Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

_________________________________________________________________

Radio Iowa
by Matt Kelley
March 28, 2006


An exhibition detailing the world's worst maritime disaster is making its first voyage to Iowa. "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" will dock at the Science Center of Iowa in Des Moines in May with more than 100 items, from perfume bottles to white gloves, taken from the debris field of the 94-year-old shipwreck.

The Science Center's Sally Dix says visitors will get a boarding pass as they enter, detailing the life of an actual Titanic passenger. At the end, visitors will learn if that passenger survived. Dix says the exhibition includes authentically recreated cabins from first and third-class, in addition to place settings and menus from all three classes.

The traveling collection has appeared in Chicago, Omaha and Kansas City but this is its first appearance in Iowa. The ship, dubbed unsinkable and then the world's largest ocean vessel, struck an iceberg in April of 1912 and sank in the North Atlantic. Of the 22-hundred passengers, only about 700 survived.

Dix says visitors to the exhibition will take a chronological journey through life on the Titanic and the big ship's tragic demise. There's also a giant iceberg which visitors are encouraged to touch and imagine being immersed in the near-freezing water. The Science Center in Des Moines will also offer the IMAX movie "Titanica" opening the same day as the exhibition on May 20th, running for three months. For more information, surf to www.sciowa.org.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

on Friday. Photos by CHRIS VIOLA/The Times-Union

What started as an uncertain project has become a large and unique collection and a popular attraction for visitors.

The St. Marys Submarine Museum opened with about 500 artifacts in 19 mostly empty display cases and a goal to become a viable, self-sustaining tourist attraction.

A decade later, the museum has so many items -- an estimated 20,000 -- the cases are filled with artifacts from not only the U.S. Navy, but from Russia, Germany, Great Britain, Peru and nations from the South Pacific.

The walls inside the two-story building have so many artifacts, it's difficult to see the paint.

Museum officials are preparing to commemorate the 10th anniversary on Friday with a daylong celebration.

John Crouse, the museum's first and only director, said he expected the facility to make it 10 years, but he never expected to have such an extensive collection of artifacts.

"We're not a normal museum," he said. "There a lots to things you can touch. We've got a little bit of everything."

The Navy donated some of the more popular items seen by visitors, such as a working Type 8 periscope, which at the time was the most modern working periscope on public display in the nation.

Perhaps the most significant individual donation came in 2003, when a Connecticut man, Ben Bastura, donated what was described as the nation's largest private collection of submarine memorabilia, which included World War II submarine reports.

The museum's collection of these submarine reports -- many of them classified at the time -- is so extensive, Crouse said submarine historians from across the nation visit the museum for their research.

"Now, we have written history from everything in the Navy," he said.

No funds from city

When the idea of a submarine museum was first floated before the St. Marys City Council in November 1994, the proposal was greeted with enthusiasm and one stipulation -- the city would not pay to renovate the building or pay operation expenses.

Sixteen months later, on March 30, 1996, the St. Marys Submarine Museum opened after organizers raised $60,000 and a group of enthusiastic volunteers to renovate the 85-year-old Arthur Lucas Memorial Building.

The building had been used as a general store, apartments, the St. Marys Post Office, a movie theater and a youth center.

Jerry Brandon, mayor of St. Marys in 1994, said the museum "has been a great attraction for tourists."

Crouse said museum officials have never had to ask the city for financial help.

Private donations, fundraisers and museum visitors have kept the museum running without debt since it opened.

A diver's signal plate and a broken
navigation light from the ill-fated
Russian submarine Kursk are two
of the rare items at the St. Marys
Submarine Museum.

Alternative to base visit

Museum president Tony Cobb said he never expected the museum to have as many items on display or have the number of visitors it's seen in the last decade.

"I look around at the volume of artifacts we have and it's unreal," he said. "We have so many, we can't display them all at one time. We're rotating what we put up."

Many items donated to the museum are on display at nearby Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, Cobb said.

Ed Buczek, a spokesman at Kings Bay, said the museum fills an important void because public tours of the Trident submarine base are not offered.

The museum is a good way for people to learn about the base's role in national defense, he said.

"You can't come on base, but the museum is there to show people what the Navy is all about," Buczek said. "There is an excellent relationship between the museum and the base."

Visitors planning to attend the ceremony are asked to bring lawn chairs. For more information, call (912) 882-2782.


____
www.schnorkel.blogspot.com

RYE - The schooner Lizzie Carr capsized in the Atlantic in 1905. It wasn’t until 93 years later that a tourist found the buried hull of the vessel beneath the sands of Wallis Sands State Beach.
What remained of the hull was moved into the Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne Point, and now a photograph of the shipwrecked vessel has surfaced that adds more information on the fate of the schooner.

A photograph of the bow of the schooner was brought to the center recently by Richard Bailey of Gonic. Bailey found the image in a group of glass plate negatives that he purchased through eBay. The envelope that contained it was labeled "Wreck of the Lizzie Carr."

David Switzer, the consulting nautical archaeologist for New Hampshire and the director of the archaeological project that recovered the section of hull structure on display in the center’s Shipwreck! exhibit, was contacted. He had never seen the photograph before.

According to Switzer, the location of the wreck appeared correct based on shoreline features, but when he first examined the picture in company with other photographs taken at the scene, the bow didn’t seem to fit.

"Later, when I re-examined one of the known photographs of the wreckage, the newly discovered photo of the bow suddenly made sense," he said. "I realized that, by the time the Bailey photograph had been taken, most of the wreckage had been cleared from the beach, leaving only the bow as a reminder of the incident."

The importance of this photograph is that it adds information hitherto unavailable through archaeology and is the only known photograph of the Lizzie Carr taken in Thomaston, Maine. Included in the section of bow is the forecastle deck where a capstan had probably been located (dark circular stain) and later salvaged.

Stretching to the right is the starboard anchor chain, which probably was ripped out of the hawse pipe when the anchor caught hold in the attempt to stop the schooner’s progress toward the beach. The windlass can also be seen.

