The Confederates then burned the boat to the waterline along with the corpses of her dead, returning later to salvage her guns and other heavy equipment. What was left faded into Putnam County history.

While researching that history, Rivers came across reports of the boat's sinking and decided to check it out. With a magnetometer, a device that detects the presence of large masses underwater, he checked the St. Johns in the area where state records put the Columbine: adjacent to Rodeheaver Boys' Ranch and Horse Landing. He found nothing.

Rivers went back to the books. He discovered an 1864 chart that put Horse Landing on the east bank of the river and some distance south of its present west bank location. Taking that into account and studying a description of the battle written by Columbine's skipper, he came up with a probable location for the boat. He returned to the river to check it out.

"The magnetometer went off the scale," he said.

Rivers dove at the probable site of the wreck and discovered a tangle of planks and steel cable in the clouded water. Most of the remains, he says, are probably beneath layers of silt, and it's unlawful to disturb anything under that.

Rivers brought back a few artifacts from the surface including wood planks, iron rivets and a pane of glass.

"From the construction techniques, we can tell that the remains are definitely those of a boat of the mid-1800s," he said. "The historical record and the location tell us it's the Columbine."

When he determined to his satisfaction that the wreckage was the Columbine, Rivers said, he ended his exploration of the site.

"The boat is still the property of the U.S. Navy, so it's off-limits to everyone," he said.

Late in 2003, Rivers contacted the state's underwater archaeologist, Dr. Roger Smith, to tell him of his findings and to point out the contradictions in the state's records.

"He told me he had checked out the Rodeheaver site himself in 1995 and had found nothing there," Rivers said. He said he would return to examine the new site himself."

Rivers also questioned information in the Master Site File that stated the Columbine may have been salvaged later, damaged during construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal or during dredging of the channel.

The Master Site File also states "The remains … were rediscovered and identified by sport divers in 1971. Sport divers subsequently removed many artifacts. The site was severely impacted and few of the artifacts removed illegally are now in public museum collections. Most have long since disintegrated due to lack of conservation."

When Rivers asked Smith to verify that information, Smith referred him to a single article in a scuba diver magazine written years after the supposed 1971 discovery.

"When I asked him what, if any, artifacts are in museum collections and how he knew that ‘most have long since disintegrated' he did not have an answer," Rivers said.

Rivers said his relationship with Smith deteriorated and communication ceased. To his knowledge, he says, Smith has not returned to examine the wreckage site.

Earlier this year, Rivers went higher up the Tallahassee pecking order. Contacting the Department of State, he soon generated some action.

JuDee Pettijohn, Deputy Secretary of State for Cultural and Historical Programs, wrote Rivers to say that she had passed Rivers' information on to the Historical Resources Division, the Master Site File coordinator and the chief of the Bureau of Archaeological Research.

The Master Site File was updated to include Rivers' research.

"Location data for the USS Columbine matches the information which you sent in," Pettijohn wrote. "We appreciate your providing this to us and your concern for the accuracy of our information."

Since the boat still belongs to the Navy, Pettijohn said, it would take a formal request from the Naval Historical Center for state archaeologists to examine the site.

"A local historical or archaeological nonprofit organization could apply for state historic preservation grant assistance to conduct an archaeological survey of the portion of the St. Johns River where the USS Columbine is located," Pettijohn wrote.

Rivers said his efforts to legitimize the Columbine's final resting place are drawing to a close.

"I would still like to see two things done there," he said. "A state historic marker should be placed at or near the site to identify it. The marker at the boys' ranch is not an official state marker, and wrongly identifies the wreck site.

"I understand that the land adjacent to the Columbine site is part of the Caravelle Wildlife Management Area under the jurisdiction of the St. Johns River Water Management District. And it's mostly swamp, so public access could be a problem, but maybe it could be approached by boat.

"And judging from the historical record, the remains of as many as 10 soldiers and sailors could still be with the Columbine. The Navy should determine whether it is a military gravesite and, if so, should identify it as such."


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Winston-Salem Journal
By David Rolfe
June 24, 2005

Museum's relics give poignant testimony to the history of N.C.'s treacherous shoals
HATTERAS - At the end of the road on Hatteras Island stands a building that is slowly filling with the remnants of dashed hopes, broken dreams and tragedy - the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.

The shallow waters off the North Carolina coast, long known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, are littered with the hulks of broken ships. The beaches were once strewn with timbers, cargo and castaways, caught by the trap of hidden shoals and the powerful Gulf Stream just offshore.

The tragic stories of those victims of the sea, the bravery of their rescuers and poignant relics from the proud ships that came to grief off the Outer Banks live again within the walls of the museum, which sits next to the Coast Guard station and the Hatteras Ferry landing.

The design of the 18,000 square-foot museum offers a clue to the treasures behind its doors. The entrance portico is framed by weathered timbers resembling the naked ribs of a shipwreck, topped by a row of flagpoles that look like masts.

Visitors will find a World War II Enigma machine submerged in a transparent tank of greenish water. The machine, a famous encryption device used by Germany, was recovered from a sunken U-boat, the U-85, which sits in 100 feet of water off Cape Hatteras. The U-85 has the doleful distinction of being the first U-boat sunk in U.S. waters during World War II and is a war grave of 46 German sailors.

Relics from the loss of the USS Huron, which wrecked off Nags Head in 1877, rest on maroon fabric in a glass case. They are mundane things - silver tablespoons, brass keys, coins, a leather shoe. Even a lump of coal can raise a lump in the throat when you realize it was on a ship that was pounded to bits one night and that a hundred men met their death in the freezing surf.

Nearby is a wooden model of the Carroll A. Deering, carved by a local barber from a piece of that wreck. The Deering, known today as the Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals, was found stranded on the shoals in 1921 with her sails set and crew missing. Theories abound, but no one really knows what happened on the proud white ship, just three years into what should have been a long career at sea.

The largest relic currently on display is the radio shack used by Gen. Billy Mitchell, the father of the U.S. Air Force. Mitchell came to the Outer Banks in 1923 to prove that aircraft could sink warships. Taking off from an improvised airstrip at Buxton, Mitchell's biplanes bombed two obsolete battleships and sent them to the bottom in less than an hour.

The museum is also home to the lamp assembly from the 1803 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, removed and hidden by Confederates when Union forces overran the area during the Civil War. Lost and scattered for more than a century, the delicate prisms of the Fresnel lamp are still finding their way into the museum.

Other relics of Outer Banks history and lore, mementos of tragedy and heroism, are still coming to the museum from closets, attics and mantels of island homes. Eventually, artifacts from the Union ironclad USS Monitor, lost in a storm off Cape Hatteras and only recently salvaged, will join the exhibit.

IF YOU GO
Getting there: The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is about 370 miles east of Winston-Salem in Hatteras Village.

