Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum, started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and set sail in 2005

A replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II, built by the 360 Degree Historical Research Association in Urla, İzmir, arrived in Bodrum on Monday for display as part of activities marking the 80th anniversary of Cabotage Day.

Previously the ship had anchored in Istanbul, Marmaris, Cyprus and Kaş readying for the Cabotage Day celebrations, a maritime festival that commemorates the establishment of Turkey's sea borders and celebrated annually on July 1, reported the Anatolia news agency.

The Uluburun II, which is on display in Bodrum and sponsored by the Bodrum Peninsula Promotion Foundation started to be built in 2004 using late Bronze Age techniques and was launched in 2005.

A photography exhibition featuring images from the ship's voyages opened at the Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum accompanied by a documentary screening.

Celebrations held at Bodrum Castle for the arrival of Uluburun II were attended by Muğla Governor Temel Koçaklar, Bodrum official Abdullah Kalkan and Bodrum Mayor Abdullah Kalkan.

Following a one-month stay in Bodrum, the ship will set sail for Greece's İstanköy and Kilimli islands, aiming to promote Turkey and its underwater archeological wealth.

Archaeologist Osman Erkurt, who is also the ship's captain, said: “Our main difficulty is finding sponsors for voyages. Sometimes we only had YTL 10 when we set sail.”

The Uluburun sank in the 14th century 8.5 kilometers southeast of Kaş in Uluburun Bay while carrying copper and tin from Alexandria to Crete. It was discovered in 1982 by a diver.

The remains of the shipwreck were unearthed by an excavation team consisting of archaeologists and divers and the process has lasted over 20 years.

Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the 3,300-year-old Uluburun took its place in history as the oldest commercial vessel while the artifacts -- including a 3,300-year-old seal believed to belong to Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, a huge amphora and jewelry -- excavated from the shipwreck excited science and archeology circles.

The artifacts discovered in the Uluburun shipwreck are still on display at the Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum.

June 22, 2006


Phuket will not allow a private marine-supply company to salvage two British "human torpedoes" sunk during World War II from their resting place at the bottom of the ocean.

The small navy vessels have been there for more than six decades, and Phuket Governor Udomsak Asavarangura insists they will stay there, having discussed their future with the British Navy.

Udomsak said he had received a letter from the British ambassador asking the province to suppress any operations by East Marine SBS, who in April requested permission to salvage the "torpedoes", or Chariots, as they were known, which are believed to belong to Britain's Royal Navy.

Chariots, secret naval weapons commissioned during World War II, were electrically propelled mini-submarines that carried two crewmen, who sat astride the vessel. They steered it at slow speed towards an enemy ship, attached a mine to the ship, then rode the "torpedo" away. The Chariot was carried by another vessel, generally a manned submarine, and launched near the target.

Udomsak said the letter suggested the British Navy had no intention of allowing the private company to do anything with the sunken vessels.

He said the navy was concerned the "human torpedoes" might be damaged during the salvage process, transportation or when they were inevitably put on display.

"It prefers scuba divers to see the vessels on the sea floor," the governor said.

The letter also said that according to international law, sunken warships remain the property of the owner government.

The governor said the British government had the authority to stop their salvage.

"We also consulted with military diplomats, who said traditionally the British government did not recover sunken warships," Udomsak said.

These particular Chariots were sunk in action near Dok Mai Island. Records suggest the British submarine Trenchant carried two Mk-2 Chariots for a mission in Phuket harbour on October 27 and 28, 1944.

Udomsak said Phuket planned to develop the area where the two vessels are lying as a recreational dive spot.

ROGERS TOWNSHIP, Mich. - An archaeologist and some students are examining a shipwreck about 200 feet from the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse on Lake Huron to see whether they can confirm it is the Joseph S. Fay.

For years, historical accounts have attached the name to the wreck and there is little doubt that the section of ship on the beach is a portion of the wooden steamer, The Alpena News reported Friday.

"I guess I came into this looking at it as an unknown object," said Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary Archaeologist Wayne Lusardi. "Is it a shipwreck? ... Can it be identified as the Fay or another ship?"

The Fay, which was built in 1871, broke apart near the lighthouse in 1905.

About 130 feet of wreckage consisting of weather-worn lumber and large metal fasteners lies on the beach in Presque Isle County. More of the wreckage is located just offshore in about 15 feet of water.

"We've been exposing the different layers," said University of Michigan graduate Beth Dykstra, a summer intern with the marine sanctuary.

The dimensions of the ship's hold are consistent with the Fay, Lusardi said. In addition to Dykstra, two current University of Michigan students and a Michigan State University student are assisting.

Information from the excavation may be incorporated into the Joseph S. Fay exhibit at the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse.

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Cape Gazette
By Henry J. Evans Jr.
June 23, 2006


Researchers are closing in on the name of a merchant ship that wrecked within sight of Lewes Beach in the mid-1700s, and this summer divers will continue searching for relics and unraveling the vessel’s past.

The shipwreck is the source of thousands of artifact fragments that washed onto the beach in late 2004. A dredge working on a beach replenishment project struck the wreck as it pumped sand onto the beach.

Dan Griffith, director of the Lewes Maritime Archaeological Project, said a London-based researcher thinks the wreck could be one of two British merchant vessels – the Commerce or the Severen.

He said the date of the shipwreck has been “fine-tuned” to between 1770 and 1775. “That’s about as close as you can get in archaeology,” Griffith said on Tuesday, June 20.

He said they plan to send divers down in August to continue examination of the shipwreck and to recover more artifacts.

Griffith said a researcher in Britain skilled in using insurance company records of shipwrecks, which includes detailed lists of cargo, is working to match cargo with known lost ships to identify the vessel.

A variety of shipwreck artifacts have been reconstructed and analyzed by archaeologists, including china, mineral water bottles, various colored-glass storage containers, military-themed metal miniatures and tobacco pipes.

Griffith said final paperwork to provide the project with a $300,000 U.S. Department of Transportation grant is being processed. He said the money would be used to pay for the dive operation.

He said the project is applying for permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to conduct the dive operation. Griffith said the Department of Transportation grant was approved last month.

“We plan to focus our attention away from the dredged site and off the bow, about amidships, where the mess area and the crew holds would be. We want to see if there’s a different range of cargo in those areas,” Griffith said.

He said depending on weather they plan to have divers work at the wreck site for 30 days. Divers last spring spent 11 days surveying the shipwreck and recovering artifacts, which included two millstones. Griffith said the millstones had never been used, prompting researchers to look through Philadelphia newspapers around the time of the shipwreck looking for businesses advertising ‘new millstones arriving soon.’

Griffith said a $200,000 grant the project received from the state is being used to support research and laboratory operations.

