Bones of early American disappear from underwater cave

From New Scientist: Bones of early American disappear from underwater cave

One of the first humans to inhabit the Americas has been stolen – and archaeologists want it back.

The skeleton, which is probably at least 10,000 years old, has disappeared from a cenote, or underground water reservoir, in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

In response, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico City has placed "wanted" posters in supermarkets, bakeries and dive shops in and around the nearby town of Tulum. They are also considering legal action to recover the remains.

The missing bones belong to a skeleton dubbed Young Man of Chan Hol II, discovered in 2010. The cenote in which it was found had previously yielded another 10,000-year-old skeleton – the Young Man of Chan Hol, discovered in 2006.

The earlier find has anatomical features suggesting shared heritage with Indonesians and south Asians. Other skeletons found in cenotes in the area with similar features may date to around 14,000 years ago. Such finds imply that not all early Americans came from north Asia. This deals yet another blow to the idea that the Clovis people crossing an ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska were the first to colonise the Americas. Clovis culture dates to around 13,000 years ago.

Both skeletons were laid to rest at a time when sea level was much lower than it is today and the cenote, now about 8 metres below the water, was dry. Archaeologists have also found the remains of elephants, giant sloths and other animals in the caves, giving an indication of what the ancient humans ate.

INAH researchers have been aware of creeping theft of specimens from cenotes, but they lack the resources to guard the hundreds of sites that dot the peninsula 

Salvage deal for Costa Concordia agreed

From BBC News: Salvage deal for Costa Concordia agreed
Work to salvage the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship is due to start next month, the owners say.

The contract was won by US-based company Titan Salvage and an Italian firm specialising in underwater ship repairs, Microperi, Costa Cruises said.

Under the plans, the Concordia will be re-floated in one piece and towed to a port on the Italian mainland.

Thirty-two people died when the ship hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio with 4,200 people on board.

The operation, which is expected to take a year, still needs to be approved by the Italian authorities.

The ship lies half-submerged on its side on a steep underwater incline, near the island's main port.

Airbags will be used to re-float the ship once the gash ripped into its port side when it ran aground has been mended, the BBC's David Willey reports from Rome.

Once the Concordia has been removed, the sea floor will be cleaned and measures taken to help marine flora to regenerate.

Work to drain more than 2,000 tonnes of fuel and sewage from the ship was completed last month, easing fears that the pristine waters around Giglio could be badly polluted.

'Best solution'
The salvage operation will use the port of Civitavecchia, on the Italian mainland, as a base, in an effort to minimise the impact on tourism and port activities in Giglio.

"As was the case with the removal of the fuel, we have sought to identify the best solution to safeguard the island and its marine environment and to protect its tourism," Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi said of the winning tender for the operation.

Nine people are being investigated in connection with the disaster, including the captain, Francesco Schettino, who is under house arrest on suspicion of manslaughter. He denies any wrongdoing.

Thirty bodies have been recovered from the vessel, with a further two people still missing

What lies beneath

From the Observer (Dunkirk, NY): What lies beneath

What kid does not dream of finding a buried treasure? We have a buried treasure right off the Dunkirk shore. Where is the fanfare and jubilation that something quite wonderful, something authentic, something with historic significance has been discovered?

Richard Kullberg found the treasure. He is majority owner of North East Research, LLC, a company designed to locate and salvage shipwrecks. With more than 40 years of underwater recovery in the Florida Keys, they came seeking the wreck of a British payroll ship sunk on Aug. 8, 1813 and said to be carrying $400 million in gold coins to pay the British troops. Today, this would translate to billions!

Kullberg is not a low-key kind of guy. When he returned to Dunkirk to pursue this discovery, he rolled into town in a Ferrari and a cigarette boat, armed with investment funds to get the job done.

He became known as "Cape Cod Rich" along our waterfront, referencing the connection to Kullberg's business endeavor in the early '80s when he started the first whale watch service out of Barnstable Harbor on Cape Cod. It was a "no-brainer" for Kullberg, a Massachusetts native, who knew that for 35,000 years whales had come to this area to gorge on the krill released with the 11-foot tides.

Kullberg, a 1977 graduate of Harvard Business School, describes his business philosophy as "Shots on goal," (hockey terminology) which, quoting Wayne Gretzky, says: "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take," and, "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

The discovery was first made in 1994. Kullberg returned in 2004 with his professional crew to film the shipwreck, having already secured salvage rights through the courts based on coordinates to the ship's location. What emerged in video in the murky depths of Lake Erie was an amazingly intact two-masted schooner sitting upright, with remnants of its cargo of wheat, barley and hickory nuts.

