Okay, some thoughts on the company.
I spoke with Mary at the state today. It was a cordial, fairly long, conversation and she answered all my questions. Even ones Kyle would not, since he didn't want to say things that were not public information. I am now taking this information, mixing it with what I have learned by looking at court records, talking to the company, visiting the company and seeing things at their office and on-board, talking to those who know the company, and all sorts of sources. Allows me to come up with my thoughts. MY thoughts. If you disagree ... no problem. this is where I am at, after doing MY research. One other thing. I do not speak for the company, I am not associated with the company, other than as a shareholder, and this is not a way for the company to tell us what is going on. Just me giving my educated OPINION after putting this all together and doing a LOT more research than most here can do. Fair?
Among other things, I learned about the site #3, which is the site of most importance to most of us. Oh - Apparently the rights to dive on a site used to be called a lease. I used that term, and Mary told me that is incorrect. It was a lease, then was called a contract, and now is called a permit. Different rules for each as they updated over the years, and now it is called permits. So I asked about the permit. As we all know, site #3 is broken down into 3 sections. HTQ said a long time ago that they were going to give the 3 sections (9 square miles) to SFRX. But, there was a process. Apparently, they DID that process ... for ONE of the three sections. NOT all three. That is VERY important. It is why we have WASTED (my opinion) a good part of the summer. Because we had a permit to site 2. ONLY to site 2. We started to search site #2, and found some promising pieces of the ship (Wood, which was announced. Remember. NOT all this is coming from Mary. I"m putting ALL the information together to get these thoughts. We all know they found wood. It was stated, and with excitement.) That wood led them to believe the ship was in the area. And I remember seeing things on the maps I saw at the office while visiting this spring. There are some HUGE hits in ... section 3. We kept diving, and it seems things pointed more and more that the wreck was IN section 3. The wreck material dragged NE to SW, I think is how mary put it. It's public documents filed with the state as to what they are doing, so she could discuss them. Looks like (Now this is a conclusion, based on all I have seen and heard, but I"m not making firm statements here) the ship is in section 3. So great - start diving section 3 and let's see if we can FIND it. Right? Nope. The company only had a permit for section 2. I thought they had a permit for 9 square miles. they have the rights to those 9 square miles, but a FINISHED permit for only 3 square miles. they could apply for the permit section 3 though, as it was already ceded by HTQ to the benefit of SFRX. And we DID apply. But the permit application was a pain in the butt. I think the state is partly at fault for this, because they kept asking for more and more things, one item at a time. Still, they asked, and SFRX gave. And gave. And gave. So, where are we?? Mary says that she sent a FINAL request to SFRX yesterday, for some very minor items, and then the permits are basically ready. We should FINALLY get the permit for section 3. I didn't ask if that included section 1 too, as that doesn't seem important right now and I was asking a lot of questions anyway. I think though we shall finally get the permit for section 1 within 2 - 3 weeks. (Yeah, the timing SUCKS. SO much for the wonderful summer!!) It was confirmed that they CAN get this permit for section 1 and then then immediately, based on finding the items needed to prove a ship is probably there, apply for what we here have called a salvage permit. There is no requirement to identify the name of the ship before getting a salvage recovery permit. So I think we are moving forward.
Going to something Raider 21 has said for a long time ...
