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UK vessel found six decades later
From AFP
Search teams said on Monday that they had found the wreck of the British destroyer HMS Volage, whose sinking in 1946 off Albania prompted a diplomatic row and is seen as an early episode of the Cold War.
The wreckage of the vessel was found in the Ionian Sea by a team from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, the Albanian Archaeology Institute and Albanian defense ministry, project spokesperson Auron Tare said.
The Volage sank on October 22, 1946, when it hit a mine near the Albanian port of Saranda, as it raced to the aid of the HMS Saumarez, a second British destroyer which itself had been hit by a mine shortly before.
Forty-four sailors lost their lives and 42 more were injured in the incident which severely strained relations between Britain and then Soviet ally Albania.
It was one of several incidents involving Royal Navy ships getting into difficulties in Albanian waters at the time, and together the events became known as the Corfu Channel Incident.
The wreckage of the Volage was found three months ago, but the British and Albanian governments have only now decided to make the discovery public, Tare said.
Blue and the underwater treasures hunt
By Enkayaar - Bollywood Trade News Network
Though it has been a subject that keeps on being visited on a regular basis by Hollywood, i.e. going for a treasure hunt inside the water, now for the first time (in Bollywood) a treasure hunt film BLUE with the under waters as the background is going to hit the silver screen in a short time from now.
The name in itself is an enigma as Blue is one of the colors whose interpretations keep on getting manifested over the years.
May be, the treasure hunt in water has not been a subject with the Indian film making fraternity owing to the fact that there are hardly any historical references about a ship laden with goods drowning off the Indian coasts.
As a matter of fact the ships used to start from the Indian coasts laden with the booty and were either pirated, or drowned in the Pacific Ocean towards their final destination to different European countries, and this is one of the reasons why Hollywood keeps on revisiting these topics, as they have got abundant source material to back upon.
The success of The Pirates of Caribbean is a monumental testimony to the interest that films of this genre continue to evince, among the aficionados around the world.
No wonder Blue is also situated in the Pacific Island and not in any country of the Indian Ocean.
Bones of English sailor from disastrous expedition returned to U.K.
By Randy Boswell - Canwest News Service
More than 160 years after his death in the Canadian Arctic during the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, the bones of an English sailor — among the only human remains ever repatriated from the disastrous 19th-century search for the Northwest Passage — have been laid to rest once more during a solemn rededication ceremony in London attended by Canada's High Commissioner, James Wright.
The service, also attended by Parks Canada's top marine archeologist, Robert Grenier, followed the refurbishment and relocation of a monument dedicated to the sacrifice of the expedition's 130 members, who perished in the late 1840s after their ships — the Terror and the Erebus — became locked in ice near Nunavut's King William Island.
The 20-year search for the ships commanded by Sir John Franklin yielded various artifacts and the graves of several of the doomed crewmen, including that of Lt. Henry Le Vesconte.
Divers probe Mayan ruins submerged in Guatemala Lake
By Mica Rosenberg and Jackie Frank - ABC News
Scuba divers are exploring the depths of a volcanic lake in Guatemala to find clues about an ancient sacred island where Mayan pilgrims flocked to worship before it was submerged by rising waters.
Samabaj, the first underwater archaeological ruins excavated in Guatemala, were discovered accidentally 12 years ago by a diver exploring picturesque Lake Atitlan, ringed by Mayan villages and popular with foreign tourists.
"No one believed me, even when I told them all about it. They just said 'he's mad'," said Roberto Samayoa, a businessman and recreational diver who grew up near the lake where his grandmother told him legends of a sunken church.
Samayoa dived for years at the lake, often stumbling across pieces of pottery from the Mayan pre-classic period. In 1996, he found the site, with parts of buildings and huge ceremonial stones, known as stelae, clearly visible.
He named it Samabaj, after himself, but only in the past year have professional archeologists taken an interest, mapping the 4,300-square-foot (400-square-meter) area with sonar technology and excavating structures on a raised part of the lake bed.
Researchers believe this area, 50 feet below the lake's surface, was once an island until a catastrophic event, like a volcanic eruption or landslide, raised water levels.
Toxic shipwreck turns out to be red herring
By Guy Dinmore and Eleonora de Sabata - Financial Times
Italian prosecutors searching for the wreck of a ship allegedly scuttled by the mafia with toxic waste on board in 1992 say the vessel they surveyed this week in deep waters off the coast of Calabria turned out instead to be a passenger steamship sunk by a German submarine in 1917.