Now, that may not sound as interesting as a payroll ship, except for the immense historic value of the vessel which has captured the imagination of this adventurer and salvor, and many others, including archeologists and history buffs. It is this historic treasure that Kullberg now seeks to introduce to the world and a passion which has kept his "shots on goal" right here in Dunkirk for the past eight years. Kullberg believes, after years of research and a close to $2 million investment, that this mystery ship sitting preserved in the 37-degree water, 170 feet below the surface of Lake Erie, has a fascinating story to tell. He has come to believe that it is the Caledonia.

The schooner, Caledonia, was built in 1797 near Windsor, Ontario, to ply the Great Lakes during the height of the fur trades. When the War of 1812 was proclaimed in June 1812, the British commandeered the ship, armed it and with a crew of British and Canadian soldiers won an important victory on Lake Michigan. In 1813, while the Caledonia was anchored at Ft. Erie, Americans surprised the sleeping crew and captured the ship for the American navy, bringing it to Black Rock across the Niagara River. It was on this ship that Captain Perry won the Battle of Lake Erie, then invaded southern Canada and retook Detroit. With the end of the war and the Treaty of Ghent, the Caledonia sailed to Lake Michigan and reestablished Ft. Dearborn, which is now Chicago.

That was not the end of her magnificent story. After the war she was rededicated to commerce by new Pennsylvania owners, Rufus Reed and John Dickson, who named her the General Wayne. The last reference to the General Wayne was 1818. Kullberg speculates that Reed, an abolitionist, might have used this ship to transport American slaves to freedom in Canada. That might explain why the vessel off Dunkirk carries no obvious insignia or identifying markings, for if discovered in this effort there would have been severe consequences for the owners. An 1834 coin aboard the ship indicates that the ship was still in service at least until this year. Kullberg has obtained an assignment of ownership and claim of title from Hannah Reed Mays, a direct descendent of Rufus Reed, as part of his claim.

Kullberg wants to lift the 85-foot. schooner on live TV, video the entire rescue process, move it carefully to the Buffalo waterfront, ensconce it in a huge cement and Plexiglas water-filled, window display case so visitors can view this authentic piece of American history. This is authentic artifact, not just a symbol of our nation's history.

Very few would ever see the wreck while sitting on the floor of Lake Erie. He expects it to become a destination point for history buffs from around the world. Seven million visitors have paid to see the Mary Rose, raised in waters off Portsmouth, England, in 1983. In this anniversary year of the sinking of the Titanic, it is not difficult to imagine the vast interest that people have in sunken boats and their stories. Plus, this is the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the Caledonia was prominent in Perry's naval victories on Lake Erie which changed the course of American history. This sunken boat is the "missing icon of Buffalo," says a Buffalo official referencing the schooner on the seal of the city of Buffalo and the importance of the trading ships on the Great Lakes before the existence of major highways. Decades of important local history is tied up in this ship, if indeed, she is the Caledonia.

New York state immediately recognized the importance of the discovery and legal battles over salvage rights and preservation strategies commenced. New York claims recovery would violate the state's "in site preservation" policy of leaving ships where found. North East Research had begun excavation and more than 100 artifacts had been recovered from the ship. Human remains were also found and North East was accused of "desecration of human remains." Some artifacts indicate women were on board. Salvage rights were revoked in 2008 by New York and federal courts ruled the schooner belongs to the state of New York. In 2009, the wreck was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Who would ever know, sitting at the bottom on the lake!

North East Research has appealed the case to the US Circuit Court of Appeals.

"We are not looters or treasure hunters. We are professional salvers. The ship itself is a treasure. We want to do everything we can to preserve it," says Pat Cline, part owner of North East. "The last thing we're going to do in a shipwreck of this historic magnitude is to destroy the integrity of the ship."

North East claims most damage comes from "unauthorized intruders," non-professional, recreational divers who disturbed the site, plus the inability of law enforcement agencies to protect the wreck from looters. Zebra mussels also have discovered the wreck and cover the exterior. Kullberg and company have invested more than $1.8 million in their early stages of excavation with teams of technical divers, work boats, equipment, consultants and lawyers and are not about to give up on their goal.