Switzer also said the new photograph may help to solve yet another mystery.

"In the photo of Lizzie taken at Thomaston (the rightmost photo on the Shipwreck! exhibit panel), you can see a white spot on the transom above the rudder," he said. "It might be a cameo carved into the transom; however, computer enlargements are not clear enough to confirm that the spot might be the representation of a woman’s head and shoulders."

Reinvigorated by this new find, Switzer has contacted the Maine Maritime Museum to secure a negative that can be enlarged. Although such ornamentation was not uncommon on Maine-built vessels, knowing what that spot is will solve another Lizzie mystery.

"Serendipity played a huge role in identifying the wreck in back in 2002," said Switzer. Now it seems that serendipity has struck again!

"Richard Bailey’s eBay adventure has added yet another piece to this archaeological puzzle," he said.

A Russian aircraft carrier converted into a theme park in the southern Chinese town of Shenzhen could find its final resting place as an artificial reef in Hong Kong waters, DPA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The agency quoted an article in the China Morning Post daily which said that the plan to turn the 40,000-tonne ’Minsk’ into a marine life haven had been proposed by marine specialist Charlie Frew after the unsuccessful auction of the ship earlier this year.

Frew has suggested towing the 271-metre-long ship 10 km from its current location to the waters off Hong Kong’s eastern New Territories and sinking it between two islands near Sai Kung.

’If the ship was sunk in position between the islands, it would lead to a rapid expansion in fish stocks, would encourage the growth of native corals and provide a focal point for the rejuvenation of underwater life for the entire eastern coastline of Hong Kong,’ he said.

Frew has asked several government offices, including the marine and environmental protection departments, to help acquire the vessel.

The Minsk, with a complement of 32 aircraft, was launched in 1975 but was retired in 1993 after an accident. The vessel was later sold to the Shenzhen Minsk Aircraft Carrier Industry Co, which created a theme park, Minsk World, around the carrier.

The company recently went out of business, and the carrier was put up for auction with a reserve price of 128 million yuan ($16 million), but failed to attract a single bid.

’Imagine the economic windfall and recreational attraction,’ Frew said, touting his plan. ’It would be the largest ship sunk in the Asia-Pacific region. The Minsk could do more good at the bottom of the sea than it ever did afloat.’

The Daily News
By Jennifer Taplin
March 20, 2006

DARTMOUTH - She's the Go-Boat O-Boat, and will be lovingly remembered by the submariners who served on her.

HMCS Onondaga will be towed out of Halifax Harbour this summer on her way to be installed at the Musee de la Mer de Pointe-au-Pere in Rimouski, Que.

Two of the captains -Capt. (Navy) Larry Hickey, and retired Cmdr. Peter Kavanagh - who commanded Onondaga during her 39-year run, reminisced about chasing Russian submarines and emergency surfacings.

Onondaga was one of three Oberon-class (O-Boat) submarines built for the Canadian navy in the 1960s.

There was always a running joke among submariners about the subs now tied up in Dartmouth: Ojibwa (the oldest), Onondaga (the middle), Okanagan (the youngest), said Hickey. The Olympus was added to the fleet in 1989 as a training vessel.

"So we used to talk about the No-Boat, the Show-Boat, and the Go-Boat. Onondaga was always the Go-Boat, the Okanagan was the Show-Boat and the Ojibwa was the No-Boat." Ojibwa had morale problems, said Hickey.

Torpedo practice

Asked what he remembers about his time aboard the Onondaga between 1986 and 1987, Hickey recalls torpedo practice in the Caribbean and chasing Russian subs in the midst of the Cold War.

"In those days, the Russians used to put a lot of their ballistic missile submarines to sea and it was our job ... to try and detect and keep an eye on where these submarines were," said Hickey. "We didn't want them to be hidden from us."

In November 1986, the Onondaga was sent hunting north of Newfoundland, and Hickey found out the Russians weren't the only threat.

"Once we got into the open water in the Atlantic in November, it was scary. It was rough, we're talking 30- to 40-foot waves," he said. "What I remember of that was just holding on for dear life at periscope depth trying to battle more the elements than trying to get in contact with the submarine."

Did they catch the Russians? Well, after a few beers and chatting with friends, Hickey will say he did.

"We'll always say we did, and whether we did or not doesn't matter."

Kavanagh captained the Go-Boat from 1994 to 1996, when they were testing experimental sonars. Kavanagh remembers pitting his little diesel/electric sub against an American nuclear-powered sub in a training exercise.

"In 1996, the sub was 30 years old and they sent us against a brand new American nuclear submarine and we beat the pants off them. So we knew what we were doing," said Kavanagh.

"We had to be smarter, because we didn't have the endurance and the speed of the nuclear submarine and our sonar wasn't as good as the nuclear submarine.

Well-trained crew

"The crew was so well- trained at that point, because we had been together two years. It just goes to show you just what you can do if you're trained well."

Kavanagh worked his way through several floods on the Onondaga. He said for some reason, she always rolled to port when they did an emergency surfacing.

Museum home fitting – captains

Two former sub captains are pleased that HMCS Onondaga is going to be preserved in a museum.

"All through my naval career, I would hear stories about people becoming attached to their ships or their submarines they served on, and I always thought that was a bit silly," said retired Cmdr. Peter Kavanagh, who lives near Ottawa.

"But it's true that any one of us that served in those O-boats, we crossed that bridge, and see all four of them resting there, (and) it is a kind of a sad thing to see."

The Oberon-class submarines have been resting dockside, gutted and rusting, ever since they were decommissioned in 2000.

"So, this is good news for sentimental sailors like me."

Around the world, nations have set aside submarines in museums and Canada hasn't - until now, said Capt. (Navy) Larry Hickey.

"We're the only nation that hasn't seemed to treasure the history of our submarine service," said Hickey.

Both said they would like to see their old sub when it's open to the public next year at the Musee de la Mer de Pointe-au-Pere in Rimouski, Que.