Fears of coastal pollution had led to protests by local fishermen, residents and mayors who accused the central government of not doing enough to resolve the issue.
Prosecutors told a news conference in Rome on Thursday evening that after finding the World War One wreck of the Catania they had decided to call off the search for a ship which Francesco Fonti, a mafia turncoat, claims to have sent to the bottom with dynamite in 1992.
Mr Fonti’s allegations, first made to prosecutors in 2003, followed years of inconclusive investigations into at least 20 suspicious sinkings of ships in the Mediterranean in the 1980s and 1990s.
Prosecutors suspected that the mafia was dumping toxic waste at sea, possibly working on behalf of industrialists and government agencies.
Copper clue may solve mystery of doomed Victorian Arctic expedition
By Maev Kennedy - The Guardian
Find could help reveal fate of Sir John Franklin's ships that disappeared in hunt for North-West Passage.
A few snippets of copper may be a vital clue towards solving one of Arctic exploration's most haunting mysteries: what happened to Sir John Franklin's two superbly equipped ships when he and all 150 members of his expedition died in the search for the North-West Passage more than 160 years ago?
The fate of the 1845 expedition haunted Victorian imagination, and accounts suggesting some of his starving men prolonged their lives by cannibalism destroyed the reputation of those sent to find them.
Expensive rescue expeditions continued for almost 20 years, spurred on by Franklin's formidable widow, Jane Griffin. Evidence confirming Franklin's death was only discovered in 1859. Dumped supplies were recovered along with personal possessions, letters describing his death and those of many of his senior officers, and finally bodies, but his twin ships – the Erebus and the Terror – have never been located.
Odyssey Marine Exploration with Robert Fraser & Partners LLP
From Reuters
Odyssey Marine Exploration has entered into a letter of intent with Robert Fraser & Partners LLP. Under the terms of the proposed arrangement, Odyssey will provide services related to the exploration and recovery of shipwrecks and other deep-ocean resources to syndicates formed by Robert Fraser & Partners to engage in deep-ocean exploration.
Under the proposed structure, Odyssey will be compensated for search, survey and archaeological excavation as well as development of research files on specific shipwreck and other deep-ocean projects. Odyssey will also have a substantial interest in the back-end of the projects and will be paid for providing other services including conservation, documentation, marketing and sales of recovered cargoes and commodities.
"We have long considered partnering on specific projects in a manner that is non-dilutive to Odyssey shareholders, but it has been a challenge to find a partner that understands the nuances and challenges of syndicating individual projects.
I believe we have finally found that partner, and we are currently in the process of developing the syndication of our first project with them," stated Greg Stemm, Odyssey's Chief Executive Officer.
"This presents an exciting opportunity to move Odyssey forward and generate current revenue from marine operations, research and expertise, while maintaining a significant interest in the projects."
"We're delighted on behalf of our clients and investors to be working with Odyssey and we anticipate developing a number of deep-ocean projects with them," commented Colin Emson, Chief Executive Officer of Robert Fraser.
"Having previously worked with a number of clients on a broad range of marine projects, we have gained a real appreciation for the first-class work that Odyssey has demonstrated in the field.
Contracting with Odyssey is seen as bringing together highly compatible skill sets for further development of this fascinating and emerging deep-sea field. We are most enthused about working with the benefit of the new exploration technologies in which Odyssey is the acknowledged world leader and look forward to securing our first contract with them as soon as possible."
Officials from Titanic Historical Society in Springfield shocked
By Ray Kelly - Massachusetts Live.com
Leaders of the Indian Orchard-based Titanic Historical Society reacted with shock on Monday to news that another salvage mission to the world’s most famous shipwreck is under consideration.
“Oh, God,” said Edward S. Kamuda, president of the 4,000-member international society. “I was under the impression that they were going to lay off of this.”
The first expedition to the North Atlantic wreck site since 2004 was revealed in a filing by RMS Titanic Inc. in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., where four days of hearings are scheduled this week on the company’s claim for a salvage award.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who considers the wreck an “international treasure,” will preside over the hearings. They are intended to establish legal guarantees that thousands of Titanic artifacts remain intact as a collection and forever accessible to the public. Some pieces have ended up in London auction houses.
Lawyers for RMS Titanic Inc. confirmed a possible expedition in 2010 to the Associated Press, but declined to discuss the plans in detail.