He said many archaeological-dive research companies would probably bid on this summer’s dive job, but with only about eight of them, and possibly two universities, are likely to be final candidates.

Griffith said last year’s dive contractor, Dolan Research based in Newtown Square, Pa., would probably be among the bidding companies.

“They do have experience at the site,” he said.

Griffith said with boating season underway the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs is again notifying the public that access to the shipwreck area near the Roosevelt Inlet is restricted.

Anyone who conducts unauthorized excavating, collecting, destruction or altering of archaeological resources or artifacts in the area is subject to civil penalties of up to $20,000, 30 days imprisonment and confiscation of equipment including boats and cars.

Griffith said the restricted area is monitored by law enforcement agencies including Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Division of Fish and Wildlife officers and the Lewes Police Department.

For additional information on the restricted area, call the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs at 736-7400.


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Archaeologists are to investigate a wreck reported to be that of a German warship previously said to have been salvaged and scrapped.

Records claim the V81, which was at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was raised in 1937 after foundering off the Caithness coast 85 years ago.

However, members of Caithness Diving Club said it was still on the seabed.

Archaeologist Simon Davidson, of Nottingham University, said: "It's a wreck that shouldn't be there."

The suspected wreck of the World War I destroyer is one of 12, dating from 1890 to 1942, which will be examined by a team from Nottingham University's underwater archaeology research centre.

They intend to work closely with Caithness Diving Club.

Mr Davidson said information on the fate of the V81 was "cloudy".

The destroyer was part of the German High Seas Fleet which fought the Royal Navy in the Battle of Jutland, off Denmark's coast.

Some 8,648 British and German sailors lost their lives in one day's fighting on 31 May into 1 June 1916.

In 1919, the vessel and 73 other German warships were scuttled in Scapa Flow, Orkney.

Many were later salvaged, including the V81 whose sister vessel the V83 remains submerged at Scapa Flow.

"The V81 had been beached, but was re-floated in 1921 and was being towed to Rosyth when it hit fog off the Caithness coast," said Mr Davidson.

"The tow was lost and V81 broke free and it ran aground just north of Sinclair Bay and there it lay for several years."

Mr Davidson said it was supposedly salvaged and taken away for scrap in 1937, but in 1985 divers reported to have found it wrecked on the seabed.

Archaeologists plan to officially verify the ship by comparing its measurements and any serial numbers with those on the V83.

David Steele, of Caithness Diving Club, said it was in shallow water in an area covered in kelp.

He said club members had dived the wreck in recent weeks.

The underwater research is one of seven archaeology projects running across Caithness this summer to investigate its Neolithic, Iron Age and war-time history.

Experts will investigate the area's ancient cairns, brochs, crannogs, castles and shipwrecks.


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Experts have expressed confidence that they can find the sunken wreck of the ship made famous by legendary Solway born sailor John Paul Jones next month.

The Bonhomme Richard went down in 1779 off Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire as Jones famously said: "Surrender - I have not yet begun to fight."

Several bids have been made to recover the ship captained by a man credited as the founding father of the US Navy.

Now underwater archaeology experts will use hi-tech methods to try to find it.

Dr Robert Neyland, head of the underwater archaeology unit at the US Navy Historical Centre, will head a team of six on a three-week search.

"We thought that one way to go about it would be to take the last historical information for locations of the fleet and the ship itself," he said.

"We put that together with the weather and tide information for that time period which have been recreated very well.

'Relatively deep'

"We then used modern computers to create a predictive model of where the ship went down," he added.

Dr Neyland is confident the wreck can be found despite the depth of waters involved.

"It is going to be in waters that are relatively deep - probably 150 to 200ft," he said.

"Divers are able to work in those waters - and archaeologists too."

Jones, a native of Arbigland on the Solway coast, engaged the British ship Serapis off Flamborough Head.

He captured Serapis but had to watch his own ship sink into the North Sea.

The battle on 23 September, 1779 is counted as one of the most memorable battles of the American Revolution.

SEOUL - A massive collection of 12th-century Korean pottery has been excavated from the sea floor on South Korea’s southwest coast where a reclamation project is underway, archaeologists said Tuesday.
The archaeologists from National Maritime Museum in Mokpo, South Cholla Province, said they have found 780 bluishgreen bowls and plates from the Koryo Kingdom (916~1392) near the maritime town of Kunsan, North Cholla Province.

The discovery was made some 200 meters on the inland side of an embankment newly built to hold back the sea water as part of an ongoing reclamation project to transform the tidal mud flats into land suitable for rice cultivation or construction sites.

The ancient celadon pieces were found at a depth of 7 meters and are assumed to be part of the remains of a shipwreck, they said. There were also piles of as many as 40 bowls stacked together, they said.

The bluish green earthenware, called Koryo Chongja in Korean, seemed to be produced for local authorities and middle-class households, rather than aristocrats, as they were made from lower-grade clays and subject to a rougher firing process, they said. Some were inlaid with lotus flower patterns.

The museum started the excavation in late April after people were reported to have illegally taken the ceramics from the area last year.

Archaeologists are concerned that the reclamation area around Kunsan, called Saemangeum, may be a vast reserve of ancient relics, as celadon pieces from the 11th to 13th century have been uncovered there in the past few years.

“The area needs archaeological surveys. There are a lot more cases of relics that resident fishermen have found and reported,” Park Ye-ree, a researcher with the national museum, said.

Many kilns were established in coastal areas on the Korean Peninsula in the Koryo era as the finished products had better access to the sea for transportation.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has a major plan for collecting data about shipwrecks that have taken place around India. However its plan will have to overcome a human resource problem — there are just four archaeologist-divers in the organisation.

Alok Tripathi, Superintending Archaeologist of ASI’s Underwater Archaeology Wing, is one of the four. He explains the paucity, saying, “Age is an important factor. If we get archaeologists, they are old and not keen on going into the sea.”

The archaeologist-diver, as the name suggests, must be both an archaeologist and a diver. “The person must not only be an archaeologist but also must be adventure loving, must be ready to be trained in diving and must be young,” says Tripathi.

Generally cultural remnants and shipwrecks are found in shallow waters around 40 metres under the sea. According to Tripathi, if the ship is covered and is at a good site, it is much better preserved than cultural heritage found on land.

The first stage in the work is collecting information. Tripathi says, “We plan to collect information regarding shipwrecks from the archival records and from field surveys all over the country to find out from the local people in coastal areas about shipwrecks”.

The five year old Underwater Archeology Wing of ASI had carried out an exploration and excavated Princess Royal, a 1792 European ship, in 2002 off the Bangaram island in Lakshadweep. It is now exploring other islands in the Lakshadweep chain.