North East suggests a private/government compromise to bring the Caledonia out of the depths to a place where she can be both viewed, honored and preserved. New York has no money to resurrect or protect the ship. North East Research would bring the ship up at their own cost, estimated at $7.5 million.

"It's feasible - could be a way of preserving the vessel Certainly would be impressive," said Pat Labadie, historian for Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Michigan.

Lessons have been learned from earlier salvaged wrecks which have been brought onto land only to disintegrate over time.

Kullberg intends to partner with Buffalo Industrial Dive Co. to lift and move it gently to its new and visible underwater home on Buffalo's waterfront. Artifacts would be given to Buffalo for a 99-year lease for $1. North East would ask for one third of the museum entry fees. National Geographic and other publications are interested in documentation of the process of recovery. Legal battles continue.

Now that OBSERVER readers have been groomed to write officials to save NRG, perhaps these skills could be directed toward raising the Caledonia and bringing an exciting new endeavor to Western New York with both tourist value and historic relevance. It is, after all, being referred to as "the Dunkirk schooner" in archeological journals. We all have a vested interest.

In the meantime, Kullberg takes other "shots on goal" in our region. In 2006, he submitted a patent for a chip in cell phones that would prohibit testing in an automobile or in designated areas such as classrooms. This he submitted first to SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator, but they rejected the idea. He and several partners have since set up the Thruway Driving Range off Route 60 near the toll booths to service the many golfers in the area without such a skill building, practice facility nearby. Already they have received strong interest for the space from major hotel and commercial enterprises who value the high visibility.

Shots on goal: that's the Kullberg philosophy.

Haunting pictures of boots and a coat at Titanic wreck site illustrate the human cost of the tragedy 100 years after ship sank

From Daily Mail Online: Haunting pictures of boots and a coat at Titanic wreck site illustrate the human cost of the tragedy 100 years after ship sank
Newly-released photos show the haunting images of Titanic victim's clothing lining the bottom of the ocean floor 100 years after the New York-bound ship sank in the North Atlantic.

A 2004 photograph, released to the public for the first time this week in an uncropped version to coincide with the disaster's centenary, shows a coat and boots in the mud at the legendary shipwreck site.

It came as the passengers of a cruise ship retracing the route of the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic held an emotional memorial service at the exact spot where the ship sank on its maiden voyage a century ago.

'These are not shoes that fell out neatly from somebody's bag right next to each other,' said James Delgado, the director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration.

The way they are 'laid out' makes a 'compelling case' that it is where 'someone has come to rest,' he said.

The image, along with two others showing pairs of boots resting next to each other, were taken during an expedition led by NOAA and famed Titanic finder Robert Ballard in 2004. They were published in Ballard's book on the expedition. Mr Delgado said the one showing a coat and boots was cropped to show only a boot

The New York Times first reported about the photographs in Saturday editions.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who has visited the wreck 33 times, told the newspaper that he had seen 'zero human remains' during his extensive explorations of the Titanic.

'We've seen shoes. We've seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we've never seen any human remains,' Mr Cameron said.

For Mr Delgado, who was the chief scientist on an expedition in 2010 that mapped the entire site, the difference in opinion is 'one of semantics.'

'I as an archaeologist would say those are human remains,' he said, referring to the photograph of the coat and boots specifically.

'Buried in that sediment are very likely forensic remains of that person.'

He said in an email that the images 'speak to the power of that tragic and powerful scene 2 1/2 miles below' and 'to its resilience as an undersea museum, as well as its fragility.'

'This is an appropriate time to note the human cost of that event, and the fact that in this special place at the bottom of the sea, evidence of the human cost, in the form of the shattered wreck, the scattered luggage, fittings and other artifacts, and the faint but unmistakable evidence that this is where people came to rest, is present,' he said.

He said the images are also evidence that society could do a better job protecting the site.

There has been a long fight to protect the Titanic since it was rediscovered by Mr Ballard in 1985, beginning with a federal law passed by Congress aimed at creating an international agreement to transform the shipwreck into an international maritime memorial.

Senator John Kerry introduced what some observers see as stronger legislation April 1 aimed at protecting the site from 'salvage and intrusive research.'

But the luxury liner, which went down April 14, 1912 after striking an iceberg, sits in international waters, limiting what the U.S. government can do. Mr Delgado said an international treaty would need to be negotiated between Britain, Canada, France and the U.S.

At 11.40pm last night - the time the ship hit the iceberg - passengers gathered on the decks of MS Balmoral, which has been retracing the route of the doomed voyage.