Hours: The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free until construction is completed. For more information and directions: Call (252) 986-2995 or go to http://www.graveyardoftheatlantic.com/



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Toronto Star
By Kelly Toughill
June 25, 2005

16th century Basque galleon found on harbour bottomArchaeologists say whalers operated a thriving industry
HALIFAX—Decades before Jacques Cartier sailed up the mighty St. Lawrence River, perhaps even before John Cabot landed on the rocky shores of Newfoundland, the lure of big money drew Basque whalers to a tiny harbour on the coast of Labrador.

This summer, a team of government archaeologists will journey to Red Bay to excavate a 16th-century Basque galleon sitting in the chill waters of the Strait of Belle Isle.

The dig is likely to be the largest underwater archaeology project on the continent this summer. It will certainly be one of the most interesting.

The galleon wasn't supposed to be there. The team that will once again descend into the freezing waters off Labrador has been back and forth across that harbour bottom for years, tracing and tracking the remains of a huge economic boom of the 16th century. They have already found three full galleons and five smaller harpoon boats. They have mapped and catalogued hundreds of artefacts.

Red Bay is one of the most studied sites in the country. They thought they knew it all. Then this.

"It was routine monitoring," says Willis Stevens, an archaeologist with Parks Canada who will be leading the team.

"I was collecting whalebone when I came across a site under the water that just blew me away. We had been through that area many times and seen nothing."

The story of Red Bay's founding and rediscovery reads like a mystery novel. Once one of the biggest whaling ports in the world, its role in European commerce was forgotten until 30 years ago. That is when historian Selma Barkham discovered references in Spanish archives to a Basque shipwreck in Labrador. That led to a survey of Red Bay in 1978.

Peter Waddell, an archaeologist now retired from Parks Canada, was on that first survey. What it found changed his life and shaped his career.

"People get excited about treasure ships down south, gold and so forth," he says. "But the dollar value was a great deal more in whaling than in ripping off (indigenous people) for their trinkets and resources."

Oil was nearly as precious in Europe five centuries ago as it around the world today. The biggest difference is where the oil came from. Today, it is crude from deep underground. In the 16th century, it came from the world's largest mammals, whales that roam the deep.

Archaeologists believe that at least 20,000 right and bowhead whales were dragged into Red Bay's processing stations in just 50 years. The precious barrels of boiled blubber were returned to Europe where the oil was used in everything from lamps to soap and manufacturing.

The scale of the operations was huge by 16th-century standards. The galleons were often more than 30 metres long, with three masts and more than 50 crew. The operation was so large that they had permanent buildings and even a cemetery where 140 Basque are buried.

Whaling was just one part of Basque operations in Newfoundland and Labrador. Historians don't agree about when the Basque showed up in North America, but they do agree that they were among the first European settlers.

Basque fishermen were drying salt cod on the shores of the New World long before Cartier officially discovered the Maritimes. In fact, Cartier reported seeing 1,000 Basque fish boats when he reached the western edge of the Atlantic.

Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod, A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, says the Basque were in North America long before Cabot, who officially discovered Newfoundland in 1497. He calls the 15th century trade in cod from North America the "Bristol secret" for the name of the harbour where the Basque liked to trade.

"There is an awful lot of feeling outside academia that the Basque were here before," Waddell says.

Archaeologists have dated the Basque at Red Bay to 1534. The lure of Red Bay's story led to last summer's discovery.
Archaeologists suspect that the prop wash from a cruise ship uncovered the galleon from the mud of the harbour. The cruise ship was stopped in Red Bay to view the historic site.

Stevens, Waddell and the others will have only five weeks to explore the ship. They must bring their gear from Ontario through Nova Scotia, by ferry to Newfoundland, then by ferry to Labrador and up the coast road. They'll work in 10 metres of water that hovers at about 3C, staying down for two hours at a stretch.

They are looking for telltale signs of the period — the way the mast is stepped into the keel, the shape and lines of the ship.

Before they leave, they will rebury the ship under 200 tonnes of sand, cover it with a heavy tarp and weight that down, to make sure neither the pointy end of an iceberg nor the prop of a cruise ship chews through the ancient timbers.


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Leelanau Enterprise
By Eric Carlson
June 23, 2005


The USS Lagarto.

For Nancy Mabin Kenney of Lake Leelanau, Father’s Day this year was the first she can remember with the knowledge of exactly where her father has been for the past six decades.

His remains are in a submarine built on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1944 that was sunk by a Japanese minelayer in the South China Sea in 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

Some 60 years after it went down, the USS Lagarto (SS-731) was located just weeks ago under 220 feet of saltwater in the Gulf of Thailand by a professional diver from Great Britain who recently reported his discovery through the U.S. Naval attache in Bangkok.

Kenney’s biological father, Signalman First Class William T. Mabin, was among the 86 U.S. Navy submariners believed to have perished in the boat during a battle between American and Japanese naval forces on May 3, 1945.

Mabin’s only child, Nancy, was just two years old at the time.

“It’s always been a fact of my life that my father died in the war,” Kenney said. “Unfortunately, I have no direct memory of him. I have often felt sadness at the loss of my father, but have never really mourned him until now – now that I know where he is.” Kenney said that news of the submarine’s discovery last month by civilian divers off the coast of Thailand has taken its toll on her emotionally – and on her mother, 88-year-old Margaret Chambers of Glen Arbor Township.

Kenney said she spent some time with her mother on Father’s Day, going through boxes full of letters her father sent during the war and correspondence the family received in the 1940s from other families affected by the sinking of the Lagarto and the loss of its crew.

“Communication was slow back then,” Kenney pointed out. “Getting information was difficult; and some mystery about the fate of the submarine and its crew has always remained. My Father’s Day gift will be to do everything I can to find out what happened so long ago, and to be an advocate to ensure these sailors receive the honors they deserve.”

Kenney found out about the discovery of the wreck of the Lagarto via the Internet through a website devoted to World War II submarines that her son had accessed. Professional divers in Thailand reported that they’d been asked to investigate why fishermen’s nets were being snagged on the seabed near what historical records revealed to be the last known position of the USS Lagarto.

Diver Jamie Macleod of Great Britain operates a diving school on the island of Koh Tao, Thailand. Contacted by the Enterprise via e-mail, Macleod said he became aware years ago that the wreck of the USS Lagarto was in his vicinity, but actually finding her was “beyond a dream.”

He said new boats and equipment recently acquired by his company made the discovery possible. “We began with the last known position and then cross-referenced with fishermen’s marks,” Macleod explained. “I can’t describe to you the feeling of bumping into the bow of the wreck.” He said the wreck “is perfectly upright and seems to be intact...” Macleod, 43, said that in the years he’s been involved in shipwreck exploration, “this is by far the most important find.”

