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Nova Scotia offshore booty to be off limits for commercial treasure hunters
By Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press
Nova Scotia is putting an end to all underwater commercial treasure hunting along its coast in a move aimed to prevent the loss of the province's marine heritage.
The government said Wednesday it would introduce legislation in the fall to repeal the Treasure Trove Act.
Enacted in 1954, the law governs treasure hunting on famed Oak Island on the province's south shore. The scope of the original act was subsequently expanded to cover the licensing of shipwreck salvage operations off the coast.
Under the current rules, treasure hunters are allowed to keep most of what they find. But they are required to hand over 10 per cent of non-precious artifacts to the province.
David Salter, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, said the intent of the new Oak Island Act is to ensure that everything that is found beneath the sea stays in Nova Scotia.
He said individuals and groups will still be allowed to dive on wrecks, but only for archeological and historical purposes.
"Anything that is found would become property of the province," said Salter.
He said some outstanding licenses would still be granted to applicants who meet policy guidelines for treasure hunting, but that all activities would come to an end Dec. 31.
Salter couldn't provide a precise figure, but said there aren't any more than a "handful" of outstanding licences.
The new legislation would incorporate elements of the existing Special Places Protection Act, which carries penalties for those who would remove artifacts without a heritage research permit.
Under the act, anyone in violation can be fined up to $10,000, while a company can face a fine of up to $100,000. The province also has the authority to seize anything found during an excavation.
"This just makes it (legislation) more streamlined and clearer that the purpose is essentially to preserve these heritage objects here in Nova Scotia," said Michael Noonan, a spokesman for the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage.
By Kassina Ryder - Northern News Services
The search for Sir John Franklin's lost ships is scheduled to proceed this summer, according to the project's senior archaeologist.
The search, which began in 2008, was called off last year because Parks Canada could not secure time on a coast guard or military ship, Ryan Harris, senior marine archaeologist with Parks Canada said.
"Essentially, we didn't have the ship time we needed to do the work," he said.
This year, researchers are scheduled to board a coast guard vessel in Kugluktuk on Aug. 10 and will spend the next three weeks scanning the Queen Maud Gulf using sonar equipment.
"We're hoping to cover as much of the sea floor as possible within our survey window and what I would like to find is a relatively intact ship that we can identify as either Erebus or Terror that will lead for very fruitful future investigations," Harris said.
In the 1850s, Inuit began telling explorers searching for the lost Franklin expedition about a ship they had seen while hunting bearded seal west of the Adelaide Peninsula. The ship had been abandoned and had no crew.
"There was a ship that was still floating for a few years, according to some stories," Gjoa Haven resident and historian Louie Kamookak said.
After being stuck in ice for two years, Sir John Franklin and his crew had abandoned their ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, off of King William Island in April, 1848. Franklin and his crew then disappeared.
When search crews arrived and began looking for the 129 crew members, Inuit in the area told them about seeing one of the ships floating near the Adelaide Peninsula, approximately three kilometres away.
Inuit knew the area as Urulik, a place to hunt bearded seal.
"All of those searchers gleaned stories from the Inuit that suggested one of the ships made it to the area called Urulik," Harris said.
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Treasure hunter to work the waters off East Coast resort
From Dominican Today
The maritime salvage company Deep Blue Marine, Inc. announced today that under the auspices and existing contract that Puntacana foundation has with the Dominican Government’s Culture Ministry and working under the supervision of the Dominican Navy and an inspector from the Office of the Submerged Patrimony, Deep Blue signed a subcontract agreement to provide services in the area of survey and recovery of artifacts for an undisclosed permitted area.
The company- owned dive and recovery vessel "Kerri Lynn" will be on site within days to begin work. Management hopes the boat will be on site for approximately 20 days per month weather permitting.
Deep Blue Marine, Inc. has been in the recovery business now since January 2006 and has recovered airplanes, modern sunken vessels, industrial equipment and historic ship wrecks.
The company houses many of its artifacts in a company owned museum located in Samana, Dominican Republic and plans to open similar venues in the country in the near future.
This is the second contract of this type that the company has entered into. Deep Blue Marine, Inc. remains committed to recovery of historical artifacts and is pleased to be allowed to work in this area.
Mahogany Ship search extends into space
By Matt Neal - The Standard
Two men have claimed to have found the fabled Mahogany Ship on the same day - in two different locations.
Ross Poulter, a Warrnambool chef, spoke to The Standard last week to detail his theory about the wreck's resting place. Less than an hour after that interview took place, Rob Simpson, of Boronia, contacted The Standard suggesting that he too had found the lost ship.
Both men have used Google Earth to help them find their locations for the legendary wreck, which has been suggested to have been everything from a Portuguese caravel to a Chinese junk to a colonial-era English vessel.
Mr Poulter's research began with the "Stewart position" - a longitude and latitude reputedly found in a religious book many years ago that is well-known to previous Mahogany Ship hunters.
But while many people have been looking for the wreck in the dunes, to account for the shifting sands of time, Mr Poulter believes the wreck lies "two to two and a half miles east of Gormans Road ... and roughly a cricket pitch length out to sea".