About 50 of the 1,309 passengers on board Balmoral have a direct family connection to the
sinking.

The Balmoral left Southampton last Sunday for a 12-night cruise to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the liner that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

Jane Allen, from Devon, whose great-uncle perished on the Titanic, said the moment vividly reminded her of the horror of the disaster.

All you could hear was the swell splashing against the side of the ship. You could see the white breakers stretching out to sea,' she told the BBC.

'You are in the middle of nowhere. And then you look down over the side of the ship and you realise that every man and every woman who didn't make it into a lifeboat had to make that decision, of when to jump or stay on the ship as the lights went out.

'And when the lights went out it was horrendous.'

Patricia Watts, 81, a retired teacher from Bristol, who is travelling with her husband David, 80, remembered her grandfather, George MacKie, 34, from Southampton, who was a second-class steward on board the Titanic.

Before the service she said: 'When we get to the wreck site there will be some sadness, but I think also some sense of release.

I shall feel a sense of accomplishment that I have achieved what I set out to do. I think the service will be a very memorable occasion, slightly sad, but also for a lot of people it will be the event of the cruise.'

Another cruise ship, Journey, which has travelled from New York, also held a service at the site of the disaster, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

In Belfast, a minute's silence also held during another poignant service.

A great, great nephew of the ship's doctor helped to unveil bronze plaques listing more than 1,500 passengers, crew and musicians who died when the liner struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.

The boat was built in a Belfast shipyard and relatives of workmen who made and crewed the vessel were present for today's ceremony.

Jack Martin, a 12-year-old descendant of Dr John Simpson, lay a wreath and said: 'I am proud that I am keeping the memory of my ancestor alive and it keeps memories fresh.'

A letter penned on board the Titanic by the Belfast doctor to his mother is to be brought back to Belfast for exhibition.

The letter, from assistant ship surgeon Dr John Edward Simpson, was written on notepaper headed RMS Titanic and brought ashore at Cobh, County Cork. From there it was posted to his mother, Elizabeth, who lived in south Belfast.

Dr Simpson was married and had one son when he took the commission on Titanic. He had previously worked on another White Star Line ship - the Olympic.

In the letter, Dr Simpson said he was settling into his cabin well and that the accommodation on board his new vessel was larger.

Jack's father John Martin today said it meant a lot to him that the note was to be on display in Belfast.

'It is the last tangible object that we have from John Simpson, everything else that he had was lost,' he said.

'It is the last thing that we know he actually touched, that means a lot to the family.'
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness (centre) attends a Requiem service at St Anne's Church of Ireland Cathedral in Belfast, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago

he service, held beside the city hall, took less than an hour and featured solo pieces by singer Brian Kennedy and reflections from actor Dan Gordon and minister the Rev Ian Gilpin.

Belfast Lord Mayor Niall O`Donnghaile, Jack Martin and a representative of the Harland and Wolff shipyard, where the vessel was built, laid wreaths at the new memorial.

The names of the dead, from all classes on the doomed liner, are engraved in alphabetical order on five bronze plaques.

When the Titanic sank with its three classes of passenger, a disproportionate number of victims were in third class. This is the first time all, including crew, are recognised on one memorial.

The Rev Ian Gilpin said: 'We behold the Titanic memorial, we remember all those who perished and whose names are herein inscribed - men, women and children who loved and we loved, their loss still poignantly felt by their descendants.

'In the permanence of granite, marble and stone may there be a permanence in our remembrance, in diversity, in the colour and fragrance of the flowers of the memorial, that the memorial be an acknowledgement of the diversity of humankind.'

After the wreath-laying a minute's silence was held for private reflection then the hymn Nearer My God to Thee, which was played by the band before the ship sank, rang out.

He said: 'This setting is dedicated to two people, one who died very old and one who died very young.

'Within my own experience, they mirrored the huge range of people who lost their lives as a result of the Titanic disaster.'

Dr Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985, was in Belfast for today's ceremony and delivered a memorial lecture yesterday.

A funeral pall to commemorate the disaster will also be unveiled at St Anne's Church of Ireland Cathedral, in Belfast.

Childhood home of Titanic captain to be put up for sale 100 years after tragedy

The house where Titanic captain Edward John Smith was born is up for sale at a bargain price.

The skipper of the ill-fated liner grew up in the two-bed Victorian terrace in Well Street, Hanley, Staffordshire, which is now on the market for £80,000.