Kenney said she has yet to hear from the U.S. Navy about Macleod’s discovery of the submarine and has written letters to members of Congress seeking more information. “I certainly hope the Navy will see fit to honor these sailors and remember their families,” Kenney said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet Submarine Command in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis, told the Enterprise that Navy officials had been made aware of the discovery of the submarine through official channels and would take “appropriate action.” Davis said the latitude and longitude of the wreck had been known since the end of World War II; but he was not aware if anyone before Macleod had ever fixed the wreck’s position precisely and dived down to take a look.

During World War II, some 52 U.S. Navy submarines were lost in action, along with 3,544 crewmen. Davis pointed out that the names of each of them, including SM-1 William T. Mabin of the USS Lagarto, are inscribed on a submarine memorial in Pearl Harbor where a ceremony was conducted just last month on Memorial Day.

In Wisconsin – where the submarine was built – May 3 was designated USS Lagarto Remembrance Day in Wisconsin following action by a submarine veterans group.

USS Lagarto was one of many submarines produced during World War II by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co. in Manitowoc, Wis. The submarine was launched May 28, 1944, in Lake Michigan. After test trials and training in Lake Michigan, Lagarto entered a floating drydock and was floated down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where it departed for the Pacific.

Kenney said she spent a little time with her father at New London, Conn., and at Manitowoc, before he went off to war.“All my life, I never really knew my father, but the people who knew him well kept him alive in my memory,” Kenney said. “To think of what my mother’s generation went through with all the uncertainty during the war is just overwhelming. But now it’s up to my generation to support these men and make sure they’re honored,” she said.


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Southeast European Times
By Allan Cove
June 23, 2005


The 1,800-year-old city of Allianoi will be flooded in
November by the Yortanli Dam.

The world's oldest known ancient thermal city, Allianoi, stands to be flooded when the Yortanli Dam begins operation this November. Located in the very centre of the planned dam lake, it will be submerged under some 17 metres of water. If no solution is found, Turkey may lose a significant historical site.

To help save the 1,800-year-old city, environmentalists and other volunteers have formed the Allianoi Initiative Group, with the slogan "Don't Let Allianoi Be Flooded".

"A 2,000-year history is being sacrificed for a 50 to 60-year-old project. We don't say that the dam should not be constructed, but the project should be modified in a way that will prevent Allianoi from being ruined," says the group's spokesman, Arif Ali Cangi.

It has received support from the EU, which recently decided to financially support preservation efforts at Allianoi under its "Culture 2000" programme. The Pan-European Federation for Heritage -- a non-profit umbrella organisation consisting of more than 200 NGOs -- joined with the European Council and UNESCO in writing a letter to Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, seeking help in rescuing Allianoi and its Roman baths.

Since the Turkish government, however, has stated its firm intention to open the dam on schedule, archaeologists have launched a massive effort to salvage artefacts discovered at the site before it is submerged. Since 1994, numerous parts of sculptures, ceramic pieces, metallic findings and glass artifacts have been recovered, spanning the Roman to Byzantine periods. The State Water Affairs (DSI) agency has put forth a plan for the site, proposing that it the ancient buildings be coated with clay so that they won't be damaged under water. Archeologists say this would simply inflict further damage. Another approach under consideration is to move the thermal spring buildings to another location.

Villagers in the area, many of whom earn their living from agriculture, have mixed feelings. The dam will provide water needed for irrigation. But the flooding of Allianoi will also destroy a part of Turkey's cultural heritage, and the potential to attract tourists.

Throughout history, Allianoi was known as the "native land of the health god Asklepion". Established in the Hellenistic Age, it achieved prominence in the 2nd century under the rule of the Roman Emperor Hadrianus. For over 15 centuries, it enjoyed the reputation of an excellent healing centre, with spring waters in the therapeutic 45 to 55 centigrade range.

Recent excavations have revealed two ornate gates, streets with amazingly clean marble stones, shops, houses with perfectly protected mosaics, large squares, public fountains and insulas -- places to rest after a bath. The latest findings were some of the most perfectly protected ever seen in an archaeological site, because they were covered by alluvial soil.


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The Sun News
By Jerry Allegooda
June 23, 2005

JAMESVILLE, N.C. - Lacking the fame of the iron-plated USS Monitor or the Confederate gunboat Albemarle, sunken remains of the Union warship Otsego became little more than a snag in the Roanoke River after the Civil War.

Largely overlooked by local residents, the wreck might be mired in obscurity if not for researchers at East Carolina University. Students and faculty in ECU's Program in Maritime Studies recently confirmed the wreck's location in the Roanoke near Jamesville, about 110 miles east of Raleigh, and mapped it for study.

Larry E. Babits, director of ECU's maritime program, said the Otsego was one of 22 Union warships built to operate in Southern waterways with shallow water and narrow channels. Part of a Union fleet trying to sever Southern supply lines up the Roanoke, it hit a Confederate mine and sank in December 1864.

A jumble of wooden beams and iron, battered by war and more than a century underwater, is all that's left of the 220-foot vessel. But Babits said the wreck was important because the other Otsego-style ships have been lost.
"We can look at it as a sole survivor of its class," Babits said.

During a monthlong research project that ended Friday, divers scoured a six-mile stretch of river near Jamesville with sonar equipment and powerful metal detectors to pinpoint possible shipwrecks. They also identified the remains of the Bazely, a Union tugboat destroyed by a mine when it tried to assist the Otsego.

The muddy Roanoke, which winds through northeastern North Carolina and empties into Albemarle Sound, was a major battleground during the Civil War. With its powerful Navy, the Union gained control of most North Carolina coastal waterways. But the South stubbornly defended the Roanoke, especially the upriver portion with a key railroad bridge at Weldon.

The rail line was a vital supply route from the port at Wilmington to Gen. Robert E. Lee's forces in northern Virginia. Historians suggest the war could have ended within months, rather than four years, if the Union had taken out the bridge and cut the line.

Confederates also used the protected upstream territory to build the CSS Albemarle, a hulking gunboat that bedeviled the Union fleet. Built by a 19-year-old Elizabeth City man in a cornfield, the 158-foot vessel sank two Union ships in an encounter in April 1864. In a showdown with seven Union ships, it survived 557 hits from 60 guns.

The Albemarle succumbed in October 1864 after a daring commando raid. While it was moored in Plymouth, a group led by a young Navy officer slipped upriver in a small vessel and rammed the ship with explosives that sank it at the dock. The commando leader swam to shore, stole a skiff and paddled back to a Union ship in Albemarle Sound.
With the Albemarle out of the way, the Union recaptured Plymouth from Rebel forces and moved up the river.

That's what the Otsego was trying to do. Commissioned in the spring of 1864, the wooden sidewheel ship had an ingenious "double ender" design that enabled it to easily move forward and backward.