The ASI estimates there are hundreds of ancient ports and shipwrecks dotting India’s coastline.

Royal Navy
June 19, 2006


The French Government’s decision to offer new legal protection to the final resting place of over 3,000 British servicemen who died when the HMT Lancastria was sunk in World War Two has today been welcomed by Veterans Minister Tom Watson.

The requisitioned Cunard liner was lending support to the war effort, helping to rescue members of the British Expeditionary Force from France, when she was attacked by enemy aircraft off St. Nazaire on 17 June 1940.

At the time she was carrying several thousand troops, RAF personnel and civilian refugees, who were being evacuated from France. The ship sank rapidly with heavy loss of life. So grievous was the disaster that news of the Lancastria's sinking was initially suppressed by the wartime Cabinet, fearful of the effect on the nation's morale.

Mr Watson said:

“The sinking of the HMT Lancastria was a national tragedy which resulted in thousands of men, women and children losing their lives. To recognise this we have been working closely with the French Government to establish new legal protections for the final resting place of these brave souls.

“Survivors, relatives and members of the Lancastria Association brought to our attention that diving on the wreck was proving intrusive and potentially damaging. I would like to thank them for this. However, as she lies in French territorial waters we had no legal powers available to us to protect the wreck.

“We immediately discussed our concerns with the French authorities and asked for their help preventing this. I am delighted they have responded so positively and that divers are no longer allowed to come in contact with the wreck. This will do much to preserve the sanctity of the ship’s remains and illustrates the importance both Governments attach to the protection of war graves, such as the HMT Lancastria.”

Personnel who served on the HMT Lancastria will be honoured, among others, when the first annual Veterans Day is held on 27 June.


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China Daily
By Wu Chong
June 17, 2006


YUXI, YUNNAN: Ten divers began a seven-day search for a possible underwater "Atlantis" on Friday in the Fuxian Lake near Kunming, the second-deepest freshwater pool in the country.

Local diver Geng Wei first told of a large ancient city in the lake eight years ago, thought to span 2.4 square kilometres. Geng claimed to have seen lots of square boulders more than 1.4 square metres in size, either piled or scattered deep underwater.

In 2001, the local government launched the first large exploration of the lake, which was broadcast live across the nation by China Central Television (CCTV).

A submarine was sent down and detected a 60-metre-long stone wall. Divers unearthed a shard of pottery embedded in the stone wall, which was found to date back to the Han Dynasty (104 BC-220 AD).

The evidence convinced Chinese archaeologists that there might be some constructions under the lake, possibly more than 1,800 years old.

This hypothesis was substantiated on Friday in the first dive, when Geng was videotaped finding three notches, each 1.2 metres long and 45 centimetres wide, on a moss-covered square slate.

The "IY"-shaped notches must have been artificial, and "support the idea that all the stones were once processed by humans," said Li Kunsheng, director of the Archaeology Research Centre of Yunnan University.

But Liu Qingzhu, director of the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, added: "We still have not enough information to verify that these slates made up a city. Even the shard and shell cannot represent the exact date of the rocks."

After Geng announced his discovery eight years ago, more claims were made of underwater finds in the lake, which boasts a water surface of 212 square kilometres and an average depth of 87 metres. They include a slate path, an arena-like building and a small pyramid.

However, Liu, who was present during two underwater excavations, said no pictures or evidence about the above "findings" had ever been provided by these people.

Despite this, experts have engaged in a prolonged debate over whether these slates are relics of a documented city that mysteriously disappeared.

The history books show that the city of Yuyuan to the north of the Fuxian Lake once existed, but it disappeared from records after the Southern and Northern Dynasties (AD 420-589).

Li said the lake is situated on an earthquake-intense belt, which might suggest that the underwater construction may have sunken in rising waves during a quake.

Dissenters argue that the stone structure is contrary to buildings of this era, which were made of bamboo, wood or mud.

Liu said that while all the answers to this underwater mystery will not be found in seven days, "we'll try to outline a layout map of what is beneath, and do more in the future."


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Two well-preserved 18th Century shipwrecks, found by a team of Bristol archaeologists in the Caribbean, could shed new light on life in the 1700s.

They were discovered in 2005 while the Bristol University team was trying to locate HMS Nymph, a warship which sank in the British Virgin Islands in 1783.

Marine archaeologists are to investigate the two sites and try once again to locate the Nymph.
They will use a robot to collect video data which will then be catalogued.

Initial investigations indicate that the first site is probably a vessel of 80-100 tons, built for trade, and originating in Bermuda or the Caribbean region.

'Time capsules'
The other ship appears to be a 250-ton vessel, also built for trade, and constructed along the eastern North American seaboard.

HMS Nymph was initially discovered in 1969 but its location has since been lost.

The team, led by Kimberly Monk of the university's department of archaeology and anthropology, will survey the sites with divers and remote sensing technology.

"These wrecks are fascinating time capsules providing a unique window into the past and we are delighted to have this phenomenal opportunity to document them," said Ms Monk.

"Unlike land-based archaeological sites, the nature of harbour environments has allowed for impressive organic preservation, enabling us to expand on existing knowledge in the areas of colonialism, warfare and 18th Century society."

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Eitb24
June 13, 2006

The Basques that settled 8,300 years ago in the Jaizkibel Mountain near the Basque coast were skillful enough to go fishing two kilometres out to sea.

The human beings that lived in the Basque Country in the Mesolithic, more than 8,000 years ago, set sail out to sea fishing, something which meant 50 percent of their diet, Aranzadi society of sciences reported Tuesday after examining archaeological remains found in Gipuzkoa.

They did not hunt whales, as their descendants many years after, neither tuna nor anchovy as the current Basque fishermen but the Basques that settled some 8,300 years ago between the Pasaia and Hondarribia coast, were skillful enough to set sail one or two kilometres out to sea to fish.

Moving from Paleolithic to Neolithic and immersed in climatic and cultural changes, men had no alternative but to search for new ways to get food and made their way out to sea, Alvaro Arrizabalaga, member of the Aranzadi Society of Sciences and Prehistory professor at the Basque Public University explains.

The remains discovered in Gipuzkoa show a man between 30 and 40 years old with a diet consisting on some species of fishes that are usually caught some kilometres far from the coast.

Other human remains found in some caves in the Spanish region of Asturias showed similar conclusions.


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Orlando Sentinel
June 14, 2006


An exhibition of original works documenting European exploration of the New World will open Friday at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach.

The Florida East Coast Pirates exhibition, which includes artifacts and treasures from the shipwreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha on loan from the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, will be at the museum through Aug. 27.

Featured will be ancient maps, interactive touch-screen computer stations, a cannon, a treasure chest and a weapons collection from the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Details: 386-255-0285.