The history of the humble home attracted the current owners to buy it 10 years ago and now they hope to pass it on to a historical custodian who can make the most of its past.

Neil and Louise Bonner snapped the house up for less than £50,000 as an investment and rented it out.

But now on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy, they have put it on the market.

Mr Bonner, 64, who is a journalist said: 'It's been fascinating to have had a connection to the Titanic story. It's certainly provided an interesting talking point over the years.'

The couple from Stafford are hoping to capitalise on the interest in the centenary year of the loss of the passenger liner which collided with an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland.

More than 1,500 people including Captain Edward John Smith died in the 1912 tragedy.

He and his pottery worker parents are believed to have lived in the house for more than a decade. He worked at a local steelmaker before heading off to sea aged 13, where he progressed from ship's boy to captain.

Mrs Bonner, 60, who is a retired university lecturer, said: 'It's hard to understand what motivated him to go to sea.He came from a typical working class Potteries family and he went on to achieve so much.

'The house has already attracted interest from Germany and America.'

Estate agent Tabatha Cartlidge said: 'The history of this property is likely to be the draw for potential buyers. We anticipate it may attract interest from across the world.'

Spitfires buried in Burma during war to be returned to UK

From the Telegraph: Spitfires buried in Burma during war to be returned to UK
The Prime Minister secured a historic deal that will see the fighter aircraft dug up and shipped back to the UK almost 67 years after they were hidden more than 40-feet below ground amid fears of a Japanese occupation.

The gesture came as Mr Cameron became the first Western leader to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy campaigner held under house arrest for 22 years by the military regime, and invited her to visit London in her first trip abroad for 24 years.

He called on Europe to suspend its ban on trade with Burma now that it was showing “prospects for change” following Miss Suu Kyi’s election to parliament in a sweeping electoral victory earlier this year.

The plight of the buried aircraft came to Mr Cameron’s attention at the behest of a farmer from Scunthorpe, North Lincs, who is responsible for locating them at a former RAF base using radar imaging technology.

David Cundall, 62, spent 15 years doggedly searching for the Mk II planes, an exercise that involved 12 trips to Burma and cost him more than £130,000.

When he finally managed to locate them in February, he was told Mr Cameron “loved” the project and would intervene to secure their repatriation.

Mr Cundall told the Daily Telegraph: “I’m only a small farmer, I’m not a multi-millionaire and it has been a struggle. It took me more than 15 years but I finally found them.

”Spitfires are beautiful aeroplanes and should not be rotting away in a foreign land. They saved our neck in the Battle of Britain and they should be preserved.”

He said the Spitfires, of which there are only around 35 flying left in the world, were shipped to Burma and then transported by rail to the British RAF base during the war.

However, advances in technology and the emergence of more agile jets meant they were never used and in July 1945, officials fearing a Japanese occupation abandoned them on the orders of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the head of South East Asia Command, two weeks before the atom bombs were dropped, ending the conflict.

“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Mr Cundall said. “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”

The married father of three, an avid plane enthusiast, embarked on his voyage of discovery in 1996 after being told of their existence by a friend who had met some American veterans who described digging a trench for the aircraft during the Allied withdrawal of Burma.

He spent years appealing for information on their whereabouts from eye witnesses, scouring public records and placing advertisements in specialist magazines.

Several early trips to Burma were unsuccessful and were hampered by the political climate.

He eventually met one eyewitness who drew maps and an outline of where the aircraft were buried and took him out to the scene.

“Unfortunately, he got his north, south, east and west muddled up and we were searching at the wrong end of the runway,” he said.

“We also realised that we were not searching deep enough as they had filled in all of these bomb craters which were 20-feet to start with.

“I hired another machine in the UK that went down to 40-feet and after going back surveying the land many times, I eventually found them.

“I have been in touch with British officials in Burma and in London and was told that David Cameron would negotiate on my behalf to make the recovery happen.”

Mr Cundall said sanctions preventing the removal of military tools from Burma were due to be lifted at midnight last night (FRI).

A team from the UK is already in place and is expecting to begin the excavation, estimated to cost around £500,000, imminently. It is being funded by the Chichester-based Boultbee Flight Acadamy.

Mr Cundall said the government had promised him it would be making no claim on the aircraft, of which 21,000 were originally produced, and that he would be entitled to a share in them.

“It’s been a financial nightmare but hopefully I’ll get my money back,” he said.