Its service ended Dec. 9, 1864, when it sailed into a nest of 20 Confederate mines. One blast blew a hole in the bottom, and a second sank it to the upper deck. But troops remained aboard so it could serve as a guard boat. When the tugboat Bazely later approached the Otsego, the Bazely hit a mine that blew that 70- to 80-foot boat six feet out of the water.
Union forces removed guns from the Otsego and fired on it to destroy machinery.

Unlike the Albemarle, which was later salvaged and scrapped, the Otsego was left where it sank. While dredging the river channel in the 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers pulled the remains into a 75-foot hole a short distance downstream. Although there were historical and military accounts of the Otsego's fate, its current location in the river wasn't pinpointed until the ECU researchers dived on it.

The site became a murky classroom for a dozen ECU students and faculty. In the 20-foot-deep water, visibility ranged from zero to 2.5 feet on a good day. Student divers identified ship sections on the bottom and reported them to others who mapped them on a diagram of the site.

"Guess what I found - the paddle wheel," graduate student Stephanie Allen said after emerging from the river one day last week.

Allen said she actually found a large piece of wood that supported the missing paddle wheel, which had been mounted to the side of the Otsego. All of the artifacts stayed on the bottom, at least for the time being.

Babits said artifacts were not retrieved because a permit with the Navy only allowed the survey work. In addition, he said, any wooden or iron artifacts brought to the surface would have to go through a long conservation process to keep them from deteriorating into a pile of dust and rust.

Area history buffs welcome the research as a way of bolstering the region's maritime heritage. Willie Drye of Plymouth, a researcher with the Roanoke River Lighthouse and Maritime Museum, said local residents hope artifacts can one day be retrieved and put on display.

But he said having archaeologists catalog the site adds to the region's rich maritime heritage.

"It just puts more of our history out there for our people to see and for visitors to see," Drye said.


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Khaleej Times
June 23, 2005



ATHENS - The recent discovery of the remains of a shipwrecked 4th-century BC vessel, nicknamed Kythnos I after the Greek island near which it was found, is the latest testimony of the archaeological riches still submerged in Greek waters.

It also demonstrates the technological advances that underwater archaeology has made in this country in recent years.

Greece has no shortage of skilled archaeologists. But when it comes to underwater research, it is only recently that the Greek ministry of culture has begun mixing academic knowledge with hi-tech wizardry.

Collaboration with the national centre for maritime research (Elkethe), and increased state funding from 2000 onwards, have enabled the culture ministry to open a broad - and still potentially untapped - archaeology frontier under the waves.

Elkethe, which operates under the development ministry, has given the culture ministry access to its specialised resources, including a 42-metre (138-foot) oceanography boat (the Aigaio), a submersible (the Thetis), two remotely-guided craft and a team of expert divers.

“This collaboration has spurred on efforts to chart underwater archaeological treasures, as did three laws on protecting such finds and preventing their pillage,” ministry director of underwater antiquities Katerina Dellaporta told AFP.

Pooling their resources, the ministry and the research centre have located more than 30 shipwrecks from Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times, at depths that can reach 550 metres (1,804 feet).

Ministry archaeologists have so far recovered objects from only a few of these wrecks.

In good condition
In March 2004, two groups of amphorae were discovered at a depth of 45 metres (148 feet) off the coast of Samos, in the eastern Aegean Sea. They came from a ship believed to have sunk between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

Two days later, at a short distance to the north, the sonar picked up another pile of amphorae at a depth of 67 metres (220 feet) off the coast of Chios. The second group of storage vessels dated from between the 5th and 4th centuries BC.

In September 2004, the discovery of an ancient bronze statue in a trawler net off the island of Kythnos in the western Aegean led ministry experts to examine the area more closely.

A few months later, armed with a geophysical study carried out by a 16-strong team of experts in March, the crew of the Thetis submersible found a concentration of amphorae at a depth of 495 metres (1,624 feet) belonging to the ship, subsequently named Kythnos I.

Despite intensive fishing in the area, the amphorae were preserved in seabed mud and remained in good condition.
This summer, the ministry team will relocate to the waters off Evia island, in the eastern Aegean, in a bid to pinpoint the remains of the Persian fleet of King Darius, wrecked by a storm in the 5th century BC during a seaborne invasion of Greece.

The search will be carried out with the assistance of the Canadian Archaeological Institute of Athens.

Another group of researchers, the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology (IENAE), has been providing expertise in underwater archaeology for the past 30 years thanks to both state and private funds.

The institute was founded in 1973, at a time when Greece had no equivalent state authority in the field. In 1975, the centre joined the team of renowned French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau for a search of Greek waters. The culture ministries own underwater antiquity department was only formed a year later.


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Travel Agent
June 23, 2005

Odyssey Marine Exploration and its subsidiary, Odyssey Marine Entertainment, plan to open an interactive shipwreck and treasure attraction in New Orleans' French Quarter this summer, the companies said this week. The attraction will feature the SS Republic, a Civil War-era ship that sank in 1865, along with a series of displays about shipwrecks and their historical artifacts, hands-on and interactive exhibits including a weather and science station and a wind tunnel.


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The Miami Herald
By Curtis Morgan
June 21, 2005

TRAIL OF THE SHIPWRECKS
A Biscayne National Park project will allow divers to rediscover mysteries of the deep, making it easier to find historical but doomed vessels off South Florida.

After a half-century under the sea, the schooner Mandalay has lost its graceful shape and every fitting that could be pried from its broken hull.

But the 112-foot ship, which ripped open running across Long Reef near Elliott Key in 1966, has gained another kind of allure. Shimmering clouds of fish surround the rusting steel skeleton encrusted with hard corals and soft sea fans, which flutter to the rhythm of rolling waves.

In Biscayne National Park, the most spectacular scenery is underwater -- but not all of it is natural. At least 50 shipwrecks, from 50 to 300 years old, rest in park waters. While some have long been unnamed marks on nautical charts, many people don't know their origins or that they exist at all.

After years of research, park managers are putting the finishing touches on an underwater ''heritage trail'' that will make it easier to both locate and learn about one of the richest collections of shipwrecks in the country.

''Very few people realize there is this valuable historical resources in their backyard,'' said Brenda Lanzendorf, Biscayne's archaeologist. ``We have some pretty awesome wrecks. We have Spanish gold fleets and British warships from the 18th century and 20th century freighters.''

FIVE WRECKS
The initial trail will mark five wrecks with mooring buoys and provide snorkelers and divers with short histories of the ships and detailed diagrams on waterproof cards of what they'll see at wreck sites. Work on three of the sites could be done by December; the remaining two by next summer.

The park will produce free pamphlets for visitors about the site locations, and booklets at a nominal cost with longer histories of the five ships, documenting everything from where they were built to what they carried to how they sank in what Lanzendorf called ''ship traps'' -- the treacherous shallow reefs that stretch from Key Biscayne to the Florida Keys.