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A Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport exhibit was recently announced as the winner of the 2006 Award of Exhibit Excellence from the Washington Museum Association (WMA) Awards of Excellence Committee. “Service and Sacrifice: The Trident Family,” was chosen over many other exhibits displayed throughout the state of Washington.

“The association gives this very prestigious award to one museum within the state of Washington and we are happy to receive it,” said Museum Director, Bill Galvani. “It is nice to win an award, but what really means a lot is the work weíve done to recognize trident-class submarine Sailors and their families has been effective.”

The Service and Sacrifice exhibit was a display which showed the experiences of the Sailors aboard submarines and their families while they are deployed. Various crews submitted items for display, including submarine warfare (SS) qualification sheets and a set of Navy-issue coveralls. Family members contributed pictures and a paper chain; which marked the days their loved ones were underway to the exhibit as well.

“The committee felt it was a worthy exhibit because of its content,” said WMA Awards and Scholarship Committee Chair, Lisa Hill-Festa. “It brought a humanistic element to the U.S. Navy as opposed to being just a technical display of a submarine. It was very informative and the public gets a better understanding of their (Sailors) lives as well as their families.”

This is the first time the museum has won the award. They submitted a package of the exhibit to the awards committee in Seattle, who selected the museum as the winner of this year’s competition.

“There are a lot of personal items in this exhibit that a museum wouldn’t normally have in their collection,” said Galvani. “It shows how important the support structure of the families and the servicemembers is. They are really one organization that is mutually supportive and most of the public has no idea about this.”

Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport will receive the award for the “Service and Sacrifice: The Trident Family” exhibit in a presentation held at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Thursday, June 23 and Friday, June 24.


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To help her along, she sailed with one of her last commanding officers and 11 serving RAN sailors.

Her voyage was only a few hundred metres but attracted the attention of several hundred maritime “buffs”, members of the Queensland Government and members of the public. Two Queensland Police launches even stood sentry.

Since 1980 the warship has been the prime exhibit at the Queensland Maritime Museum, situated on the southern bank of the Brisbane River.

She sat in an historic dry dock which, during WWII, was vital in the repair and maintenance of US submarines.

In recent years, however, the steel caisson holding out the river rusted through allowing water to enter the dock and raise and lower with each tide.

Adding to her problems was the development of a crack in a bilge compartment that saw water enter the hull.

Last September the Queensland Government provided $3.2 million for a contractor to remove the old caisson, take the ship out into the river, replace 70 keel blocks and once the ship was returned, install a coffer dam before building a concrete caisson. Queensland company J.F.Hull won the contract.

On May 10, it was time to return Diamantina to the dock.

Invitations had gone out to go aboard the ship for her final voyage.

Murray and Jean Ward of Mapleton eagerly accepted.

LCDR Murray Ward was her commanding officer from December 1966 until January 1969 and clearly remembers taking her to the Monte Bello atomic testing site in the Indian Ocean to allow scientists to take readings in the area.

“In those days we operated with six officers, 120 sailors and between eight and ten scientists,” LCDR Ward told Navy News.

Also invited were 11 sailors from the South Queensland naval district led by Senior Naval Officer, CMDR Bob Plath. It was their job to help secure the ship’s lines.

Also joining the ship was the Premier of Queensland Peter Beattie, his deputy and the local MP, Ms Anna Bligh, and the Minister for Public Works, Robert Schwarten, who had awarded the contract.

Ashore a large crane waited to lift the caisson into place while large pumps stood ready.

Just after 8am a pair of “pusher” and “puller” tugs took the strain and inched the warship away from the wharf and turned her about.

Originally, she was bow-in facing the bright red lightship Carpentaria.
This time she was to be bow out so that tourists using the South Bank walkway or passing Rivercats could see her finer lines.

As the old timer, built at Walkers shipyard in Maryborough and launched in April 1944, moved backwards into the dock a nostalgic Peter Grant, the president of the museum association remarked, “well…she’s making her final voyage”.

Ms Bligh said it was an honour to see the ship safely home after her first outing in a quarter of a century.

Within 24 hours of her return to the dock the steel cotter caisson was in place and the water pumped out.

Now the hull of the ship will be cleaned, inspected and painted.


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The explorer who discovered the Titanic's resting place is to undertake a search for ancient shipwrecks off the southern Greek island of Crete, the Greek foreign ministry said Thursday.

The search, by American oceanographer Robert Ballard, will be conducted in international waters, with the Greek culture ministry hoping to send a representative to observe operations, a ministry official said.

"Deep-sea research will be conducted in the area between Santorini and Crete, for the purpose of locating (ancient) Mediterranean sea trade routes, recording ancient shipwrecks etc," culture ministry general secretary Christos Zahopoulos told a news conference this week.

"The necessary steps are being taken so that the culture ministry can participate in this research," he said.

In 2002, the culture ministry's undersea antiquities department had cautioned the Greek authorities against collaborating with Ballard on another shipwreck project, according to a recent report in the Eleftherotypia daily.

"There is the risk of involvement in an operation...which could turn into a treasure hunt...concerning other ancient shipwrecks," department head Katerina Dellaporta wrote in a memo to the ministry, published by the newspaper.

"We are vigilant, but not worried," senior archaeologist Vivi Vassilopoulou, head of the Greek culture ministry's department of classical antiquities, told AFP.

"I don't think anyone will deny (Greece's) request (regarding observation)...as there is the possibility of an archaeology-related discovery that would demand the ministry's participation," she said.

According to the foreign ministry, Ballard's ship Endeavor will begin the expedition upon the completion of a separate geology project currently in progress near the Greek island of Santorini.


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Os arqueólogos estão de volta à ria de Aveiro, para novas prospecções, desta vez na zona da antiga lota de Aveiro, abrangida pelo programa Polis.

Depois de dada como concluída a exploração do canal de Mira, perto da ponte da Barra, onde foi recuperada uma parte de um navio do século XV e a respectiva carga, composta por centenas de peças de cerâmica intactas, as atenções dos especialistas do Centro Nacional de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (CNANS) viram-se, agora, para a zona da antiga lota, do lado de fora da eclusa.

Segundo Francisco Alves, da CNANS, trata-se de uma "prospecção prévia" e de carácter pontual, pelo menos para já, numa zona onde o programa Polis prevê uma intervenção profunda (a requalificação urbanística da antiga lota) e que pode ter" interesse arqueológico". O arqueólogo recorda que foi naquela área ("não muito longe dali") que foi encontrada, na década de 70 do século passado, uma vasta colecção de cerâmica e, mais tarde, um valioso astrolábio, uma bilha intacta com inscrições em cursivo do século XVI e um apito marítimo.