“I’m hoping the discovery will generate some jobs. They will need to be stripped down and re-riveted but it must be done. My dream is to have a flying squadron at air shows.”

Divers relive treasure hunt

From The National: Divers relive treasure hunt
DUBAI //A pearl diver wearing the traditional, light-coloured costume used by generations of Emirati treasure hunters reaches out for an oyster shell on the seabed off Jebel Ali.

Only his modern diving mask shows that the scene did not take place many decades ago, before the pearl industry collapsed in the 1930s.

It actually happened yesterday, thanks to a new initiative by the Emirates Marine Environmental Group (Emeg) and Jumeirah.

From tomorrow, members of the public can take part in a traditional pearl diving trip on a dhow, using authentic clothing and techniques.

Pearls were gathered in the Gulf for centuries and the industry was the only source of income for the seven emirates. But the development of much cheaper cultured pearls in Japan killed off the trade.

The new venture intends to draw attention to this important part of the UAE's heritage.

"This is a great thing. If you don't think about your traditions, you will lose all your future," said Major Ali Saqar Al Suweidi, the president of Emeg and the son and grandson of pearl divers. He said the Gulf's oyster beds had deteriorated greatly since the end of pearl diving.

"The old people believe that the oyster is like a plant," he said. "If you cut the plant it comes again, but if you leave it then it will be destroyed. This is what has happened - I've dived at many places and there are not as many oysters as before.

"I teach children to pearl dive. One said, 'I can't go pearl diving because a shark will eat me', and his grandfather was a pearl diver. I taught him, and in the end he loved pearl diving. This is in their blood."

At the industry's peak there were 500 pearl diving boats in Dubai and the fleet spent three months at sea each summer without returning to port.

Jumeirah hopes the trip will attract hotel guests and other tourists, expatriates and Emiratis, many of whom have family links to the pearl industry.

Des Cawley, the director of sport and leisure at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, said: "What we're doing is looking to revive this experience for our guests so they can get a flavour of the history and heritage.

"There are many different oyster beds and we'll rotate them, they range from three to five metres deep. Historically, the pearl divers used to dive to depths of up to 40 metres."

The initiative has been welcomed by Juma'a bin Thalith, the director of the heritage department at the Emirates Diving Association.

He said: "This is a good initiative that will support Eda's efforts to document the pearl diving heritage and promote it."

The National had a preview of the pearl diving experience yesterday, joining a group that met at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.

A bus took the novice pearl divers to a chalet on the beach next to the trunk of the Palm Jebel Ali, where they changed into the traditional costume, which gives protection from jellyfish stings.

They then boarded a dhow that took them to an oyster bed a few hundred metres offshore.

Major Ali demonstrated the diving technique, which involves placing a foot in a loop fixed to a weight and then releasing an attached rope, allowing the weight to drag the diver to the seabed.

The treasure seeker then swims off and grabs as many oyster shells as possible before running out of breath and returning to the surface.

For safety reasons, only two pearl divers are allowed in the water at a time and each is assisted by a helper on the boat.

Two scuba divers from the Pavilion Dive Centre are ready to help out if needed.

Afterwards the divers are shown how to open the shells with a special knife, known as a mafligah.

At first it seemed that none of the shells contained any treasure but closer examination of one revealed two tiny silvery pearls attached to the inside.

The pearl diving experience costs Dh700 for adults and Dh500 for under-12s, including breakfast and lunch. Details can be found at www.jumeirah.com/Pearl-Diving.

Schools unite to lift WW2 children from watery grave

From Yahoo News: Schools unite to lift WW2 children from watery grave

BERLIN (Reuters) - One March day in the last weeks of World War Two, more than 70 German children squeezed into a plane designed for 14 hoping to be flown to safety from the advancing Soviet tanks in north-eastern Nazi Germany.

Minutes after takeoff the plane dived into an icy lake, killing everyone on board. Nearly 70 years later, former war foes Germany and Poland are joining forces to try to raise the wreck from Resko Przymorskie in western Poland.

"The idea that whenever I went to the lake, I was walking by an open grave with so many children made me uneasy. To me, what we are doing is a natural thing," Zdzislaw Matusewicz, mayor of the Polish town of Trzebiatow, told Reuters.

"Children are innocent in war -- that applies to German as well as Polish children."

The Polish mayor is working with Germany's War Graves Commission to retrieve the remains of the mostly unidentified children and four crew from what is known in German as Kamper See and bury them in a nearby war cemetery.