The first five ships include four large steamers -- the Alicia, Lugano, Erl King, and what is believed to be the Arratoon Apcar. They went down between 1878 and 1913 from Fowey Light south to Ajax Reef, all in a line about three miles east of Elliott Key.

The fifth, the Mandalay, was a double-masted sailboat in Windjammer Cruises fleet. It ran aground on New Years Eve 1966, at the end of a 10-day sail when the skipper miscalculated his course. Passengers and crew were rescued, but the ship was quickly stripped by looters and salvors, then pummeled by rough seas before breaking up.

Resting in only 10 feet of water, it may be the prettiest wreck dive in the park -- and one of the easiest to snorkel. Large sections of the ship remain intact and a huge fuel tank rises so high that waves sometimes break over it.

Just don't expect to find a king's ransom like treasure hunter Mel Fisher. For one thing, you can't legally remove anything from a national park -- not even a rusty bolt.

The reality is that every known site in the park has been picked over -- including at least one ship believed to have been part of the ill-starred 1733 Spanish gold fleet, which hurricanes dashed off South Florida.

''There is probably nothing of big value as far as gems lying around on the bottom,'' said Terry Helmers, a University of Miami computer systems administrator and amateur maritime historian. His lifelong fascination with South Florida wrecks has provided the park with much of its most recent research.

The Miami native, 52, dove many of the wrecks as a kid with his father.

''We started off by looking at those little wreck symbols on boating charts,'' he said. "You start out trying to figure out how to get to those and before you know it, you're coming across others.

"It doesn't take long before the fever hits you, to go out and start looking for shipwrecks.''

This summer, Helmers' 13-year-old daughter Carolyn has joined a squadron of volunteers who have helped the park pull together the wreck trail.

Unlike most wreck hunters, the treasure for Helmers has always been the tale: Where did these ships come from?

Starting in the 1980s, he began building a database by reading newspapers dating back more than 100 years -- information that helped persuade the state to name the Half Moon, a 154-foot yacht sunk a mile off Bear Cut as Miami-Dade County's first underwater archaeological preserve in 2000.

Lanzendorf said Helmers' work also has filled in many mysteries left in a handful of early books about Biscayne's wrecks. A $37,860 grant from the South Florida National Parks Trust, a nonprofit group that raises money for South Florida's three national parks, also helped Biscayne National Park complete painstaking documentation of the sites.

For historians, the wrecks provide clues to everything from ship-building techniques to trade and cultural exchanges. Before putting them on wider public display, teams of volunteers have been diving the sites armed with sophisticated gear to precisely measure and record the position of every jagged ship fragment.

''It's literally like drawing an underwater blueprint,'' Lanzendorf said. Unless there is a ship's bell or some other distinctive artifact, even definitively naming a ship requires deep detective work -- matching ship design, cannon markings or remnants of its cargo to often sketchy records.

For instance, a wreck off Fowey Light was long identified as the Arakanapka, based on the journals of Miami pioneer Ralph Munroe. But Helmers, finding no other references to that ship names, had begun to suspect it was another ship called the Mississippi.

Then, only a few years ago, diver Michael Barnette, author of Shipwrecks of the Sunshine State, uncovered the story of the Arratoon Apcar, a British steamer that sunk near Fowey en route to Havana in 1878.

Arakanapka. Arratoon Apcar. It took more than a century to decipher the mystery of a mangled name.

OTHER SITES
In addition to the 50 shipwrecks, the park has dozens of other underwater archaeological sites, including one with 200-year-old British cannons. But most of the sites are still unsurveyed.

Lanzendorf said the park plans to add more sites in coming years, in hopes of creating a trail that would extend through the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which has had a nine-ship trail since 1999, all the way to Dry Tortuga National Park, which is working on a trail of its own.

Most historical wrecks are far more degraded than the dozens of ships sunken over the last few decades as artificial reefs. Some are little more than flattened fields of rusting debris. But what they may lack in eye appeal, they make up for in romance.

After storms, old coins and bits of pottery sometimes still emerge on some sites, which are largely buried beneath centuries of shifting sand. And since the park has only fully surveyed about 18 percent of its 180,000 acres, there is always a shot that something has been missed -- a very long shot.

''Is there a chance? Absolutely,'' Helmers said. "There could still be something of value.''

But, he added with a laugh, "The odds of having gold bars or treasure chest laying on the surface with gems hanging out of it are pretty darn slim.''


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The Virgin Islands Daily News
By Angela Burns-Piper
June 22, 2005

Wednesday, June 22nd 2005

TORTOLA - A five-member team of international archaeologists has begun to survey the 200-year-old ruins of the Royal Navy sloop HMS Nymph in Tortola waters.

The work, which began Saturday and runs through July 2, "will identify and assess the extent of the ship's remains and will ultimately aid future excavation of the site," Kimberly Monk of the Archaeology and Anthropology Department at the University of Bristol, England, told The Daily News.

The HMS Nymph was launched at Chatham Dockyard in May 1778 and was one of 25 vessels of the Swan class of Royal Navy ships. It sank in the British Virgin Islands in 1793. The sloop was 96 feet long - with a beam of 26 feet and a depth in the hold of 12 feet.

The 303-ton vessel was fitted with three masts and was able to accommodate 125 men, 16 guns and 14 swivel guns. Its role was to protect English interests and island inhabitants from French and American privateers. It first was commissioned under Vice Admiral Sir Edward Hughes' East India fleet in 1779, and its duties included protecting interests in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras and serving as an escort to East India merchant convoys.

Monk, who is leading the survey of the wreck, said the HMS Nymph is of national historical importance to both Britain and the British Virgin Islands. It helped secure the British territory, ultimately paving the way for the successes of the British navy.

She said the team will gather photographs, video and data through acoustic positioning, a new and more accurate method of mapping shipwreck sites.

"We're trying to find out what else is there," Monk said. "With the dredging and land reclamation ongoing near the site, we are concerned that the wreck will get anchored on, and we want to preserve what's remaining."

So far, Monk said, the team has found part of the hull structure. It hopes to locate other pieces and personal possessions of the crew.

In February 1969, dredging in Road Town harbor revealed the remains of the Nymph. Artifacts were removed, but no archaeological survey or site excavation was conducted, and now none of the more than 300 artifacts can be found. The team has a photographic archive of the artifacts, however, which include galley wares.

The project is being conducted with the help of the Virgin Islands Studies Program at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College, the government's Town and Country Planning Department and several local organizations including the Royal BVI Yacht Club and Commercial Dive Services.

In December 1782, HMS Nymph was recommissioned to the West Indies under Admiral Hugh Pigot and Rear Adm. Sir Richard Hughes, of the Lesser Antilles squadron.