Além disso, ao longo dos anos "têm sido sinalizadas ali estruturas de madeira a sair do talude", refere Francisco Alves. Para o arqueólogo, esta prospecção prévia justifica-se antes que as obras previstas no âmbito do Programa Polis, que "vão emparedar" o que quer que ali exista.

Por outras palavras, "vamos tentar tirar dúvidas", diz Francisco Alves, recolher informação e fazer luz "sobre o "mito" de que aquela zona de cerâmicas, sinalizada já há vários anos, pode ter correspondência a um modelo semelhante ao que encontrámos na zona Ria de Aveiro A", onde foi recuperado o navio do século XV.

Para já, a intervenção tem uma duração prevista de duas semanas. Mas, "tudo depende do que for encontrado", explica Francisco Alves.

Quanto às prospecções junto da ponte da Barra, as sondagens efectuadas em 2003, na zona envolvente do casco do navio, não revelaram a presença de outras estruturas do barco. Pelo que estão "fechadas". "Terminado o tratamento dos destroços (ver caixa), vamos, agora, ultimar o tratamento (dessalinização) da carga".

A parte do casco do navio do século XV retirada, em 1999, das águas da ria de Aveiro, entretanto sujeita a estudo e trabalhos de conservação, constitui o núcleo central da exposição "Um mergulho na história", que vai estar patente ao público, a partir de hoje, às 18 horas, no Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, em Lisboa. A mostra inclui, também, peças de cerâmica, que faziam parte da carga.


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Pittsburgh Tribune Review
June 04, 2006


An aging schooner in San Francisco that has withstood a shipwreck and dry rot soon will be ready for its next mission: tourist attraction.

The 111-year-old sailing schooner C.A. Thayer has been rebuilt from the keel up. The project, which cost between $12 million and $15 million and has taken two years, is one of the largest and most complicated restoration jobs on a wooden vessel in U.S. history. The 219-foot Thayer will return to the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco this summer.

"She is almost like a new ship," says William Elliott, general manager of Bay Ship and Yacht Co., the contractor handling the restoration.

The Thayer is the last of roughly 200 wooden wind-powered schooners that hauled lumber on the West Coast. The Thayer carried some of the lumber that rebuilt San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. It was retired roughly a half-century ago and started to fail in the 1980s while it was being used to teach children about sailing.


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By James Woodford
June 04, 2006

BERMAGUI, Australia -- Underneath Samir Alhafith was the kind of inky blackness that astronauts talk of when they first see space.

Alhafith and three others were swimming last Saturday in the open ocean at a depth of 125 metres, more than 12 nautical miles off the South Coast town of Bermagui. It was, by just a few metres, the second deepest dive ever undertaken in NSW waters.

Each moment in such an environment is critical but even so Alhafith allowed himself time to look towards the watery ceiling far above.

There was a small, porthole-shaped shimmering light, the bluish colour of last twilight. It was the midday sun filtered through a city-block's worth of seawater.

With an ocean on his shoulders, the less pressing of Alhafith's worries included being in the middle of a mako shark feeding ground, a known haunt for great whites, and the possibility of his support crew on the surface being hit by a southerly buster.

The real worry was the limit of human physiology. Within six minutes of free-falling from the surface, the divers' bodies were experiencing atmospheric pressures nearly 13 times greater than on the surface. Such a force turns air into a deadly and narcotic poison, making the body a laboratory of extreme chemistry.

Alhafith, Michael Kalman, Mark Eaves and Tony Keen, all Sydneysiders with regular jobs, were descending onto a giant freighter no person had seen since February 8, 1943. On that terrible day, the Iron Knight was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The ship was one of 16 vessels destroyed by Japanese submarines off the NSW coast during World War II. Only three of these have been found.

What makes the Iron Knight so significant is that it was the victim of one of the most infamous Japanese subs - the massive I-21, which also launched a float plane over Sydney during the midget submarine attack in 1942 and shelled Newcastle.

The four men belong to a group called the Sydney Project, which is dedicated to finding shipwrecks in deep water. So far they have made five highly significant discoveries. It was on another ship, also torpedoed by the Japanese off Bermagui, the William Dawes, that they logged the deepest dive in NSW - 135 metres.

Reaching such depths without a submersible is a highly technical achievement, involving careful calculations to determine how the human body and air interact under immense pressure. Such deep sea exploration is called technical diving and involves the use of special equipment and training.

Perhaps the most important item is the rebreather, which enables air to be recycled by scrubbing out exhaled carbon dioxide. Unlike regular scuba dive gear, rebreathers mean no bubbles are produced. Because oxygen and nitrogen become deadly at depth, the diver's tanks contain 75 per cent helium.

Theoretically there is no limit to how deep a person can swim if they adjust their gases and keep their rebreathers functioning. Practically, however, the biggest hurdle is decompression. A recreational diver spending an hour at 30 metres can get away with a five-minute stop at five metres to ensure any dangerous bubbles are dissolved in the blood stream. But after 15 minutes at 120 metres a diver needs to spend more than four hours decompressing.

There is no quick escape if something goes wrong - panic and make a rush to the surface from such a deep dive and your blood will fizz like a shaken soft drink with its lid popped.

Every minute beyond the calculated 15 Alhafith and his team might spend on the bottom would result in an additional hour of decompression. Considering the divers were already forced to while away the best part of half a day suspended in the open ocean, they kept strictly to their schedule. The entire time the divers were submerged the support crew bobbed exposed on the surface praying for good weather to hold. More than once, Alhafith has departed in millpond conditions and returned to the surface to find three-metre seas.

The rough location of the Iron Knight has never been a mystery. As David Jenkins wrote in his 1992 book detailing the Japanese submarine warfare against Australia between 1942 and 1944, Battle Surface: "Early on the morning of February 8, I-21 sank the BHP steamer Iron Knight (4812 tons), which was in a convoy of 10 ships 21 miles from Montague Island. The ship, which was carrying a cargo of iron ore from Whyalla to Newcastle, sank within two minutes, with the loss of 36 lives of her complement of 50. The merchant ships were being escorted by the corvettes, HMAS Townsville, which was on the starboard side of the convoy, and HMAS Mildura, which was to port. [Captain] Matsumura's torpedo passed directly under the 650-ton Townsville."

The ship might never have been found except that she fell onto sand in the middle of one of Australia's most economically important fisheries - the south-east trawl. It has probably been snagging nets for decades. But it was a Bermagui skipper known as Rocco "Rocky" Lagana who recorded the torpedoed ship's exact location. Both his father and uncle snagged nets on the sunken ship and warned Rocky to keep away from it.

"It comes up five fathoms from the bottom on a depth sounder - it really marks solid," Rocky says. "I knew she was a good one."