Government officials and a company that wants to salvage four shipwreck sites it discovered two years ago have told a federal judge in Mobile that they will not try to identify the vessels until diving conditions improve.

Fathom Exploration, based in Gulf Shores, found four shipwreck sites near the mouth of Mobile Bay in 2004. Company officials have said they want to salvage the sites and claim any valuable artifacts that may exist.

But those efforts have been tied up in federal court, where the state and federal governments have laid claims to the sites. A private citizen also has challenged Fathom on grounds that the shipwreck might be a vessel owned by his relatives.

All parties agreed in December to put the case on hold for a year, while they came to a consensus on how to proceed with the identification of the ship or ships. Although Fathom Exploration officials found four locations, they have said they believe all of the sites might have come from a single sunken vessel that has broken into pieces over the years.

The parties have agreed to keep U.S. Magistrate Judge Bert Milling Jr. informed about their negotiations with written reports every three months. The first of those so-called status reports, filed this month, stated that they are close to working out the details of a procedure to identify the sites.

"As a practical matter, nobody's going to find anything without somebody making a stab at finding out, with some degree of certainty, what's down there," said David Bagwell, a Fairhope lawyer who represents a man who believes at least one of the vessels may be the clipper ship Robert H. Dixey.

Bagwell said he hopes to work out an agreement before the end of June.

"Let the winds of spring die down and get it before hurricane season kicks in. It's a fairly narrow window," he said.

Headed by Gulf Shores resident David Anderson, Fathom Exploration filed a claim in October 2004 seeking control over the wreck sites, which it said lie in an area extending 2 nautical miles from a spot southwest of the Fort Morgan peninsula. The company has refused to give the public more specific coordinates for fear that looters will destroy the sites.

The federal government maintains that the ships are U.S. property if the vessels belonged to the United States or a foreign country. State authorities contend the vessels belong to Alabama if they lie sunken in state waters and that Fathom Exploration would have to get a permit and negotiate an arrangement to split any proceeds it reaps.

At one point, the Alabama Historical Commission was negotiating with the company for such a permit but the status of those talks was unclear on Friday. Michael Mark, an attorney for the Fathom Exploration, was out of town. Assistant Attorney General William Little also could not be reached for comment.

Any agreement allowing the Fathom Exploration to try to identify the site will include provisions governing the hiring of experts and safeguards to ensure that the work is done in an archeologically sound way, Bagwell said.

"We all know that it may be very difficult time identifying what it is," he said. "Whatever it is, it's been there at least 100 years and maybe 300 years.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

Replica of the 16th century vessel, first ever to circumnavigate the globe, will be open for visitors at Zea Marina this weekend

The Victoria docked in Zea Marina. It is one of a number of ships built to celebrate the fifth centenary of the discovery of America as part of Spain’s commemoration of the Age of Discovery at the Seville ’92 Expo. Various other replicas of the legendary ships used by the Spanish explorers were also built, including the three caravels used by Columbus on his voyage to America.

The crew includes several scientists, who are carrying out research and comparative studies of aspects of shipboard life then and now, such as nutrition and the effects of environmental factors, as well as technical issues.

An exact replica of the Spanish vessel Victoria, the first ship to sail around the world in the early 16th century, arrived at Zea Marina in the port of Piraeus yesterday morning and will be open to visitors this weekend.

Piraeus is its first stop in the Mediterranean as the Victoria sails home to Spain after completing a world voyage that has taken it to Tenerife, Cartagena de Indias in Colombia, Panama, Hawaii, the Mariana Islands, Japan (where it was part of Spain’s participation in the Aichi 2005 World’s Fair), then Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Djibouti, Sudan and Suez. The trip was organized by the Spanish Society for International Exhibitions (SEEI).

On board the Victoria, everything is as one might imagine it was in the early days of exploration. Only materials employed 500 years ago were used to build the new Victoria. Darkened timbers creaked eerily as the ship rose and fell on the slight swell at its dock in front of Zea’s busy cafes. An enormous tiller swung gently at the stern. Oranges hung in string baskets in the galley, alongside old barrels and huge wooden spoons.

The ship is equipped with 16th century navigational instruments — astrolabe, quadrant, backstaff, lead line — along with state-of-the-art marine electronics. A small engine is used for entering and leaving ports.

“We use 16th century navigation tools and well as modern equipment, which the Spanish safety authorities require us to have on board,” said Jose Luis Ugarte, a merchant marine captain and in charge of navigation, told Kathimerini English Edition. “We have been comparing the two systems in order to find out where they made errors in those days.”

Ugarte, considered Spain’s premier transoceanic yachtsman, has sailed solo around the world twice and has written several books telling of his experiences as a sailor. He is part of a 20-member crew headed by Ignacio Fernandez Vial, the leading Spanish expert in reconstructing working replicas of historic ships. Vial also directed the Santa Maria and Pinta projects. The rest of the crew include specialists in naval engineering and other fields such as agricultural engineering, natural sciences and physics.

During the voyage a number of research projects on technical, nutritional, health and anthropological subjects are being conducted in collaboration with several Spanish universities, to take advantage of the unique experience of a long voyage carried out under 16th century conditions.

The design of the replica was based on a lengthy research project using a total of 428 written documents, drawings, and archaeological artifacts along with 164 documents referring to the expedition led by Fernando de Magallanes (Magellan) in 1519-1522, preserved at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, as well as 126 drawings and engravings of 16th and 17th century ships.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

AUSTRALIAN experts have been called on to help salvage a rusting American Civil War hand-powered submarine -- one of the world's first submersibles -- 130 years after it was beached on a remote island off Panama.Before being identified in 2002, the rusting hulk lying on the tide line off the Island of Pearls was believed by Panamanians to be a World War II Japanese midget submarine.

The 18m Explorer was originally intended to be used by the Union navy and was built by an immigrant iron worker, Julius Kroehl, for $75,000 in 1865, a time when a mid-level public servant earned $200 a year.