Her Caribbean adventures ended abruptly, however. A crew member's carelessness caused a fire, which forced the crew to abandon the ship as it foundered in Road Town harbor.

The other members of the archaeological team are: David Antscheral; David Bouman of Amsterdam Free University; David Moore of the North Carolina Maritime Museum; and Peter Holt of Sonardyne and 3H Consulting, which is based in Plymouth, England.


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People's Daily
June 22, 2005

Together with the smooth process of the Three Gorges project, the world's largest water conservancy project, an unprecedented cultural relics preservation of the precious heritage from China's forefathers was initiated.

As for those without any clear idea about the preservation, figures play a convincing role: over 60,000 pieces of cultural relics were unearthed in the reservoir region, 3,000 of which are the most treasured ones. They will be collected by a state-level museum especially set up for them.

To Wang Chuanping, an official in charge of the culture relics preservation of the Three Gorges Museum, the word "unprecedented" has many implications.

Almost at the same time as the Three Gorges Project launched in 1996, a 31-volume report on preserving the cultural relics of the inundated areas also came out, which pinned over 1,000 sites for preservation using 1 billion yuan (about 125 million US dollars).

The cultural relics preservation projects attracted 72 units from around China, accounting for two thirds of the country's total. Thousands of archeologists excavated more than 200,000 cubic meters within one year, equivalent to ten years' workload.

Approved by the State Council in 2000, the China Three Gorges Museum, covering 40,000 square meters of floor space and costing 650 million yuan (about 80 million US dollars), was opened to the outside last Saturday, providing a sheltering place for cultural relics from the areas to be inundated.

The museum, which is designed to preserve 300,000 pieces of cultural relics, has provided a platform to exhibit the archeology achievements of the Three Gorges area.

The Three Gorges Project, the world's biggest hydroelectric scheme, began in 1993 and is expected to be completed in 2009. The cultural relics preservation, which includes 700 underground sites and 300 ancient architectures, is without any doubt a unmatched endeavor, said Wang.

Source: Xinhua


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Canada.com
By Walter Cordery
June 20, 2005


The historic tugboat Master will be in Nanaimo from July 22 to July 24,
as part of the Nanaimo Marine Festival. One of the few remaining steamships
on the West Coast, Master was once a fixture during Bathtub Days. She stopped
coming here after Vancouver closed the Sea Festival. Above Master is pictured
at Canada Day celebrations in North Vancouver.

A long-time friend of Nanaimo’s bathtub race returns to the Harbour City this year after a multi-year absence.

The society which owns and operates the “last remaining steam powered tug boat in North America” — SS Master — plans to have the historic vessel tied up at the Nanaimo Port Authority’s visiting vessel pier from July 22 until after the bathtub’s start racing July 24.

Nobody could be happier about this than Bill McGuire, Commodore of the Loyal Nanaimo Bathtub Society.

“In the past it (Master) has been the flagship of the bathtub fleet, for quite a number of years when the race used to go to Vancouver,” said McGuire. “We are delighted they want to participate in the World Championship Bathtub Race and Marine Festival.”

“This is the first time we have returned to Nanaimo since they cancelled the Vancouver Sea Festival,” said Chris Croner, president of the SS Master Society.

“We can’t wait to get back.

“We’re really excited about bringing her back for the race,” said Croner, who well remembers the days the steam-powered tug carried Frank Ney in his Black Frank paraphernalia across the Strait of Georgia.

“We used to sail before the race started and set up".

“You people in Nanaimo really know how to party. Boy, we in Vancouver, could learn a thing or two from you guys,” said Croner.

When she’s not involved in special activities, SS Master berths at Vancouver’s Maritime Museum.

“She is the only vessel that we know of that has been designated as a floating heritage object,” said society member Jason Lott. The province of B.C. and city of Vancouver awarded her that designation.

“She is probably the closest of any of the early tugs built by B.C.’s master tugboat builder Arthur Moscrop to being in her original state of any of the surviving tugs built in B.C.,” said Lott.

Master still operates on her original steam engine, which was purchased from the Royal Navy as surplus, following the First World War.

She was built for Capt. Herman Thorsen in 1922, one of three wood-hull tugs constructed at Moscrops’ shipyards in Vancouver — the same shipyard that supervised the construction of the RCMP’s famous arctic explorer, St. Roch, which also has a permanent berth at the Maritime Museum. Master, along with Sea Swell and R.F.M. (Richard Frederick Marpole) are believed to be the last steam-powered ships built in British Columbia, according to a SS Master Society booklet.

Steam and gas powered engines were being replaced by diesel at the time. The cost of building Master is believed to have been around $34,000 and Capt. Thosen retained control of the vessel until 1927 when the Master Towing Company incorporated and took title of the ship.

In 1940, Master was purchased by the Marpole Towing Company, states the society’s booklet, “joining her sister ship R.F.M. alongside of which she had been built in 1922.”

For years, she towed coal barges from Vancouver Island to Coal Harbour in Vancouver.

Maintenance was neglected during the years and Master changed hands numerous times before 1962 when members of the World Ship Society of Western Canada purchased her for $500. The society wanted “to restore her as a tribute to the tugboat industry of British Columbia,” states the society’s pamphlet.

“Master has survived to become the sole representative of the early era of the tugboat industry and its concomitants, the forest and mining industries.”

Anyone wishing to catch a glimpse of a floating, mechanical pioneer that helped build this province can tour SS Master during Bathtub weekend July 22 to July 24 at the Port of Nanaimo’s Visiting Vessel Pier, said McGuire, who added HMCS Nanaimo will be moored nearby and also open to public tours.


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News Telegraph
By Neil Tweedie
June 22, 2005


A view of Nelson's column.

More than 100 warships from 35 nations will crowd the Solent next Tuesday in a spectacular display of naval power marking the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. The Fleet Review, attended by the Queen, will be the first since the Silver Jubilee of 1977.

Some 25,000 sailors from countries as diverse as Latvia and South Korea will arrive in Portsmouth over the next five days in preparation for the review, which will include substantial contributions from the "losing" nations of France and Spain.

Both countries are sending aircraft carriers - the nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle being the largest warship present.

The United States will be represented by the amphibious carrier USS Saipan, operational commitments preventing the inclusion of a nuclear-powered attack carrier, which would have dwarfed anything else in sight.

Yesterday, the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy, displayed a certain reluctance to linger over the result of the battle which inaugurated the century of Pax Britannica. Looking forward to the event, Admiral Sir Alan West billed it as an international celebration of the sea and Nelsonian qualities, rather than a chauvinistic victory party for the British.

"I don't want a great triumphalist thing for the Battle of Trafalgar. That's not the point of it," he said. "Trafalgar is a fact of history, but this is a wonderful opportunity for defence diplomacy."

