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By Brendan Kirby - Press-Register

Their work slowed by last year’s oil spill and typical winter weather, explorers who discovered four shipwrecks near the mouth of Mobile Bay seven years ago plan to recover additional artifacts in the coming months, attorneys indicated last week.

A Gulf Shores company called Fathom Exploration filed a federal lawsuit in 2004 in an attempt to secure the four underwater spots.

The legal proceedings have been on hold since then while Fathom Exploration tries to analyze the artifacts.

If the sites can be positively identified, a judge will decide who has rights to the artifacts — the state, the company or a Mobile man who believes one of the sites might be the 19th century clipper ship Robert H. Dixey. He is a descendent of the ship’s captain.

The parties file reports every three months updating the court on their progress. In the most recent report, attorneys stated that the BP oil spill in the summer curtailed Fathom’s offshore activities.

Weather and sea conditions also limited activity during the winter, the attorneys wrote.

“As we move deeper into the spring and early summer season, weather conditions typically improve and allow for the safe resumption of offshore work,” the joint statement read.

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From Indiana University news room

Nearly three years after the discovery of the shipwreck Quedagh Merchant, abandoned by the scandalous 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd, the underwater site will be dedicated as a "Living Museum of the Sea" by Indiana University, IU researcher and archeologist Charles Beeker, and the government of the Dominican Republic.

The dedication as an official underwater museum will take place off the shore of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic on May 23, the 310th anniversary of Kidd's hanging in London for his 'crimes of piracy.'

The dedication will note both underwater and above-ground interpretive plaques. The underwater plaques will help guide divers around the Kidd site as well as relics and rare corals at two other shipwreck sites.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded IU $200,000 to turn the Captain Kidd shipwreck site and two nearby existing underwater preserves into no-take, no-anchor "Living Museums of the Sea," where cultural discoveries will protect precious corals and other threatened biodiversity in the surrounding reef systems, under the supervision and support of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático (ONPCS). USAID has since extended its support by a year, increasing the funding award to $300,000.

The Underwater Science team from the IU School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER), led by Beeker, has been working to preserve, analyze and document the Kidd shipwreck since its surprising discovery, which made headlines around the world.

This unique museum, resting in less than 10 feet of water just 70 feet from shore, will give divers the opportunity to see the 17th century ship remains, including several anchors, along with dozens of cannons, which rest on the ocean's floor and serve as home to coral and sea creatures.

Above water, several more traditional museums will benefit from artifacts that are on loan to IU by the Dominican Republic government for the purpose of study and research.

"As this ongoing multidisciplinary research continues," Beeker said, "interest in the project has grown and new partnerships are developing, including the Peace Corps assigning their volunteers to the project, and the Consorcio Dominicano de Competitividad Turistica promoting the project as a sustainable tourism destination."

From The Jakarta Globe

A ship that sank more than 150 years ago in Borneo waters after visiting Singapore has been found by two Australians.

Part-time marine archaeologists Hans and Roz Berekoven - who are married to each other - said their find was unlikely to yield any treasures as the ship had been a British cargo vessel, but it could add to knowledge of trade then.

'No gold,' Mr Berekoven, 64, said in an interview in Singapore. 'Just cutlery and a few bottles of really well-aged wine.'

In 1842, the Viscount Melbourne sailed from India en route to China and docked in Singapore to pick up supplies and passengers. It left with more than 70 people on board.

Three days after it left Singapore, the vessel was hit by a squall. It was left stranded on a coral reef.

The ship had to be abandoned as the cotton bales it carried would expand when wet.

One survivor wrote in his diary that the bales would 'swell and inevitably blow up the ship'.

The crew and passengers, evacuated in boats, spent weeks at sea before reaching nearby Borneo. Their journey was fraught with dangers such as bad weather and encounters with pirates.

Britain even sent a second ship, the Royalist, to look for the survivors. The Viscount Melbourne was left on the reef since it carried nothing of value. It eventually sank.

Newspapers in the region reported on its loss at the time but interest faded and the wreck was abandoned to its fate.

Then in 1950, The Straits Times published a series of articles on the survivors' struggle to reach Borneo. The series, titled 'A perilous sea voyage', gave the Berekovens the key to finding the wreck.