Lagana passed the information onto local fishing charter operator, Keith Appleby, who searched the spot with his sounder.

"I can vouch for a few fishermen who have lost nets there over the last 35 years," Appleby says.

Last Saturday the dive expedition departed Bermagui. Once over the site a shot line was dropped to the bottom, aimed to land just to the side of the targeted spot. Attached to that line were two shark pods, emitting an electric pulse with a range of 15 metres, designed to keep man-eaters at bay while the divers decompressed. Also connected to the line were two extra cylinders of air - one a nitrogen/oxygen mix and a second, pure oxygen.

As a back-up, on board was a second decompression line, identical to the first. In the event one of the divers got separated from the rest of the team, he could send up an inflatable buoy and a message requesting the emergency line be sent down.

Facing the prospect of hours in 14 degree water, the divers donned dry suits and spent about 10 minutes five metres below the surface, where they did a last check to ensure all the gear was functioning correctly. After the plunge to the bottom one pair of divers took a line to the vessel to make sure no one got lost. The second pair began to search for any clues which might confirm the identity of the wreck.

Alhafith says he yelled with joy to himself when he saw it was a shipwreck. "A lot of times we don't know whether it will be a wreck or a rock."

Visibility was excellent - more than 20 metres for the entire dive.

He and his team touched down in full view of the bridge. The ship looked as though it had been snap frozen, little changed in spite of being underwater for more than half a century. Although more than 140 metres long the ship was intact, Alhafith says. The divers also confirmed the legends of generations of snagged nets are not apocryphal.

"The most spectacular thing was not just the sheer size of the wreck but the menacing look of the fishing nets draped and snagged over the bridge," he says. "The nets seemed to be everywhere and were hanging, suspended by fishing buoys attached to lines."

The fact the bridge was in the centre of the ship was the first clear indication the wreck was the Iron Knight. Cargo holds were both forward and aft of the bridge. "The holds were absolutely enormous," Alhafith says. "Like huge black pits." One side of the ship seemed to have folded in on itself and the team suspects that may be the spot where the torpedo struck. Unfortunately no name plate, bell or other definitive identifying feature was found.

The quarter of an hour of exploration was quickly over and the team had to begin their lengthy decompression ascent. The first stop was half a minute at 102 metres, increasing to 77 minutes at 4.5 metres.

The dive was so lengthy and the air so dehydrating that the men needed to drink from special bladders with tubes during their decompression. Alhafith went through three litres of energy drink during the 4½-hour dive.

During the final hours of the decompression the team was supported by four divers using regular scuba gear who assisted with bringing equipment to the surface. It is during the decompression part of the dive that the team usually has its best wildlife encounters.

On previous dives killer whales, dolphins and seals have all swum in to see what the divers are doing. Last weekend a sunfish - two metres long and three metres high - stayed with the divers for over an hour. "It was like watching a documentary," Alhafith says. "Seals have come right up and seem to be sniffing us.

"Some people want to just see rust but for me it is seeing an untouched ecosystem. You see marine life which is amazing. The wreck is like a museum and you are the first person to see it. It's like opening an Egyptian sarcophagus.

"The wrecks in shallow water have been stripped. Technical diving is all about exploring, going where no one's gone before."

A maritime archaeologist with the Heritage Office, Tim Smith, agrees that based on the size and location of the wreck, it probably is the Iron Knight.

"Because of the depth it has been protected and it is therefore archaeologically intact."

Government occupational health and safety rules forbid him from diving to such extreme depths, which means he and other researchers are completely dependent on amateur adventurers to plumb the ocean in search of wrecks.

Even if he was allowed, Smith says he would not undertake such a hazardous pastime. "Those guys are right on the edge of the envelope."

Despite keeping technical diving at arm's length, the Heritage Office has put the Sydney Project's divers through some of its maritime archaeology training. Most critical to Smith is that the wrecks remain undisturbed and nothing is salvaged. "This project has provided a tantalising glimpse into Japanese naval activity off our coast during World War II," he said.

In three weekends the team will return to the Iron Knight - this time with underwater scooters so they can circumnavigate the vast wreck site.

There have been at least three deaths in NSW from deep diving but so far no one from the Sydney Project has been harmed.

Samir Alhafith says simply: "Touch wood."

SOURCE - Sydney Morning Herald


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ZBIROH CASTLE, Czech Republic -- A fairytale castle in the Czech Republic – complete with secret medieval tunnels and hidden treasures – finally looks set to give up a hoard of goods looted by the Nazis during the second world war.

Researchers at Zbiroh Castle in Western Bohemia have discovered that the 550ft (165m) well has a concealed false bottom built from reinforced concrete.

The concealed entrance covered with jasper, a locally quarried gemstone, has also been booby trapped by retreating German forces.

The series of hidden passageways running off the well is familiar to Czech treasure hunters, and rumours of hidden artworks overshadow the brooding neo-gothic beauty of the castle. Unlike some castles in the Rokycany district, visitors are not drawn in by the medieval grandeur, but by the tales of SS secrets hidden underground.

The first attempt to explore some of the secret passageways linked to the well was made in 1965. But the Czechoslovakian military divers failed to notice the concealed tunnel entrance at the bottom of the well. They retrieved from a higher tunnel a chest full of Nazi documents and records of a secret outfit that had occupied the castle. Later explorations yielded more wartime Nazi documents and indications of other hidden passageways. But the tunnel beneath the well's false bottom continued to elude them.

According to retrieved documents, the chateau had served as headquarters for a secret SS unit which monitored all radio traffic during the war.

As the war drew to an end, the Nazis looted Europe from east to west with astonishing zeal and thoroughness. Countries overrun by the German army were systematically stripped of their wealth. The treasures of museums, banks and ordinary people were mercilessly looted. The SS even set up a specialist unit, including top art experts, charged with the task of scouring the continent for old and new masters and art works coveted by the Nazi elite.

At the end of the war the looted treasures of Europe were hidden by the SS in mines, caves, deep Alpine lakes and secret underground passages. Zbiroh Castle appears to have been one such hiding place.

A recent excavation of two of the castle's secret passageways indicated that the treasure hunters were on the right track. Last month's exploration of the murky depths of the well established that, at 550ft, there was definitely a false bottom concealing an entrance to a secret tunnel.

As the scuba divers cleared part of the bottom, they found hand grenades strewn about and indications of booby traps. The explosives were concealed, making it almost impossible to defuse them under the tremendous water pressure and in the narrow confines of the well. Thus the main prize once again eluded researchers.

But Maria Slavkovska, spokeswoman for SCSA, a Czech treasure hunters' consortium which is conducting the present explorations, said that there were positive finds and that the search for the looted treasure was continuing.

