Replies to post #28350 on Deep Blue Marine (DPBE)

[Capt.Billy]

Fuel would be a start, unfortunately with fuel comes food and personnel. In this country labor may be cheaper than the states but everything else is nearly tripled.
I think if our company could demonstrate that our artifacts were being traded up for better equipment and more constant and professional work being done that our divisions would reflect that. I know the "auctioning off" of a coin like that would bring much needed attention to our company. If the coins werent being sold? i am sure this govement would rather them be sitting on their desk rather than ours? Of course thats only my opinion.
Here i like this photo as it shows the iron ship to the right and the whole lake of sand. Maybe in the photo it looks like a small area of sand but put on your dive gear and swim that distance and you will see how much sand covers this area.
My estimate is we have only uncovered about 5% of that sand. To say we were completely finished would require us to completely remove every grain of that sand. That would take time as we are only using the "air-lifts" and the sand never leaves the area. A high-powered dredge ran by a diesel powered pump would make short work of this project.
Look how close the iron ship is to where were working. This year we found coins and iron spikes right up against the iron ship. It is possible that ship covers some of the Spanish ship. What a job that would be to move the iron ship from on-top of our wreck. But that would be a chore i would certainly want to attempt and to get started on asap if that was the case.
The three reales all came from the same little pocket. There was eight coins in that pocket and three of them were the three reales. Strange as none have been found anywhere else.


Here is an underwater photo of the iron ship. This photo does no justice as this ship is massive.

[Capt.Billy]

Neb,
Just watched that HBO version of when America was born. "John Adams" That was taking place when the Scipion was in the hight of her career.
She faught in the Chesepeake war against the English then the battle of the Saintes down here in the Caribbean, Then she came to an end when she battled two more British ships here on the east end of the DR. They didnt sink her but chased her up in this shallow bay where she hit a coral head and sank.
After two year working on that site i knew it like the back of my hand. On her birthday of the sinking we cracked a bottle of Champane poured half over the side and drank the rest and bidded her fairwell.
Lots of thanks to Tracy for letting us work that important wreck. We learned a lot in them two years. And must have done a good enough job as when that excavation was over we were awarded a contract of our own. Great wreck with fantastic memories.



Diver Dave came to me one day of diving and said he was excavating a jack, I told him we were diving a ship not a truck. Sure enough he brings this jack to the surface. In the one picture you can see the date "1778"


Probably one of the most interesting pieces we found was this cannon ball stuck in a piece of oak. I am sure it must be English. Maybe it was already a suvenier and some on-board carpenter replaced that wood and kept this one. We found it where we found other carpenter tools.


Heres a "hand planer" and a "mallet" both found in the same area.


Never failed when you are on the trail of something good it always led you under a cannon. So many cannon needed to be removed for safety reasons. Some just popped right up and others we couldnt move with every air bag we had.


I have so much documentation pertaining to this ship wreck and backed up by many books on the subject with illustrations. I have a book i am writing about our time there. Lots of work for that book but one day hopefully it will get done and preserve for generations what we uncovered on that site. Including Captains, crew names and court proceedings.Captains log, Lots of info i have on that ship.
What a job huh? Think anybody in America would trade places with me?