"It's about three feet under the sea but the hull outline is as plain as day," Mr Poulter said.
Some wooden beams he found in the nearby dunes, just metres away from where he said the submerged ship's hull lies, were tested and turned out to be messmate or eucalypt, but Mr Poulter is undeterred.
Libro verde para la protección del patrimonio subacuático
Hoyes Arte
La ministra de Cultura, Ángeles González-Sinde, ha presentado hoy en el Museo Nacional de Arqueología Subacuática de Cartagena (ARQUA) el Libro Verde del Plan Nacional de Protección del Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático, fruto de dos años de trabajo de una comisión de expertos formada por representantes de Cultura, a través del ARQUA, comunidades autónomas y universidades para mejorar la gestión de nuestro rico patrimonio sumergido.
El Libro Verde ofrece las herramientas para el cumplimiento de los objetivos del Plan Nacional que prevé un decálogo de medidas que van desde la documentación e inventario de este patrimonio arqueológico a la protección física y jurídica de las zonas arqueológicas más importantes de nuestro litoral, pasando por la formación en este campo, y acuerdos de colaboración con los Ministerios de Defensa, Interior y Exteriores.
Cultura ya ha puesto en marcha algunas de estas medidas en colaboración con las comunidades y se está tramitando un convenio de colaboración con cada una de ellas cuyo objetivo principal es realizar cartas arqueológicas.
Igualmente, ha suscrito un acuerdo con el Ministerio de Defensa con objeto de optimizar los recursos de ambos departamentos para la protección del patrimonio subacuático.
En cuanto a la financiación de las medidas para la protección de este patrimonio, la cifra ha pasado de los 800.000 euros de 2009 a los 1.275.000 de este año.
Tesoros marinos bajo vigilancia
Farodevigo
La riqueza arqueológica no sólo se mide por los yacimientos en tierra sino también por otros menos conocidos, los sumergidos bajo el mar.
Estas joyas submarinas del pasado contarán en breve con mayor protección, al menos sobre el papel.
La ministra de Cultura anunció en Cartagena que solicitará a la Guardia Civil que vigile este patrimonio. Sólo en Galicia, expertos en la materia estiman que existen más de medio millar de estos restos bajo las olas.
La vigilancia por parte de la Benemérita sobre el patrimonio subacuático en toda España –para impedir expolios– dará comienzo una vez el Ministerio de Cultura y la Guardia Civil firmen un convenio.
Desde Galicia, expertos como el arqueólogo submarino Miguel Sanclaudio aprueban la propuesta. “La Guardia Civil tiene que tomar más conciencia de la proteccicón del patrimonio subacuático, sin duda”, señala.
Para proteger los restos submarinos (barcos y cargas de interés localizados en el fondo del mar), primero hay que conocer dónde se encuentran dichos “tesoros”. A día de hoy, España carece de una carta de patrimonio subacuático que señale zonas, pecios y características.
Cada comunidad ha ido realizado su trabajo, con distintas velocidades. En el caso de Galicia, se comenzó en el actual siglo, aunque los trabajos aún no se han finalizado y desde la Consellería de Cultura no se ha publicado información detallada al respecto.
Miguel Sanclaudio, que ha colaborado con la Consellería de Cultura en la elaboración del mapa del patrimonio subacuático gallego, confía en que, desde la Administración gallega, se impulse la realización de las catas bajo el mar para rematar el inventario lo antes posible.
Los arqueólogos submarinos no son los únicos que solicitan que se agilicen las tareas. Con el anterior ministro de Cultura, César Antonio Molina, se había aprobado el Plan Nacional de Protección del Patrimonio Arqueológico Subacuático.
El plan presentaba como principal punto elaborar las cartas arqueológicas de todo el Estado. Casi dos años después del mandato, Cultura ha presentado ayer el Libro Verde del Plan que vuelve a incidir en lo mismo, subrayado por la ministra, Ángeles González-Sinde.
“Esperamos –apunta Sanclaudio– que con la publicación de este libro aceleren los trabajos desde la Xunta. Para lograrlo, se deberían aplicar más medios económicos”.
Great-grandson of L.R. Doty captain sees footage of vessel
By Meg Jones - Journal Sentinel
For the first time, Christopher Ring glimpsed the deck where his great-grandfather had earned his livelihood.
He looked through the open hatches to see where his ancestor's last cargo still lies. And he saw the rudder, turned hard to port, which his namesake would have ordered moved to turn his great steamship around in a brutal gale.
Ring, 64, was awe-struck.
He heard tales of his great-grandfather, whose body was never found, whose shipwreck was lying somewhere unknown and unseen at the bottom of Lake Michigan. But not until last month when the Salem, Ore., man was surfing the Internet did he learn that his great-grandfather's ship, the L.R. Doty, had finally been discovered 20 miles off Oak Creek in 320 feet of cold water.