"Last month, we found German Army documents, which confirm that the bottom conceals a secret passageway used by the Nazis to hide looted treasures," Slavkovska said. "Incongruent stuff has also been retrieved from under Zbiroh Castle during the search of a secret passageway.

"The hoard includes a cache of looted 17th-century weapons. We hope that when the retrieved German army documents are studied we will find something more valuable.

"The Germans were not stupid. They wanted to make sure that nobody would have access to the tunnel and they made a very professional job of it. So now we're doing everything possible to neutralise the danger at the bottom. We are calling in a specialist underwater bomb-disposal team to get us past the explosive false bottom."

SOURCE - Sunday Herald


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PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island - An underwater explorer who found the Titanic and a team of international scientists will soon survey waters off the Greek island of Crete for clues to a once-powerful Bronze Age-era civilization.

The expedition about 75 miles northwest of Crete aims to learn more about the Minoans, who flourished during the Bronze Age, and seeks to better understand seafaring four millennia ago, the scientists said.

U.S. researchers say the Minoans were engaged in broad-based trade with other civilizations, such as the Mycenaeans on mainland Greece and perhaps with peoples as far away as the present-day Middle East.

"No one knows who the Minoans were," said Robert Ballard, an oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island who discovered the Titanic in the North Atlantic in 1985.

"They don't think they were Greeks ... they think they might actually be Egyptian. Obviously a lot of these mysteries will be solved if we find their ships and especially their cargoes," said Ballard, who is helping lead the expedition.

Ballard's other high-profile discoveries include the remains of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy's sunken World War Two-era boat, the PT-109, in the Solomon Islands in 2002, and two ancient Phoenician ships off Israel in 1999.

The latest expedition begins on June 8 in the Sea of Crete, where scientists using sonar have already identified possible ancient shipwrecks. Using high-tech, underwater equipment, the team will probe the sites more closely, including taking photographs and mapping the area.

Mary Hollinshead, an archeologist at the University of Rhode Island and member of the expedition, said it is clear the Minoans had contact with the Mycenaeans and Egypt and
Syria in the Bronze Age, but scholars know little more about the nature of those relationships.

Hollinshead and others are convinced that a key to understanding the links is finding the ships. "We have done some work on land, but what's lacking is material from the sea," she said.

BRONZE AGE SHIPPING
The archeologists also hope for new insight into shipping in the Bronze Age, which lasted from about 3000 BC to about 1100 BC and witnessed a dramatic expansion in sea trade that went beyond the Aegean region.

Much like today, they believe, shipping was comprised of large transit vessels that could sail for long distances and local peddlers who stuck close to the shore.

The parallels may extend further than that. "You don't have just one nationality or one ethnic group running a ship," Hollinshead said. "What we're learning is the questions are much more complex than what we started with."

On another leg of the $1.5 million expedition, University of Rhode Island scientists will study the sea floor around the Greek island of Thera, site of a massive volcanic eruption around 1600 BC.

They will examine the volcano's collapsed crater for the first time with underwater remote-controlled vehicles equipped with high-definition video cameras and temperature sensors.

Thera is also important because it may help better explain the Minoans, whose name derives from Minos, a legendary ruler of Crete and purportedly the son of the Greek god Zeus.

The island, which sank into the sea after the eruption, was home to a society heavily influenced by the Minoans -- from architecture to art and possibly religion, Hollinshead said.

Since the island is buried in volcanic ash, any artifacts found there may be well preserved and hold the best clues to how Minoan culture thrived and why it ultimately waned, she said.

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The Albuquerque Tribune
June 02, 2006


PENSACOLA, Fla. - Navy construction crews have unearthed a rare Spanish ship that was buried for centuries under sand on Pensacola's Naval Air Station, archaeologists confirmed.

The vessel could date to the mid-16th century, when the first Spanish settlement in what is now the United States was founded here, the archaeologists said.

But the exposed portion looks more like ships from a later period because of its iron bolts, said Elizabeth Benchley, director of the Archaeology Institute at the University of West Florida.

"There are Spanish shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay," Benchley said. "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."

Construction crews came upon the ship last month while rebuilding the base's swim rescue school, destroyed during 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.

During initial work to determine the ship's origin, archaeologists found ceramic tiles, ropes and pieces of olive jars. The settlement was founded in 1559; its exact location is a mystery. The Spanish did not return until more than a century later in 1698 at Presidio Santa Maria de Galve, now the site of the naval station.

The French captured and burned the settlement in 1719 but handed Pensacola back to Spain three years later. Hurricanes forced the Spanish to repeatedly rebuild.

The Navy plans to enclose the uncovered portion of the ship, mark the site and move construction over to accommodate archaeological work, officials said.

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


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NewsDay.com
By Bill Bleyer
May 31, 2006


In 1815 letter, on display in Southold, Sag Harbor teen recounts British shipwreck, rescue
When 19-year-old Henry T. Dering, a member of a prominent Sag Harbor family, heard about a ship wrecked off the South Shore one stormy morning in January 1815, he borrowed a horse and rode five miles to the scene.

Off the Southampton shore he saw five survivors clinging to the keel of a section of the overturned hull of H.M.S. Sylph and watched as two of the sailors drowned and three were rescued.

Shipwrecks along Long Island's Atlantic coast were common in the Age of Sail. What makes Dering's connection to the demise of the British sloop of war unusual and important from a historical perspective is that he recorded his observations in a 2 1/2-page letter to his sister.

Recently acquired by the Southold Historical Society, it is the centerpiece of a new permanent exhibit on the Sylph that opened this weekend at the Horton Point Lighthouse.

The display features other recent acquisitions relating to the ship, including an 1815 book that mentions the shipwreck, and a painting of the Sylph commissioned for this exhibit by the society.

Long Islanders did not have good memories about British warships. During the War of 1812, the Sylph was a familiar and despised presence around Long Island as it blockaded harbors and destroyed merchant vessels and even an early semisubmersible torpedo boat that had run aground in Southold in 1813.

Nevertheless, when the Sylph was wrecked at the end of the war, the Americans tried to help, as Dering recorded in excited and tangled syntax.

Dering later succeeded his father, Henry Packer Dering, as customs collector of the port in Sag Harbor and also served as the village's second postmaster.

Geoffrey Fleming, director of the historical society, said he learned of the letter over the winter when its private owner mentioned it and he arranged to buy it because the museum already had a piece of wood from the wreck.

"It's one of the few extant handwritten accounts [of the wreck] from the period," Fleming said.

Fleming said the society commissioned English artist Bryan J. Phillips, who specializes in historical British maritime subjects, to do a painting of the Sylph and H.M.S. Maidstone because there was no existing illustration of the warships attacking the torpedo boat off Horton Point.