The submarine came too late to play a decisive role in the Civil War and it was sent to trawl for pearls in the Gulf of Panama.

But after collecting 10 tonnes of pearl shell in 11 days on its maiden trip, the sub was abandoned after the divers on board succumbed to the bends, known in those days as "the fever".

The West Australian Maritime Museum's iron ship specialist Mike McCarthy, just back from visiting the wreck, said yesterday that after the submarine was abandoned the owners went bust.

"What's really interesting is it then enters the Pearl Island legend as a Japanese World War II boat," Dr McCarthy said.

Following its rediscovery by James Delgado of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, corrosion experts from around the world, including Ian MacLeod and Neil North from the Fremantle-based maritime museum, were invited to join a survey of the wreck to advise on its restoration.

Dr MacLeod and Dr North came to prominence with their cutting-edge 1985 conservation work to preserve a historic "trunk engine" used to power Western Australia's first coastal steamer, SS Xantho. That engine will soon be on display in Fremantle.

The same Australian expertise will now be applied in the restoration of Kroehl's Explorer.

GEORGETOWN, S.C. - Researchers are trying to revive the coastal search for the 16th century vessel that carried some of the earliest Spanish setters to Georgetown County.

A state archaeologist said officials hope to hire a geologist to pinpoint the exact location of the 1526 North Island shoreline.

Locating the shoreline will narrow down the possible location for the Spanish galleon, called the Capitana, said Christopher Amer, state underwater archaeologist for the maritime division of the South Carolina Department of Archaeology and Anthropology.

"We want to get the geologist to determine where we want to look," he said.

Amer began searching for the ship in the waters of the Winyah Bay last fall, but the effort was put off when officials ran out of money and ran into hurricane season.

If officials can raise enough money to hire an archaeologist - about $60,000 over two years - the search could resume this summer, Amer said.

Historians say the Capitana struck a sandbar and went down near North Island in 1526. This is believed to be the first effort to find the ship since it sank. The Capitana could have been about 120 feet long and possibly carried men, women and children as well as vital supplies.

It was part of an expedition by Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, a Spanish lawyer and explorer who sailed along the southeastern coast of North America in the early 1500s.

Documents show the passengers escaped before the Capitana went down with its likely cargo of tools and food.

The first successful Spanish colony in North America was later established in 1565, in St. Augustine, Fla.

Amer's efforts come as Florida officials say crews there happened upon a buried Spanish ship by accident.

On Thursday, Florida archaeologists said Navy construction crews unearthed a Spanish ship that was buried for centuries under sand on Pensacola's Naval Air Station. They said the vessel could date back to the mid-1500s, but said some material found on the ship could indicate it was from a later period. The crews were rebuilding the base's swim rescue school, destroyed during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

Amer will pitch his plans to continue searching for the Capitana to members of the Archaeological Research Trust in May.

For now, Amer's research crew is trying to find two sunken whaling ships once used to repair Union vessels during the Civil War in Port Royal Sound.

The searches are part of an effort to survey all the water along the South Carolina coast.

_________________________________________________________________

Market Wire
March 23, 2006


DOUGLASVILLE, GA -- Admiralty Holding Company announced today that its research ship, the R/V New World Legacy, has completed a survey of an area within a radius of two nautical miles of a point in the Gulf of Mexico. The survey included both magnetic metal and sub-bottom detection. Evidence of three shipwrecks was found. One was relatively modern (iron hull). A second ship was older but sill relatively new (wooden ship with coal debris). However, the third, as anticipated, seemed to be older and from a period of interest. This ship was also a wooden ship. This site was brought to Admiralty by Captain Carl Fismer.

Divers from the New World Legacy visually examined some of the hits and pictures were taken. No samples were collected and nothing was disturbed. Discussions are underway concerning next steps.

The New World Legacy is currently on assignment in international waters at another site brought to Admiralty by Captain Carl Fismer. This site has been code named, the "Dead Eye Site."


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

______________________________________________________________________________

Local6.com
March 23, 2006


PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Navy construction crews unearthed a rare Spanish ship, which had been buried for centuries under sand on Pensacola's Naval Air Station.

Archaeologists confirmed the find Thursday and said the vessel could date to as early as the mid 1500s when the first Spanish settlement in the United States was founded here. The settlement was abandoned two years later after a hurricane.

"It's possible that it's one of the earliest ships," said Elizabeth Benchley, director of the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida.

But Benchley said the exposed portion of the ship looks more like ships from a later period because of its iron bolts.

"There are Spanish ship wrecks in Pensacola Bay, we have worked on two - one from 1559 and another from 1705. But no one has found one buried on land, this was quite a surprise to everybody," Benchley said.

The first Spanish settlement in the United States was founded at Pensacola in 1559. The location of the original settlement is a mystery, but archaeologists have found clues from the 1559 wreck in Pensacola Bay.

The Spanish did not return until more than a century later in 1698 at Presidio Santa Maria de Galve, now Pensacola Naval Air Station. The French captured and burned it in 1719 but handed Pensacola back to Spain three years later. A series of hurricanes forced the Spanish to repeatedly rebuild.

Construction crews dug up the ship while rebuilding the base's swim rescue school that was destroyed during Ivan.

"It's ironic that a hurricane probably put this ship there and now we have uncovered because of hurricane," said Alex McCroy, who is with the Navy's construction office that is overseeing repairs from Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

The exposed keel of the ship juts upward from the sandy bottom of the pit and gives some guess of the vessel's form. Archaeologists estimated the rest of the ship is buried by about 75 feet of sand.

Pam Boudreaux, cultural resources director for Pensacola Naval Air Station, said the Navy plans to enclose the uncovered portion of the ship, mark the site and move construction over to accommodate future work by archaeologists.

But it's unlikely an archaeological dig will occur anytime soon, Benchley said.

"We don't have plans to excavate the entire ship. It's going to be very expensive because it's so deeply buried and we would have to have grant money," she said.

During initial work to determine the ship's origin, archaeologists found ceramic tiles, ropes and pieces of olive jars.

