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From Tampa Bay


Tampa treasure hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. said slower sales of gold and other coins from shipwrecks it has discovered reduced its revenue for the second quarter. 

Revenue fell to $1.1-million from $1.7-million in the same period of 2007, and Odyssey reported a quarterly loss of $5.4-million in the latest quarter compared with a $6.3-million loss in the same three-month period last year. 

Odyssey said it continues to work on several potential shipwreck sites and is helping to develop an 11-episode primetime TV series for Discovery Channel scheduled to air in early 2009.

By Dale Jarvis


There are numerous locations across Newfoundland and Labrador that boast piratical phantoms. The community of Boxey on the south coast of Newfoundland, almost midway between English Harbour West and Coombs Cove, was one such locale.
 
In the 19th Century, Boxey was well known for an opening or “spy hole” in a local rock formation. The hole was used by local sailors to navigate safely amid treacherous rocks in the bay.

According to local legend, a man named Jacob Penney and his companion, Simon Bungay, ran aground close to the spy hole. It was said spirits had tricked them into running their boat onto the rocks.

The two men had been on a treasure hunt to haunted Deadman’s Bight, just up the coast from Boxey, when the boat ran aground.

The legend goes the men were able to pull the boat off the rocks and continue on the hunt for the buried treasure.

The twosome arrived at what was reported to be the location of the treasure, but their misadventure on the rocks had cost them valuable time. 

They arrived just in time to catch a glimpse of the fabulous treasure before a rock door slammed shut before it. The treasure was never recovered.

By Meg Jones


All around him, as he fought to stay afloat in a turbulent Lake Michigan, fellow passengers struggled to stay alive. His mother and sister were among them. 

The Stockbridge, Wis., man, then 19, couldn’t see in the dark as the paddlewheel steamer he had boarded a short time earlier for the trip from Chicago to Milwaukee broke apart and slipped beneath the surface.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the horrible scene. But he never saw his mother again, and the next time he saw his 24-year-old sister Elizabeth was when he claimed her body.

Last week, Sharon Cook thought of her relatives’ last moments as she swam down to the wreck of the Lady Elgin, which now lies in several pieces a few miles off the shore of this northern Chicago suburb.

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From Times on Line (click on the picture to see a video)Take the plunge in Brussels, where £4m has been splashed out on a pool with a depth of 33 metres. World-class scuba diving has not, historically, been among Belgium's claim to fame.

Chocolates, the Smurfs, the European Parliament and statues of micturating minors, yes. Clear blue water and coral reefs, no.

So 11 years ago, a civil engineer with a passion for the underwater world decided that it was time this situation was redressed.

John Beernaerts's dream of creating the world's first indoor diving complex began as a simple doodle, sketched on a napkin in a Brussels bar.

Today John and I are sitting at another bar as waiters carry drinks and Thai food to tables. Facing us is a row of large, square windows.

Every few seconds a diver drifts past, blowing bubbles in the blue space behind the glass. It's a human aquarium.

By Lina Sinjab


On Arwad Island off the coast of Syria, a group of 20 sailors-to-be are preparing for a voyage their captain believes has not been undertaken for two and a half millennia. 

They plan to set off on Sunday on a journey that attempts to replicate what the Greek historian Herodotus mentions as the first circumnavigation of Africa in about 600BC. 

Their vessel, the small, pine-wood Phoenicia, is modelled on the type of ship the Phoenician sailors he credited with the landmark voyage would have used. 

The Phoenicians lived in areas of modern-day Lebanon, Syria and other parts of the Mediterranean from about 1200BC and are widely credited with being both strong seafarers and the first civilisation to make extensive use of an alphabet.

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By Ben Langford


Rogue divers are raiding heritage-listed wrecks in Darwin Harbour, regular visitors to the sites said yesterday. 

Local divers said artefacts had been stolen from the RAAF C-47 plane wreck in Fannie Bay. 

Regular diver Peter Darlington dived the wreck recently and said items including a radio, flight gauges and a fire extinguisher had been taken.

An engine and a propeller had also been dislodged.

"Many of the artefacts have been removed and there are signs of extensive damage to the airframe itself," he said.

There are fears that other wrecks in the harbour may have been looted.

Some of the damage to the C-47 appeared to have been done by a large anchor, though anchoring at the site is not allowed.

The raids are recent, probably within the past two months.


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By Gordon Dritschilo

Vermont's latest historical site is at the bottom of Lake Champlain.

The wreck of the Spitfire, a Revolutionary War gunboat, was added to the National Register of Historical Places Friday.

Part of the fleet hastily assembled by Benedict Arnold in 1776, the Spitfire was sunk at the Battle of Valcour Island, an engagement that, while a defeat for the American rebels, held off a British advance from Canada until the following year.

A replica of the Spitfire's sister ship, the Philadelphia, is at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes.

Also sunk in the battle, the Philadelphia was raised in 1935 and the remains of the original are in the Smithsonian Institution.

Adam Kane, a nautical archeologist with the Maritime Museum, said the designation was significant for two reasons.

"One, it puts it on the list of historical and archaeological sites in the country designated as worthy of preservation and historically signifi-cant," he said.

"The second, more tangible thing it does is open it up to more federal funding."

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By Paul Chapman


Scientists are baffled after carbon dating showed the skull, a woman's which was found near the country's capital, Wellington, dates back from 1742 – decades before Cook's Pacific expedition arrived in 1769. 

The discovery was made by a boy walking his dog on the bank of a river in the Wairarapa region of the North Island, an area settled by Europeans only after the establishment of a colony by the New Zealand Company in 1840. 

Dr Robin Watt, a forensic anthropologist called in by police who investigated the discovery, said yesterday: "It's a real mystery, it really is. "We've got the problem of how did this woman get here ? Who was she ? 

"I recommended they do carbon date on it and, of course, they came up with that amazing result."


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