The heads of 53 navies will attend the event, which will see 67 ships of the Royal Navy joined by 58 foreign warships and 49 civilian vessels. The latter will include a number of tall ships which will re-enact a naval battle of the Napoleonic period following the review.

In deference to Franco-Spanish sensibilities, the opposing fleets will be referred to as Red and Blue, although a certain admiral is expected to be felled by a musket ball at the moment of triumph.

Modern touchy-feeliness did not deter Sir Alan, a fighting sailor who lost his ship, the frigate Ardent, during the Falklands War, from extolling the virtues of Britain's greatest naval commander.

"Nelson is the naval hero that everyone knows about. He is recognised not just in this country but around the world.
"His qualities of leadership, teamwork, humanity, bravery, courage and compassion - these are as pertinent today as they were 200 years ago."

Sir Alan said the review would provide a showcase for the Royal Navy, which he described as the best-trained in the world, second only in combat power to the US Navy. But next week's event will nevertheless emphasise the numerical weakness of a force which once dominated the oceans of the world.

Just five destroyers and nine frigates - some of them due to be axed in the next few years - will attend, with much of the British contingent made up of small mine warfare, survey and patrol vessels.

The Queen, in her capacity of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom, will review her ships from the ice-patrol ship Endurance, the Royal Yacht Britannia having gone the way of much of the Senior Service. Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh in his role of Admiral of the Fleet, she will spend three hours inspecting the assembled fleet, deployed in four lines each five miles long.

Sir Alan, whose opposition to recent cuts in the surface fleet is on record, emphasised the positive side, mentioning the presence of the carriers Invincible and Illustrious, and the recently completed large amphibious ships Ocean, Albion and Bulwark. Numbers were not everything, he said, explaining how, as a young frigate commander in 1969, his ship had won various awards for gunnery and operational efficiency.

"To be honest, we were crap," he said. "The ships now are bloody good. They are bigger, they have better equipment and they work."

Security during the event will be tight. Royal Marines, including members of the Special Boat Service, will patrol the waters around the ships among other precautions.

Their task will be compounded by the expected presence of 10,000 yachts and small boats in the Solent.

Sir Alan said emphasis was being laid on liaising with foreign commanders. "What we don't want is a group of Ruislip Young Conservatives whizzing up to some foreign warship in a Sunseeker and getting themselves blown out of the water."

Tuesday's mock battle will conclude with a huge firework display followed by the lighting up of the fleet.

The Trafalgar celebrations form part of a wider International Festival of the Sea taking place in Britain this year.

In addition to the Fleet Review, Portsmouth will be the setting for events throughout next week, with 2,000 street entertainers in town.

A more British, less international commemoration of Trafalgar must wait until the period around Oct 21, the date of the battle.

A celebration on HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, will be accompanied by a service at St Paul's Cathedral in London, his last resting place.


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San Francisco Chronicle
By Keay Davidson
June 20, 2005



Scientists are taking a new look at an old and controversial idea: that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California a millennium before Christopher Columbus landed on the East Coast.

Key new evidence comes from two directions. The first involves revised carbon-dating of an ancient ceremonial headdress used by Southern California's Chumash Indians. The second involves research by two California scientists who suggest that a Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is derived from a Polynesian word for the wood used to construct the same boat.

The scientists, linguist Kathryn A. Klar of UC Berkeley and archaeologist Terry L. Jones of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had trouble getting their thesis of ancient contact between the Polynesians and Chumash published in scientific journals. The Chumash and their neighbors, the Gabrielino, were the only North American Indians to build sewn-plank boats, a technique used throughout the Polynesian islands.

But after grappling for two years with criticisms by peer reviewers, Klar and Jones' article will appear in the archaeological journal American Antiquity in July.

If they are right, their finding is a major blow to North American anthropologists' traditional hostility to the theory that non-Europeans visited this continent long before Columbus.

Until now, few scientists have dared to speculate that the ancient Polynesians visited Southern California between 500 and 700 A.D., that is to say, in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. This is known as the "transpacific diffusion" hypothesis.

"The dominant paradigm in American archaeology for the past 60 or more years has been anti-diffusionist, and our findings are already stimulating a rethinking of that paradigm," Klar told The Chronicle.

Falling out of favor
The idea that ancient North America might have received visitors from the Pacific islands and Asia has had few friends in modern times. The idea was popular among researchers in the 19th century, but fell out of scholarly favor in the 20th.

Through the last century, scientists' opposition didn't seem unreasonable: Not only is the Pacific the world's widest ocean, sailors from the west would have faced contrary currents and winds that would tend to push them in the wrong direction.

Recently, though, scientific opposition to at least some diffusionist ideas has begun to waver. A huge blow to the skeptics came more than a decade ago, with the discovery of archaeological evidence that ancient Polynesians ate sweet potatoes, which are native to South America. Presumably, Polynesian sailors ventured to South America, obtained sweet potatoes and brought them back to their home islands.

That discovery seemed to undermine a major plank of the critics' old argument: that Polynesian travel to the Americas was physically impossible. Still, direct evidence for Polynesian contact with North America has been scarce.

Until now, that is. Now, the tide is turning in this old debate, in a way that might transform our understanding of the early peoples of the Golden State.

Chumash canoes yield clues
The first bit of new evidence is Klar and Jones' analysis of the Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" -- which they claim is extremely similar to the Polynesian term for the redwoods used to build the same mode of transport. (The Polynesians made their boats from redwood logs that had floated across the Pacific with the prevailing ocean currents.)

The Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe" is tomolo'o, while the Hawaiian word for "useful tree" is kumulaa'au. The Polynesians colonized Hawaii during the first millennium A.D., and in the process their language evolved into the Hawaiian language. The Polynesian word tumu means tree or tree-trunk, and ra'akau means wood or branch; Klar's complex linguistic analysis shows how the combination of those two words evolved into the Hawaiian kumulaa'au. Many Hawaiian words that start with "k" originally began with "t." Replace the "k" in kumulaa'au with a "t" and the similarity between the words becomes obvious. The similarity is so great, Klar says, that it is highly unlikely to be a coincidence.

The sewn-plank canoe was the Chumash Indians' version of an ocean-worthy yacht, a vehicle sturdy enough to allow them to fish in deep offshore waters. Traditionally, Native American canoes were relatively simple objects, often dug out of logs or assembled from bundled reeds. By contrast, the sewn-plank canoe was a highly engineered vehicle, one in which planks were cut, heated in hot water and bent into streamlined shapes. Holes were drilled in the wood, allowing the planks to be sewn together with strong plant fibers from yucca leaves. Tar was affixed to the gaps between the planks, making them watertight.

The resulting vessel was sleek, lightweight, fast and durable, or the perfect vehicle for long-distance travel through choppy waters, including deep- sea fishing areas.