The find was especially exciting for Benchley who doesn't dive.

"I've never been on the things we've excavated in the Bay. This time, I got to walk around on the planking," she said.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

_________________________________________________________________

The Jakarta Post
By Abdul Khalik
March 20, 2006


Salvaging sunken treasure is already a technically complicated operation. In Indonesia, such work is made all the more challenging by government bodies and regulations that often send mixed messages to companies eager to plumb the depths in search of lost treasures.

A recent example concerns the MV Siren, a ship that was confiscated by police while involved in salvaging sunken treasure off the coast of Cirebon in West Java. Police also confiscated all of the items recovered from the sea by the ship, and arrested several crew members, including two foreign nationals, for "illegally plundering Indonesia's natural resources".

While the police are confident they did their duty in enforcing the law, a member of the national committee authorized to vet all companies interested in salvaging treasures in Indonesian waters sees things differently.

Hasyim Zaini says the ship, belonging to PT Paradigma Putra Sejahtera (PT PPS) and Belgium-based Cosmix CPRL, met all of the requirements and obtained all the necessary documents for its work in Cirebon.

"In the history of treasure recovery in Indonesia, the salvage operation in Cirebon had the most complete documents and the best salvaging procedures. It makes no sense for the police to confiscate the ship," he said.

The head of the Navy command overseeing the Java Sea and parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra, Commodore Jurianto, also confirmed that his office, which is a member of the national committee, had issued the necessary permits to PT PPS and Cosmix to recover the sunken treasure.

"As far as the permits are concerned, the ship obtained all of the documents," Jurianto said.

After a month-long survey of the area, PT PPS was convinced a huge treasure lay on the ocean's floor about 70 miles off the Cirebon coast. The company applied for a salvage permit in January 2004 to the National Committee on Sunken Treasures, which comprises 11 different government agencies and is chaired by the maritime affairs and fisheries minister.

In addition to officials from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the committee also includes officials from the Education Ministry, the Navy, the Transportation Ministry, the Tourism and Culture Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Trade Ministry.

Under a 2000 presidential decree on sunken treasure, the committee assesses all companies applying for permits to recover sunken treasure. It then issues a recommendation to the maritime affairs minister, who then decides whether to issue a permit.

"Each body (on the committee) required PT PPS to complete technical assessments having to do with that body's area of expertise, such as whether the salvage operation would harm the environment or if the ship was capable of carrying out the project," Hasyim said.

The National Police and the Attorney General's Office are not represented on the committee.

The committee issued a recommendation Feb. 16, 2004, stating that PT PPS had satisfied all requirements, and the maritime affairs minister issued the company a salvage permit Feb. 19.

PT PPS, which hired several foreign experts for the operation, began work off the coast of Cirebon in April 2004, and in October 2005 announced the end of its operation.

In total, the company recovered over 490,000 pieces of ceramic, gold coins, glassware and other materials dating back to China's fifth dynasty. The items were reportedly lost when in the 10th century a ship sank while sailing from the capital of Sriwijaya Kingdom (now Palembang, South Sumatra) to Singosari in what is now East Java.

Of the items recovered, it was determined 76,000 of the pieces could be restored and sold at auction. All of the materials were placed in a warehouse in Tangerang and a safe-deposit box with Bank Mandiri.

In October 2005, representatives of Christie's auction house visited the warehouse and agreed to organize an auction of the materials in Amsterdam in December this year. Experts estimated the total value of the pieces could reach US$40 million.

Despite having the proper permits, police confiscated the materials and the ship in January. Earlier this month they arrested a German citizen, identified as Fred Dobberphul, and a French citizen, identified as Jean-Paul Blancan, for "involvement in an illegal salvage operation".

"We are investigating them for illegally salvaging protected natural resources. They have violated the 1990 law on the conservation of natural resources. We have confiscated all of the materials recovered from the sea," National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said.

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry has sent a letter to the police asking them to halt the investigation and release the salvaged items and the detained foreign nationals. In the letter, the ministry says the salvage operation was legal and the recovered materials belong to the state.

However, National Police chief Gen. Sutanto said the investigation would continue unless the Attorney General's Office ordered its halt.

"We are still waiting for an interdepartmental solution. We hope this will be settled soon because we are worried the value of the salvaged items could drop," Hasyim said.

WOODS HOLE -- Last summer, Hanumant Singh went on a 13-day Aegean Sea cruise -- but he wasn't vacationing. With a team of American and Greek scientists, Singh was launching a swimming robot 250 feet underwater to photograph an ancient Greek shipwreck.

Or, to put it another way, he was dropping $250,000 and five years of his life into hundreds of feet of rolling waves -- over and over again.

''There's no cable, there's no person. You throw it over the side; you pray it comes back," said Singh, 39. ''If it gets lost, you're having a really bad day. You hope that never happens to you."

So far, luck -- and skill -- have been on his side. Singh's unmanned submersibles -- sleek, light, relatively inexpensive vehicles that fly untethered deep underwater -- have brought loads of information safely back to their mother ship.

With deep-water dives and lightning-quick documentation, the latest-generation vehicles are helping transform underwater archeology: They survey large sites in just two days and dive far deeper than almost all human divers -- meaning they can study many more sites and more archaeologists can analyze the data.

But Singh's good luck may have been in the stars long before he was even born. The monkey god at whose temple Singh's mother made a wish probably wouldn't have it any other way.

''My mom went to the temple because she had two daughters and she wanted a son," said Singh, recounting her trip almost 40 years ago to a holy place in his hometown of Allahabad, in northern India. ''She said, 'If you give me a son I'll name him after you.' " And that's how came he to be named Hanumant, after the monkey god Hanuman in the Hindu pantheon.

Singh came to the United States for college, attending George Mason University, and after his junior year he went to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for a summer internship; he never looked back. He did his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering and his postdoctoral work at Woods Hole as well. He is now on staff. ''Typical academic incest," he joked.