By Joe Crankshaw - TCpalm

Demostenes "Moe" Molinar, the diver who found the treasure-laden wreckage of the Spanish galleon "Nuestra Senora de la Atocha" off the Florida Keys, will be buried in private ceremonies this afternoon. While working off the Treasure Coast he found about 7,000 silver coins.

Molinar, a 78-year-old Fort Pierce resident, died April 23.

Molinar is a legend among treasure divers, said Buddy Martin, a longtime diving associate.

"He is highly revered in the treasure salvaging field," Martin said. "He is known worldwide and has been in National Geographic and other publications. Yet he never had an ego you might think would go with that reputation."

Dave Crooks, former vice president of Mel Fisher's Treasure Salvors, said Molinar met Mel Fisher when Fisher's boat broke down in the Panama Canal in 1959.

"Moe fixed it and stayed on board throughout the entire trip," Crooks said. "At the end Mel offered him a job and Moe stayed with Mel until Mel's death."

The energetic Molinar rose from diesel mechanic to boat captain and his boat, the "Virgalona" has become known as the "treasure findingest boat in the business," Martin said.

Molinar was diving with Fisher off the Florida Keys on July 20, 1985 when he found in the sand the first treasure to come from the Atocha. The Atocha had gone down in a storm in 1622. Eventually, there would be 40 tons of gold, 1,000 silver bars, 100,000 silver coins, plus emeralds, rubies and other gems.

In July 1973, Molinar discovered the wreck of the slave ship "Henrietta Marie" that sank in 1700 off the Florida Keys. It is now the basis of a museum on shore.

"Next to Mel Fisher and Bob Weller, Moe has found more gold and treasure in Florida waters than anyone else," Martin said.

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From PRNewswire

Oceanic Research and Recovery Inc., a marine salvage and exploration company, today announced that team members have discovered two shipwrecks in the Philippines.

Preliminary investigations indicate that at least one of the ships located is believed to be a Manila Galleon that was outbound from Manila to Acapulco, Mexico.

The second wreck is believed to be an inbound Manila Galleon which would be carrying silver and gold to be traded for oriental goods; a local guide presented team members with a silver coin dated 1786 (King Carlos III) reported to be from this site.

"The objective of the Tradewinds Project has been to locate one of the fabled Manila Galleons; it looks like we might have been successful," said Scott Heimdal, CEO of ORRV. "One ballast pile is located where research said the ship sank and the dimensions are correct.

The pile is estimated at over 50 meters long and 15 meters wide. It also lies at depths which made it impossible for any type of salvage operation at the time of loss."

"The other site shows a perfect side scan image of the hull of a sailing ship with a long bowsprit sitting on the bottom minus the masts; the amount of structural preservation is astounding," continued Mr. Heimdal. "This wreck was located where historical records indicate a Manila Galleon was lost. Hundreds of porcelain shards were collected from a reef close to this site which led to the discovery of the wreck. Both wrecks are also of extraordinary size for sailing vessels and Manila Galleons were some of the largest sailing ships ever built."

The Tradewinds Project is the culmination of almost 4 years of development efforts. It is a long term effort planned and organized to locate and recover multiple shipwrecks in the Philippines over the next 5 years.

The next phase of operations, planned to start in the next few weeks, will be conducted while working in cooperation with the National Museum of the Philippines and other governmental agencies. Currently ORRV is organizing legal, logistical and operational requirements to proceed with the next phase.

Scheduled work involves additional non-invasive studies of the sites including: high resolution side scan imagery, creation of overall photo mosaics and setting survey points.

This data will then be utilized as baseline data in the marine archaeology GIS system regularly used by ORRV on all its projects.

This will provide the baseline data used to begin excavation of the wrecks by the team of archaeologists. More information on this sophisticated archaeological tool is available on the ORRV website.

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By Jane O'Brien - BBC News

Alain Touwaide looks at some of the ancient texts he has used in his research.

DNA extracted from 2,000-year-old plants recovered from an Italian shipwreck could offer scientists the key to new medicines.

Carrots, parsley and wild onions were among the samples preserved in clay pills on board the merchant trading vessel that sank around 120 BC. It's believed the plants were used by doctors to treat intestinal disorders among the ship's crew.