So he and his wife booked a trip to Milwaukee and visited Discovery World-Pier Wisconsin on Sunday to see underwater video shot by John Janzen and photographs taken by John Scoles in June, when scuba divers discovered the 291-foot-long wooden steamship, the largest wreck unaccounted for in the Great Lakes.
Capt. Christopher Smith and 16 other crew members were lost when the L.R. Doty, loaded down with 107,000 bushels of corn and towing the schooner Olive Jeanette, disappeared on Oct. 25, 1898, after the tow line between the two ships broke during a ferocious storm.
Historians believe Smith was turning his football field-sized ship around to rescue the schooner when it foundered. When the crew of the Olive Jeanette, named after Smith's daughters, lost sight of the L.R. Doty in the huge swells, it was never seen again.
Ring's grandfather Walter, the oldest of Smith's children, was 15 when his father died on Lake Michigan. Walter Smith had also worked on the L.R. Doty as a wheelsman during summer breaks from school.
"I always heard the stories about the Doty," said Ring, whose grandfather raised him. "My great-grandfather complained that the Doty was always overloaded. They knew he would have turned around to go back for the Olive Jeanette."
Before the video was shown during a presentation at Discovery World, Great Lakes maritime historian Brendon Baillod recounted the history of the steamship and said he could find news clippings of only two bodies washing ashore. The remains of the other crew members are probably still below decks on the ship, whose hull is intact.
One of the 1898 news clippings reported that the captain's body had been found. But later it was learned that Smith had only one arm and could not be the body that was recovered.
"When he was a little bitty boy he was in a cotton gin accident in Scotland, that's where he grew up," Ring said about how his great-grandfather lost his arm. "Then when he was about 15, he stowed away on a sailing vessel to New York."
Smith eventually found his way to Detroit and worked for many years on the Great Lakes.
Baillod, who spearheaded the discovery of the shipwreck, read to the audience a gripping account by the cook of the Olive Jeanette who recalled the sailors pumping water from the slowly sinking schooner for two days before the ship was rescued.
Frances Browne, who had worked as a cook for many years on Great Lakes ships, recalled water flowing through the cabin as she diligently brewed hot coffee to fortify the soaked and exhausted crew.
Murder of the treasure hunter Bo Kjaer-Olsen in the republic of Panama
By Don Winner - Panama Guide.com
On Tuesday, 29 June 2010, 61 year old Bo Kjaer-Olsen, who held citizenship from both the United States and Denmark, was shot and killed on his 70 foot sailboat the "Altares" while at anchor near Bajo Pipon in the Republic of Panama.
The bullet hit an artery in his leg and he bled to death. In the attack Bo's son Zacharias Kjaer-Olsen was also shot. Zach remains hospitalized in David and has undergone surgery to repair the damage done however a bullet remains lodged near his spine and he might require further surgery.
Zach's 27 year old wife Sujey Rodríguez from Chiriqui was also attacked and severely beaten in the face. When the news first broke of this incident I spoke to some people from the boating community near Pedregal. Not too long ago Bo decided to move his boat further away from Pedregal and he was anchored in front of Bajo Pipon.
The Platanal and Chiriqui rivers merge just below Pedregal, and Bajo Pipon is just outside of the mouth of the river. The point being - he was anchored about 7.7 miles downstream from the docks in Pedregal - further away from assistance as well as any kind of police protection. Bo Kjaer-Olsen was a famous salvage diver and treasure hunter who probably had about $200,000 dollars worth of 17th Century Spanish gold on his boat, enough to lure the five men who attacked his family and killed him.
Bo's passion was for scuba diving and searching for and recovering sunken treasure - really. Once I got the correct spelling of his last name it was easy to find more information about him on the Internet. For example, this article entitled "The Skeleton Holds Billions !"
In Bo Kjaer-Olsen's estimation, there are over 2000 sunken ships, from the 15th century to the early 1800's, which wrecked from the Skeleton Coast down to Cape Town, South Africa. All are laden with, specie (monies).
Olsen says that this is one of the main graveyards for treasure ships in the world as they were forced to round the Cape in the days when there was no Suez Canal.
He estimates that salvageable treasure is in the billions of dollars. And who is Bo Kjaer-Olsen ? A credible man with an incredible background.
Olsen was born in Denmark fifty years ago June 1. He immigrated with his parents to South Africa in 1952, was raised and schooled in Cape Town where he lived for twenty-seven years. During his boarding school days, two fathers of his schoolmates were game wardens, so he began spending the three months of summer vacation with them.
Olsen went in the wardens' Jeeps, helping with anti-poaching enforcement and with ministering to sick and wounded animals (e.g. lions with abscessing teeth and elephants with festering wounds from hunters). His early adventures were mainly in the 400 by 300 miles of the Kruger National Park and the Okavango Swamps on the northern - border of Nambia (the source of the Kunini River).
Bo Kjaer-Olsen also became well known as a salvage diver and leader of salvage and exploration expeditions. Included in these were rock climbing and caving (going into deep caves for up to seven days); the caving expeditions were motivated by old stories of hidden treasure and by needed mapping of many unlogged caverns.
Look at "The Skeleton Holds Billions !"