Maybe, but that doesn't mean he hasn't proved his worth. In a small lab next door to the workshop where Alvin, the submersible that explored the Titanic, is being refurbished, Singh and his team are now integrating new sensors and adding other capabilities to the yellow Seabed submersible -- the one from the Greek trip -- for another year of expeditions.

Singh's specialty is underwater imaging, which means he develops programs to deal with light's inability to travel well underwater. Singh's programs make the pictures Seabed takes true color and then stitch thousands of close-up shots of Greek amphorae or a dead whale carcass into one vivid photo.

Scientists in diverse fields are taking advantage of this amazing technology, as well as Seabed's other abilities. In May, Singh is collaborating with biologists off Newport, Oregon, to study the state of fisheries there; In June, he's going back to Greece for more archaeological work.

But walking with him recently from the village of Woods Hole back to his office, Singh's thoughts jump to what may be his most thrilling expedition to date: In October, he will take his two new submersibles, Jaguar and Puma, to the Arctic for an expedition on an icebreaker ship. The vehicles will travel under the ice for engineering tests to prepare for 2007's mission: searching for hydrothermal vents -- the strange worlds where odd life forms live off chemicals, not sunlight -- at the bottom of the Arctic's icy waters.

No one has ever photographed a hydrothermal vent in the deep Arctic before, and no manned vehicle can search there because exploring under the ice is too dangerous.

So how does it feel to be the person building the submersible that makes such a pioneering journey?

''Scary and cool," said Singh. ''The chances of screwing up are really high, but if we find them and actually get some samples back -- life in its most primitive form that has been evolving independently for 60 million years -- it might be completely different from anything we know."

FACT SHEET
Home: Born in Allahabad, India. Now lives three miles from the village of Woods Hole in Falmouth.

Family: Wife Sandipa is a research engineer at WHOI and studies underwater communications. The couple has a son, Kurran, 9, and a daughter, Shefali, 5.

Hobbies: Team marathons. He and his students form the team ''Deep Dudes" and run the Cape Cod Marathon Relay; they won the relay division in 2001, 2002, and 2003. ''It teaches teamwork," Singh said. ''Also, we're running as a relay and we're really good and you've still got individual people who beat our time. It's a lesson in humility." He also kite surfs and windsurfs and has a snowboard in his office. ''I took it up when my son began skiing."

Alternate career: Philosopher. ''I almost finished my degree in philosophy. I still have all these books."

A high-profile ocean researcher who helped find a series of famous shipwrecks is set to end his 15-year tenure as head of the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

Jim Delgado said yesterday that he “could not turn down” the chance to join the U.S.-headquartered Institute of Nautical Archaeology as executive director. He will take up the new position June 30, having delayed his departure to help his old employer find a suitable replacement.

“Because the museum is at a crossroads this is the perfect time,” he said in a telephone interview last night. “It'll give them a chance to find a new CEO.”

Dr. Delgado described the new position as a dream come true that allows him to return to his roots as an underwater archeologist.

“You always wish that you could do more,” he said. “[But] when you get an offer like this, how can you say no?”

The INA is dedicated to using nautical archaeology to decipher the history of humanity's interaction with the sea. As head of the not-for-profit, Dr. Delgado will become something of an ambassador for the organization, working to raise awareness and funds while also digging up new projects.

The new role will allow Dr. Delgado to remain a resident of British Columbia but will require extensive travel. As a result he may have to give up some of his many commitments, which have included writing a newspaper column and helping host a popular now-finished television show called The Sea Hunters, on which he appeared with bestselling author Clive Cussler.

Dr. Delgado recalled his tenure at the museum as a time of wonderful opportunity. He said he would remember fondly “the scholars who slowly exhale in wonder ... the tourists who gain a better sense of how and why this community is linked to the sea.”

The Vancouver Maritime Museum says that, during Dr. Delgado's time in charge, it changed from a quiet, local museum into an internationally renowned institution. They are now planning to build a National Maritime Centre in North Vancouver.

The researcher has also played a role in the discovery and exploration of historically important ships including the Titanic, the Mary Celeste, the lost fleet of Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan and the Somers, the ship whose story inspired Herman Melville's Billy Budd.

Dr. Delgado is a Fellow of both the Royal Geographic Society and the Explorers Club and the author of nearly thirty books. Lost Warships: An Archaeological Tour of War at Sea and Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage both became international best-sellers.

Archaeologists are in deep water looking for secrets from our past.
Some clues to the everyday life of ancient people lie on the ocean floor, and Brendan Foley is trying to get a better look at them. Foley is an underwater archaeologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He says land-based archaeology often focuses on luxury items from ancient civilizations - things like artwork and jewels that were left behind in tombs and monuments. But he says the study of shipwrecks can reveal the everyday items of ancient commerce.

Foley says about 20 percent of all shipwrecks lie in the deep sea. They're well beyond the reach of SCUBA divers and typical excavation equipment. But new kinds of sonar and underwater robots are helping Foley probe these deep waters. He says the new technology might lead to discoveries that would change our understanding of human history.

Of particular interest are deep pockets at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea where the water is high in salt and low in oxygen. Foley says finding a ship in one of these briny pockets of water would be an astonishing discovery.

That's Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

_________________________________________________________________

CNN
March 20, 2006


TULUM, Mexico -- The ancient Mayan people once believed that Mexico's jungle sinkholes containing crystalline waters were the gateway to the underworld and the lair of a surly rain god who had to be appeased with human sacrifices.

Now, the "cenotes", deep sinkholes in limestone that have pools at the bottom, are yielding scientific discoveries including possible life-saving cancer treatments.

Divers are dipping into the cenotes, which stud the Yucatan peninsula, to explore a vast underground river system.

Hefting air tanks, guidelines and waterproof lamps, they have so far mapped 650 kilometers (405 miles) of channels that form part of a huge subterranean river delta flowing into the Caribbean sea, and they are only just starting.