"They basically got into skirmish with members of the Sag Harbor militia who had arrived at Horton Point to defend the torpedo boat," Fleming said. "The British launched some barges and some of their men were killed but they did succeed in driving off the militia and burning the boat."


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Courant.com
June 01, 2006


Underwater archaeologists have identified the partial remains of the youngest known pirate to ply U.S. waters, a 9-year-old boy who eagerly joined Capt. Black Sam Bellamy's crew on the infamous Whydah.

Teen pirates were quite common during the early 18th century, but "this is the youngest one I have ever come across," historian Ken Kinkor of the Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown, Mass., said Wednesday in announcing the discovery.

The young pirate's idyll aboard the Whydah did not last long. The ship foundered in a storm off Cape Cod only three months later, crashing to the sea floor with all but eight of its 180-man crew.

The tale of the pirate, identified as John King, was then pretty much lost to history until explorer Barry Clifford used court documents and an early salvage map to locate the Whydah in 1984.

In the subsequent 20 years, Clifford and his crew of divers have recovered more than 100,000 artifacts from the wreck, bringing them to the surface, conserving them, and putting them on display at their museum on the end of a Provincetown pier.

The wreck "was like a 300-year-old Wal-Mart on the bottom of the ocean," Clifford said, with an unusually broad variety of artifacts stolen from other ships. Despite the quantity of materials recovered, he added, "we've never really discovered the mother lode of the ship."

One thing they did discover was a small shoe, a silk stocking and a small fibula or shin bone. The items had been in storage unremarked for nearly 20 years before Clifford and Kinkor recently made the connection to young John King.

King's fragmentary story is found in a deposition filed with the governor of Antigua on Nov. 30, 1716, by Abijah Savage, commander of the Antiguan sloop Bonetta. As was the usual practice, Savage reported to the governor the details of a pirate attack on his ship.

On Nov. 9, the Bonetta was attacked by Bellamy's ship and held for 15 days. The pirates took all of their valuables, including "a Negro Man and an Indian Boy belonging to Mr. Benjamin Wicker," before releasing them.

Savage wrote that one John King, who was sailing with his mother as a passenger from Jamaica to Antigua, "deserted his sloop, and went with the Pirates and was so far from being forced or compelled thereto by them as the deponent could perceive or learn that he declared he would Kill himself if he was Restrained, and even threatned his Mother who was then on Board as a Passenger with the Deponent."


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Times Argus
By Jessica Gresko
May 28, 2006


Pat Croce's passion for pirates is written all over him.

The former president of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team has a Jolly Roger tattooed on his left hand and a ship on his left forearm.

A parrot tattoo sits on his shoulder, and he even wears a silver hoop earring. It's when he pulls back the corner of his mouth, however, revealing a molar cap etched with a skull and crossbones, that it's clear this is no ordinary obsession.

For the past 16 years, Croce has also been collecting pirate artifacts, indulging a childhood fascination with the swashbucklers and amassing a treasure trove of objects: the journal from Capt. Kidd's last voyage; one of only two known authentic Jolly Roger flags; and a treasure chest once owned by Capt. Thomas Tew, said to be the only one in existence directly traceable to a pirate.

For years, the 51-year-old Croce hid the loot in his home. Last year, however, he began sharing the booty with the public, opening a $10 million museum called Pirate Soul in downtown Key West.

Croce says a pirate spirit has infused all of his undertakings.

"It's that bold and adventurous nature, where they just go for their goal, throw caution to the wind, set their sail and go," he said recently in Key West, where he has a home.

Croce's daughter, Kelly Croce Sorg, lives on the island and is the museum's chief executive. Opening a museum in Key West, which was built on the spoils of shipwrecks and where buccaneer street performers now rove, just made sense, Sorg said.

At the museum, visitors start their tour in a re-created marketplace of Port Royal, Jamaica, peering in the windows of the gun shop, the mapmaker, the bookmaker and the physician's office to see artifacts. In the next room, a tavern, guests can sit down amid centuries-old wine bottles and a plate recovered from the pirate Blackbeard's sunken ship and browse an interactive book of pirate biographies on touch screens.

Then it is on to the deck of a pirate ship, where sound effects and video bring a ship takeover to life. Near the end of the tour, visitors encounter a talking animatronic head of the pirate Blackbeard and can step into small, dark rooms simulating a ship's hold and listen as pirates give chase.

"It's kind of like something you'd see at Disney World," said Bert Knisely of Thomasville, Ga., who visited the museum recently on his honeymoon.

Theatrics aside, the real gems of the collection are the estimated 500 artifacts on display — pieces of maps, navigation instruments, cannon balls, weapons and even a rare pirate wanted poster. Most of the objects are Croce's, but there are also pieces on loan from the North Carolina Maritime Museum and the Delaware Art Museum.

Trevor Huggins, 18, who toured the museum while visiting from Augusta, Ga., said he was surprised at the number and quality of the artifacts as well as what he learned about daily life on a pirate ship.

"I learned how brutal it actually was," Huggins said. "I didn't realize that at first."

Signs also tell visitors that walking the plank is likely a bit of fiction. Pirates usually just pushed any scurvy fellows overboard or used them for target practice.

Visitors even learn about two female pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read.


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Soundings
By Jason Fell
May 29, 2006


The bark Endeavour, which explorer James Cook voyaged to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Newfoundland, could be at the bottom of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay

A group of archaeologists say they might have found in Narragansett (R.I.) Bay the sunken vessel of 18th-century English explorer Capt. James Cook.

Researchers at the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project recently announced they had found four ships at the bottom of the bay that they believe are part of a 13-vessel fleet sunk by the British in 1778, according to news reports. One of those vessels, they say, is the Lord Sandwich, which records apparently show was once Cook’s Endeavour.

Finding the link between Lord Sandwich and Endeavour was the team’s big break, says RIMAP’s executive director, D.K. Abbass. But she admits that the artifacts found so far — a cannon, an anchor and part of a British teapot — do not link the vessel to Cook, reports say.

Abbass says there is nearly a 50-percent chance that the vessel in question is in fact Endeavour. “Quite frankly, we could be working on her right now and never be able to prove it,” she says in a report.

Cook sailed the Pacific Ocean aboard the 109-foot bark Endeavour from 1768 to 1771, mapping New Zealand and surveying the eastern coast of Australia. The British are said to have sunk the ship, along with the 12 others in its fleet, to hold off American and French forces advancing on Newport, R.I., during the Revolutionary War.

There are no immediate plans to raise Endeavour or the other ships the researchers say they have found, according to reports. It could take years, they say, to fully investigate the shipwrecks.


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