Sharing knowledge
Klar and Jones reason that ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California and shared their boating knowledge with the Chumash. This was an ancient form of what would today be called "technology transfer," as in the post-World War II transfer of nuclear power technology from the United States to other nations.

Before now, scholars argued that the Chumash invented sewn-plank canoes on their own.

One key piece of evidence for this view was the carbon-dating of abalone shells from a Chumash ceremonial headdress fashioned from the skull of a swordfish, a deep-sea fish. Based on earlier carbon-dating methods, the shells, now stored at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, were thought to be about 2,000 years old. That date implied the Chumash were fishing in deep-sea waters about 400 years earlier than the Polynesian-Chumash contact hypothesized by Klar and Jones.

As it turns out, though, the original carbon-14 date, which was determined before scientists realized they had to take into account varying levels of atmospheric carbon-14, was wrong.

A cautious investigator
Inspired by Klar and Jones' hypothesis, John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum, decided to recalibrate the abalone shells. He discovered they dated from approximately 600 A.D., several hundred years younger than previously thought. He announced his finding in April at an archaeology conference in Salt Lake City.

Six hundred A.D. is smack in the middle of the period during which the ancient Polynesians sailed to Southern California, according to Klar and Jones' theory.

In an interview, Johnson cautioned that despite the recalibrated date, he thinks it's premature for Klar and Jones to declare victory. This is partly because some of their archaeological evidence hasn't been recalibrated, either, he said.

Also, he's worried that they have fashioned their linguistic argument from a reanalysis of just a few words in the Chumash and Polynesian languages, too few to clinch their argument.

"They may be right -- I'm just more cautious," Johnson added.

Jones replied that the archaeological artifacts cited in his and Klar's paper "have been calibrated with the most up-to-date calibration program." On the linguistic side, Klar replies that the word similarities are too close to be the result of coincidence. Rather, the Chumash must have learned the Polynesian word for sewn-plank canoe during face-to-face contact.

Studying the study
An unusual aspect of the Klar-Jones thesis is that it gives the public a chance to glimpse the behind-the-scenes processes by which scientists promote a controversial scientific idea. At The Chronicle's request, Klar and Jones agreed to share copies of the letters written by outside experts -- peer reviewers -- who evaluated their manuscript for possible publication in the journals Current Anthropology and American Antiquity.

The editor of Current Anthropology, Professor Benjamin S. Orlove of UC Davis, sent copies of it to nine peer reviewers, an unusually large number.

The reviews, all written before the redating of the abalone shells, are polite and thoughtful, although sometimes sharply critical on technical points; several express enthusiasm for the Klar-Jones hypothesis. The shortest review is one sentence, from an anonymous expert: "Interesting, scholarly, and bound to cause trouble!"

One positive reviewer says Klar and Jones' linguistic argument "seems to be systematically and exhaustively argued," but urges them to "have linguists skilled in Polynesian languages take a hard look at this."

Overall, five of the reviews were positive about the Klar-Jones paper and two were negative, but most suggested various improvements. One reviewer advised Orlove to reject the paper but to ask the authors to resubmit it after they made improvements. One reviewer was neutral.

Even though a majority of the reviews were positive, Orlove decided to reject the article. Why?

Reasons for rejection
Orlove stressed that he rejected an earlier version of their paper rather than the one slated for publication in July. He also said that his job as editor is not simply to add up pro and con votes of peer reviewers.

"We're certainly more than just a vote-tallying machine," he said. Rather, as editor, he must ponder the reviewers' remarks and make the best judgment he can: to publish or not to publish?

Orlove acknowledged that nine reviewers is "certainly unusually high." That number was necessary partly because of the interdisciplinary nature of the paper, which required feedback from experts in various subjects.

"By and large, our reviewers are fair and generous, and, by and large, we trust them," Orlove said. "I'm certainly a strong believer in the peer-review process."

Ultimately, the article was accepted by American Antiquity. That journal's peer reviewers also gave the article a "mixed" reception, editor Michael Jochim told Klar and Jones, but Jochim elected to publish it anyway.

One anonymous reviewer for American Antiquity was "not fully convinced" by their thesis but welcomed publication anyway:

"Jones and Klar do us a service by resuscitating the debate (over Pacific diffusion) from the 'unthinkable' shelf it has for too long languished on."


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Navy Newsstand
By Raegan Quinn
June 21, 2005


Official U.S. Navy file photo of scientists at the
Warren Lash Conservation Center examining a
Civil War-era wallet found during excavation of
the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley. Recently
the scientists discovered a "stealth" feature of the
submarine that some say was 50 years ahead of its time.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (NNS) -- Conservators of the Civil War submarine H. L. Hunley, working with the Naval Historical Center (NHC), discovered a previously unknown stealth feature called a deadlight while removing the concretion on one of the 10 glass ports, June 15.

The deadlight, which served like skylights that run along the top of the submarine, served as both a stealth and safety feature on Hunley, by stopping light from getting out and water from getting into the submarine.

"The Hunley truly is a technological marvel. Every aspect of the submarine's design is thought out to maximize her ability as a stealth and functional weapon," said Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the Hunley Commission. "She is literally 50 years ahead of her time."

The skylight is covered by a hinged iron plate, or deadlight. A pin could be removed from one hinge, allowing the iron plate to drop down and let light in to the otherwise dark vessel. To cover the skylight, a crew member would push the iron plate up and re-insert the pin. When the deadlight was closed, it would block light from exiting the submarine through the skylight, increasing the Hunley's ability to approach her target unnoticed.

The deadlights also served as an important safety feature of the sub's construction. During combat, if the glass of the skylight was broken, it could cause a dangerous flow of water into the submarine. Scientists think the two hinges holding the iron plate in place may have been fitted with rubber gaskets, which would make the skylight watertight when the iron plate was closed. If the glass on the skylight was damaged, the crew could lock the iron plates in place and stop water from overtaking the sub.

Hunley scientists discovered the deadlight was in the shut position and the skylight remained covered.

"Every discovery is a clue that we will ultimately use to solve the mystery of the Hunley's disappearance. In the crew's last moments, they chose to leave this skylight closed, perhaps because they believed they would be returning home and wanted to remain undetected," McConnell said. "This is another piece of the puzzle that will lead us to the ultimate answer."

Scientists will continue work on de-concreting the remaining deadlights as they prepare the submarine for its conservation treatment.

On the evening of Feb. 17, 1864, H.L. Hunley became the world's first successful combat submarine by sinking USS Housatonic. After signaling to shore that the mission had been accomplished, the submarine and her crew of eight vanished.

Lost at sea for more than a century, Hunley was located in 1995 by author Clive Cussler's National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). The hand-crank-propelled vessel was raised in 2000 and delivered to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where an international team of scientists under the Naval Historical Center are at work conserving the vessel and piecing together clues to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

For related news, visit the Naval Historical Center Navy NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/navhist/.


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