Scientists investigating the network of caverns and galleries, formed by rainwater passing through porous limestone, have found a wealth of archaeological relics and prehistoric animal bones.

They also have identified dozens of new aquatic species specially adapted to the extreme environmental conditions which could have medical applications.

In the Riviera Maya, a strip of Caribbean tourist resorts including the world-famous archaeological site of Tulum, there are more than 500 cenotes. Some are open to the jungle, while others have tiny eye-like holes letting in sunlight and jungle roots.

Their waters have filtered through sponge-like limestone which leaves them so transparent that divers say they feel like they are floating in space. The pools range in depth from a few feet (a meter) to an abyss where explorers have still not touched bottom at over 500 feet (150 m.)

"It is proving to be a totally unique environment," said marine biologist Tom Iliffe of Texas A&M University. "We are finding things down there including forms of life that no one had ever guessed existed, and there is a lot more work to be done."

Blind fish and mammoths
The Yucatan sits on a limestone plateau where rainwater percolates down to nonporous rock below ground. Over millions of years, underground river systems have formed that flow out to the sea through caves.

The region's 7,000 to 8,000 cenotes were formed when caves collapsed in on themselves. The resulting sinkholes became a vital water source and a focus for Mayan sacrifices to honor Chac, the volatile, crocodile-like rain deity.

In recent years, biologists delving into the underlying river systems, which unlike the sinkholes are jet-black because of the lack of sunlight, have identified 40 entirely new species, mostly blind shrimps and fish which have adapted to life in the system's harsh conditions, where dissolved oxygen and food are scarce.

Among the startling discoveries are microorganisms that live in the transitional zone where the fresh water rivers flow out into the Caribbean, and salt-water sponges which may contain anti-tumor compounds.

"Research is at an early stage, but it is quite possible that the bacteria and sponges may have potential biomedical applications including cures for cancer," Iliffe told Reuters in a telephone interview. "There is a great deal of scientific excitement about it."

Other finds made by divers roaming the deep, dark corridors include the bones of giant jungle sloths, rabbits and even mammoths dating back beyond the last ice age.

"When you come up and tell people there are elephants down there they really think you've gone crazy," said Sam Meacham, an underwater explorer and conservationist.

Threatened by development
In the past three decades the population of the Riviera Maya has soared 10-fold to close to 1 million people as tourists from the United States, Europe and Mexico flock to the palm-fringed strip to soak up the sun.

Environmentalists say that the explosive development has been only patchily regulated and warn that waste produced by resort hotels and service towns in the area is already polluting the complex underground oasis.

"It's totally the Wild West, when what is needed is carefully planned, sustainable development," said Meacham, who runs the Quintana Roo Water Systems Research Center, a local non-profit group that raises consciousness about water issues in schools.

Water conservation will be a key issue when ministers, hydrologists and environmentalists from around the world meet at the World Water Forum in Mexico City from March 16-22.

Meacham says human sewage is pumped deep underground, and that at least one water system in the Yucatan has been polluted with fecal matter. The impact of 250 tonnes of trash dumped in landfills each day has yet to be evaluated.

The hundreds of tourists who dive and snorkel each day in any of a dozen cenotes and caves open to the public are also unwittingly destroying the ecosystems before they can be properly understood, Iliffe says.

"Fish are following the divers into the caves and they gobble up all the life, and they (the caves) are left biologically sterile," he said.

"When you consider that they could possibly lead to a cure for cancer, it is essential to conserve them."

_________________________________________________________________

The Jakarta Post
By Abdul Khalik
March 20, 2006


During the last 20 years, there have been dozens of legal and illegal salvage operations to recover ancient treasures from shipwrecks in Indonesian waters.

Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of pieces of ancient ceramics, gold coins and glassware, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, have been removed from the country's seas.

With so much money being made by the treasure hunters, Indonesia has officially only received Rp 26.7 billion (US$2.9 million) for what should be a state asset.

"We handed over around Rp 27 billion to the Finance Ministry recently. We hope we can give more to the state in the future," said Ali Supardan, a senior official at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

The first major discovery of an ancient shipwreck occurred in 1985, when an expedition of foreign and local companies found thousands of pieces of ancient ceramic in the sea near the Heliputan islands in Riau.

Experts estimated the items were worth at least US$17.5 million. However, the state received nothing from the find when the recovered items were shipped overseas and sold at auction.

In 1999, another salvage project involving local and foreign companies recovered thousands of ancient ceramic pieces in the Gelasa Strait near the Bangka-Belitung islands in Sumatra. The government received less than $300,000 from this discovery, despite estimates that the treasure was worth millions of dollars.

A 1992 presidential decree stipulates the proceeds from any treasures recovered from Indonesian waters will be evenly split by the state and the salvage company or companies.

One senior government official, who asked not to be identified, said salvage companies preferred to bribe the necessary officials rather than pay the state.

"If a salvage company knows it will get millions of dollars from a sunken ship, it will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars bribing high-ranking officials to avoid paying the state," he told The Jakarta Post.

In 1998, German treasure hunter Tilman Walterfang found over 60,000 pieces of ancient Chinese ceramic dating to between the 7th and 10th centuries, near the Bangka-Belitung islands.

The discovery was praised as one of the most important ever in Asia, as it helped archeologists understand the ancient trade route known as the "Silk Road of the sea".

While the recovered materials were valued at about $80 million, Walterfang ended up paying Indonesia only $2.5 million in cash plus a number of unsold pieces.

To avoid paying the state its share of the treasure, Walterfang, who was reportedly financed by Matthias Dragger, a wealthy heir to Germany's Dragger family fortune, and his affluent brother-in-law Hans Michael Jebsen, director and co-owner of Jebsen & Co., a leading Hong Kong-based trading company, allegedly bribed several high-ranking officials in the Defense Ministry and the Navy.

German publication Der Spiegel, in its Jan. 30, 2006, edition, reported that Walterfang sold most of the ceramic pieces to the Singapore government in 2005 for $32 million, while taking recovered gold pieces to Germany and a large part of the remaining ceramics to New Zealand.

