Ship Wreck

[Michael Alexander]

What I heard was that the Ministry of Youth , SPort and Culture have placed a total ban on the site. They are waiting for a nation to claim the ship as theirs and then to send experts to the site. They want the wreck to stay where it is and a museum to be built onsite... the site is currently covered beneath sand and being kept dry by Namdeb, Thanks to them for that. I believe there is a guard 24/7 there also.

Alexandre'...prove the ship's name and origin, maybe they will ask you to come out here.....

[Jeremy Dixon]

There is no chance Namdeb are going to allow a bulding to be built in MA1 especially over bedrock. Also do you think security are going to like a tourist attraction on the mine!

[Alexandre]

Thanks, Alexandre!  More, more, more  please?!

How do you guys go about finding these wrecks?  Give us a little more info on this i.e.:  do you first study the history of a ship lost & then try to locate the wreck according to last known voyage, then set about finding actual site or do you sometimes just "happen" to come across a wreck when searching for something else & then study it?  Average depths you dive,  deepest dive you have made,  mishaps  etc etc   -   .   Very interesting, all of this.

Sorry for the long time to reply, but I was away... now, back to business: there are two ways we find shipwrecks.

1) a diver spots cannons underwater or a fisherman drags some amphoras on his net (or a company empties the sea while looking for diamonds and discovers gold coins.. :)) - that's an easy one, you already have a shipwreck. But then the hard part comes: what shipwreck is it? Then you have to do some reverse engineering and go from the wreck to the documents (if you have them, of course)

2) you find a wreck quoted on paper - maybe a customs notice, I annex one from a 1651 Portuguese man o´war, maybe a captain's court martial (I found one for a shipwreck of an english frigate (HMS Pallas, 1782) as well as an artist impressions on board the ship, I annex 2 of those) I excavated in the Azores), or a royal court inquiry or a death certificate or a list of salvaged items. Then, you have to go from the papers to the actual site..

3) as for average depths, it is usually around 7 to 12 meters (95% of the ships actually wreck ashore not while at sea). The deepest I have done was 66 meters, on air, but I have done my share of underwater eyeballing at around 45-50 meters deep. No mishaps - only the odd octopus that steals your white underwater markers, being pinned to the sand while the passenger freighter passed overhead with 1 meter clearance between my soft skin and the propperler hard blades... common stuff, you know...

[Alexandre]

Alexandre'...prove the ship's name and origin, maybe they will ask you to come out here.....

Michael, it's quite the other way around: ask me to come there and (maybe) I can prove the ship's name and origin. Unfortunately, on this day and a age, where people are having sex online and shopping virtually, one still cannot do online archaeology... :)

Here in Portugal it's a dead lock, also. I am guessing the Foreign Office is sitting on this one (the Spanish have taken one of our cities away from us in 1801 and, although the matter is still an issue of dispute between both Foreign Offices, they still speak Castillian over there) but I hope this week I can get some more information on it.

[Michael Alexander]

Alexandre' You once asked about the type of stones in the area, well I was scanning old mine photo's from about 1967...and came across this....looks similar don''t you think?

[Adriaan Van Rooyen]

Hey Paula, did you leave the copper pipes behind.? bling1

[Chris Macpherson]

hey boet, correct me if im wrong,hugo your boet? OOM frans  ur dad  boetie married to ronelle???

[Paula Gottsch (Willson)]

Hey Paula, did you leave the copper pipes behind.? bling1

Are you crazy or what, do you know what you get for copper pipes these days, I just left the asbestos roof.

That story was a laugh too, I built a braai area at that house and wanted to get old asbestos sheets from the company for the roof, they said we may not use asbestos due to the health/environment issue, but guess what is on every house in Oranjemund, Jip, asbestos roofs, go figer!

[Chris Macpherson]

paula why u stirring yhe bucket babes,

[Paula Gottsch (Willson)]

 coz I got a big wooden spoon and I can!


:emot19:

[Chris Macpherson]

whatcht it darling ,ill get you faster than u can man  united.

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

S.T.I.C.K. T.O. T.H.E. T.O.P.I.C

[georg ruf jr.]

Was the wreck built with asbestos?

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

 ::

[Adriaan Van Rooyen]

Chris, yes man Hugo is my YOUNGER boet and he is not working anymore,s....t, i dont recall him working anyway,he is now in the Strand.The old toppie and my mom is still going strong,and Francoise the poor sod is married to Ronelle . 15_3_27