Such remedies are described in ancient Greek texts, but this is the first time the medicines themselves have been discovered.

"Medicinal plants have been identified before, but not a compound medicine, so this is really something new," says Alain Touwaide, director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, which has the world's largest digital database of medical manuscripts.

Prof Touwaide is working with scientists at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, who carried out the DNA analysis. They discovered traces of carrot, parsley, alfalfa, celery, wild onion, radish, yarrow and hibiscus contained in the ancient pills.

The pills, which researchers believe were diluted with vinegar or water to make them easier to ingest, were preserved inside tin boxes and were the size of coins.

"I was always wondering if the texts were only theoretical notions without practical application," he says. "Now we know they were applied."

In May, Prof Touwaide's conclusions, based on the DNA findings and his own study of medicinal texts, will be formally presented to an international gathering of archaeologists, historians of medicines and other experts in Rome.

"What is remarkable is that we have written evidence [from the ancient Greeks] of what plants were used for which disorders," says Alisa Machalek, a science writer for the National Institutes of Health, one of the world's leading research centres.

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Illustration Robert Doornbos 

By Eric Gaertner - Mlive

The long, mysterious trip of a Muskegon lumber schooner's final voyage is figuratively over.

An exhibit is set to open next week in Muskegon to honor the Hackley & Hume schooner Thomas Hume, its sinking in Lake Michigan nearly 120 years ago and Muskegon's lumbering era.

The exhibit, entitled “Unsolved Mysteries: The Shipwreck Thomas Hume,” will be open for public viewing beginning Wednesday in the City Barn at the Hackley & Hume Historic Site, 484 W. Webster Ave.

Based on a partnership between the Lakeshore Museum Center in Muskegon and Holland-based Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, the exhibit is part of a larger event planned for the 120th anniversary of the schooner's disappearance.

The May 21 special event will feature the debut of a documentary film and book about the Thomas Hume, along with a concert by a Great Lakes folksinger.

John McGarry, executive director of the Lakeshore Museum Center, said the Thomas Hume shipwreck and exhibit provides a look into Great Lakes maritime history and Muskegon's lumbering era.

“The loss of the Thomas Hume was one of the great unsolved mysteries of Lake Michigan,” McGarry said.

The exhibit is designed to highlight the mysteries surrounding the Thomas Hume. The schooner's disappearance reached legendary status among mariners at the time as rumors, including a UFO abduction or a collision with a steamship, abounded about the tragedy's cause. The captain and six others died.

By locating and identifying the shipwreck in southern Lake Michigan as the Thomas Hume, divers and historians quashed those century-old theories.

Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, a group that helps locate and identify undocumented shipwrecks from Pentwater to the Indiana border, and others concluded that the three-masted, 132-foot schooner sank during a squall. The company had claimed in 1891 that the schooner was too well-maintained to have succumbed to a storm.

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By Amy Oliver - Daily Mail

A chance encounter with a fisherman has led one team of treasure hunters to discover what they believe is the oldest shipwreck in the Caribbean.

And after only diving the site - located off the Dominican Republic coast - a handful of times, the team at Deep Blue Marine has unearthed some serious treasure.

At the last count Captain Billy Rawson and his crew had uncovered 700 silver coins that could be worth millions, jade figurines and even a mirrored stone that was possibly used in Shamanic rituals.

Everything was in pretty good condition, despite dating back to the 1500s.

'We only started diving last autumn and haven't gone down that much because it's been the winter,' said Randy Champion, vice president of the Utah-based company.

'We have just scratched the surface,' he added. 'All of the stuff we've found is just from mucking about really.'

Although the team haven't officially confirmed which ship they are diving, Mr Champion said they had a pretty fair idea - but were keeping quiet for now.

'If it's the ship we think it is, she probably went down in a hurricane,' Mr Champion said.

'We have looked at the prevailing currents and wind directions in archives and found a cannon and ballast stone on the wreck that was all going in the wrong direction.

'That suggests it was probably a hurricane as winds go counter clockwise.'

The Blue Water Marine team believe this ship was heading back to Spain with a haul of newly minted coins.

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