"We are still investigating the case. Unfortunately, all of the ship's crew, including the German, has left Indonesia. We are trying to trace him to find out why the state received so little," a police officer close to the investigation told the Post.

_________________________________________________________________

The Miami Herald
By Daniel Chang
March 20, 2006

departure on April 10, 1912. View more photos

A leather pouch, a porthole cover, a porcelain sprinkling can -- unremarkable items, except for the stories they tell of the more than 1,500 people who died aboard the most famous shipwreck in history, the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Beginning Saturday, the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium will showcase these and more than 200 other artifacts salvaged from 12,500 feet below the North Atlantic, where the Titanic struck an iceberg, broke into pieces and sank on the calm night of April 14, 1912.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, produced by Atlanta-based RMS Titanic Inc., which has exclusive salvage rights to the wreckage, aims to tell the whole story of the lavish vessel -- from its construction in a Belfast shipyard, to its acclaim as the world's greatest (and unsinkable) luxury liner, to its doomed maiden voyage.

But while the story of the Titanic is ultimately a tragedy, Museum of Science leaders hope the exhibition foreshadows a bright future for the 50-year-old institution, which plans to build a $275 million science museum and aquarium on the waterfront at Bicentennial Park.

Titanic is the museum's first ''blockbuster'' exhibition and ''It really is a stepping stone on the way to a new museum,'' says Gillian Thomas, president and CEO.

The future Museum of Science, which has yet to be designed, will have more exhibition space and more amenities, such as an aquarium and an interactive science park and wildlife center.

With more activities and more gallery space, the Museum of Science will need to sell more tickets and its exhibits will need to resonate with broader audiences.

Part of Thomas' strategy is to host more ''major exhibitions'' that blend science and popular interests, she says. In the fall, the museum will host the U.S. debut of Science of Aliens, an exhibit on extraterrestrial life currently showing at London's Science Museum.

The museum's vice president of finance, Nancy McKee, says she ''would love to see 400,000 people come through here'' during Titanic's six-month run -- about double the museum's usual attendance between March and October.

PRICE INCREASE
With higher expectations come higher ticket prices. For Titanic, the museum will charge $19.50 for tickets -- nearly double its usual $10 admission fee, which McKee says will likely not return once Titanic pulls up anchor.

''Our prices are still below a lot of the other attractions,'' she says, ``less than Parrot Jungle [$24.95 for adults and $19.95 for children], [Miami] Seaquarium [$27.95 for adults and $21.95 for children] and King Tut [$25 for adults and $14 for children on weekdays].

``We spent years at the same price level and it was time to move forward.''

For about twice the price of a movie ticket, Titanic audiences will be immersed in a virtual environment enhanced by dramatic lighting, theatrical sets and interactive exhibits, says John Zaller, who designed the show.

TITANIC LIFE
''We've created a series of moods within our galleries that sort of bring to life the time and the story of the Titanic,'' Zaller says.

Despite the exhibit's liberal use of theatrical elements, Thomas emphasizes that there is ''a lot of interesting science'' behind the recovery and conservation of Titanic artifacts.

Arnie Geller, president and CEO of Premier Exhibitions, which produced Titanic, says teams of divers, scientists, historians and others have collaborated for years on the recovery and conservation of the artifacts.

The wreck site, about 450 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast, is 12,500 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic, Geller says, where the pressure is 6,000 pounds per square inch.

Divers from RMS Titanic, Inc. first plumbed those depths in summer 1987 and have returned six times since -- the last in 2004. Each of the company's expeditions takes 35 to 45 days, Geller says, during which teams of divers descend about 20 times a day using small, submarine-like vessels.

INTRICATE PROCESS
It takes more than two hours to reach the wreck site, Geller says, and each dive lasts 12 to 15 hours. Divers use remote-controlled cameras and other devices to search the wreck and retrieve artifacts from the site, which stretches ''literally for miles'' across the ocean floor, Geller says.

To date, divers have retrieved more than 5,500 artifacts. The largest is a 20-ton section of the ship's hull and the smallest is a child's marble, found inside a hand basket.

In between are items such as a third-class cabin porthole cover, a diamond-studded bracelet, a watertight door shaft, perfume vials and a steering wheel stand.

With so many artifacts, Premier Exhibitions usually has multiple shows going -- Titanic exhibits are also in Las Vegas, Long Beach (Calif.), Oshkosh (Wis.), St. Louis and Athens, Greece.

Zaller says he designed the Miami exhibition to resonate with South Florida's immigrant roots and its class disparities, as well as to emphasize historic connections between the Titanic, its passengers and Florida.

LOCAL LINKS
One local connection exists between John Jacob Astor IV, who reportedly was the wealthiest man aboard the Titanic, and his son, John Jacob Astor V, who lived in Palm Beach and founded the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain, Zaller says.

''We're also telling the story of Miami,'' Zaller says, ``how it was in 1912 and how the city of Miami reacted to the news of the sinking of the Titanic.''

Among the roughly 2,200 Titanic passengers were many immigrants seeking a new life in America -- a fact Zoller hopes will resonate. ''Miami is certainly a port of entry for lots of new Americans,'' he says. ``The story of immigration and the American Dream still continues.''

And then there's the disparate treatment afforded to the Titanic's first-class passengers, who were pampered into a stupor, and its third-class clientele, who were given only two bathtubs to share among more than 700 people.

''There's some jewelry worn by the ladies of first class [that will be exhibited],'' Zaller says. ``Those pieces sort of speak to the opulent side of Miami. There are connections on both sides.

``This also helps to tell the story of the very distinct class separation that was so much a part of the time when Titanic was built and sailed and also was a lot of the reason why there were less people who were lost in first class than there were in third class.''

In Titanic, Zaller sees stories that ``we all can relate to. It has heroes and it has villains. It has victims. It has thousands of people who are contained in this vessel and each one of them with hundreds of stories.

''That's not unlike our lives,'' he says.