Barely any of the childrens' identities are known but since the project began, some people have come forward, hoping to obtain details about family members who went missing without trace in the chaotic last months of the war.

The water in the lake, close to the Baltic Sea, may have dissolved the bodies but some experts say that mud may have protected the plane and some DNA evidence could be intact.

"This is a very big project. It is technically difficult and a real challenge," said Wolfram Althoff, the Grave Commission's special representative for the project.

Both sides say the project is an important symbol of how far Poles and Germans have come in putting behind them a Nazi occupation which left 6 million Poles dead, many of them in mass civilian executions or extermination camps such as Auschwitz.

Schools on both sides of the border are raising funds to help foot a bill for raising the wreck which officials say could reach as much as 150,000 euros, if it proves possible at all.

On March 5, a group of German school children took part in an anniversary ceremony on the lakeside and schools have also launched an appeal for possible relatives of the victims to come forward.

"It is a one-off, nothing like it has happened before. The fact that a Polish mayor initiated this makes it a project that should be supported," Althoff said.

The end of Communism has allowed the German War Graves Commission to re-intern hundreds of thousands of war dead from eastern Europe in the last two decades.

BETTER NEIGHBOURS

The neighbors have been drawn closer together by Poland's accession to the European Union and strong economic ties which have seen tens of thousands find work in Germany.

Tensions still flare sometimes, however, particularly over a group lobbying for the rights of Germans expelled from territory which became Polish after the war, who wield considerable influence in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc.

The head of Germany's Arnold Zweig Europe School in Pasewalk said attending an anniversary ceremony at the lakeside last month was a live lesson in German-Polish history for his pupils.

"We wanted children involved because they are the people who have least to do with war," said headmaster Norbert Haack. "We want to show that we Germans stand together with Poles, although - and we made this clear - the war was started by Germans."

Germany evacuated hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of them children put in refugee camps, westwards from the area around the wreck in early 1945 in hurried efforts to save lives from Red Army soldiers taking revenge for SS atrocities.

It is unclear if a Soviet tank brought down the plane or if it crashed simply because it was so overloaded.

The Dornier 24 plane was a flying boat, designed to rescue shipwrecked people but by the end of the war, Germany used it to transport refugees, including many from the area around what is today's German-Polish border, said Althoff.

"The pilots flying the planes knew they were too heavy. Each time they took off, they hoped they'd make it," he said.

Only about two months before the tragedy at the lake, a Soviet submarine sank Germany's Wilhelm Gustloff ship in the Baltic Sea, killing around 9,000 civilian evacuees, six times as many as the number that drowned on the Titanic.

Until 2001, any investigation at the lake was impossible as the area was a closed Polish military zone. Divers in 2009 found debris in the marshy lake and specialist photography has shown the wreckage is strewn across a large area.

Researchers at a local paper have revealed one mother died with five daughters on the plane and investigators hope possible relatives will get in touch when they hear of the project.

A small black shoe and a piece of wreckage of the plane in a local museum are the only material reminders of the tragedy.

"It was very sad. We wanted to think about the children and their fate and we want to bring Germany and Poland closer together," said 15-year-old Dominik Wollenzien, a pupil who attended the ceremony in March.

Pitcairn Islands Expedition Photos: Strange and Beautiful Algae

From National Geographic: Pitcairn Islands Expedition Photos: Strange and Beautiful Algae
By Andrew Howley & Kike Ballesteros

With all our emphasis on charismatic fish and stunning coral formations, boring old algae tends to get skipped over by most observers of the underwater world. Being out here in the South Pacific with an algae expert though, it doesn’t take long to be won over by these intriguingly important life forms.

Kike Ballesteros of the Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes, CSIC, is NG Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala’s long-time mentor and collaborator. He is also the master of all things algal for the Pitcairn Islands expedition, and he agreed to enlighten me about the wonders of algae.

Algae Great and Small
First off, there are two major kinds of algae in a coral reef. One is the tiny microalgae living inside the coral itself and providing a food source (and coloration) for these ancient animals. The other is macroalgae, which includes seaweed, and can be either soft and fleshy or hard and crusty (calcareous).

Basis of the Food Chain
In shallow temperate areas huge plains of seaweed and other macroalgae are the main components of the seascape. Here in the tropics the main component is coral. But don’t be fooled—macroalgae are still hard at work making life at the coral reefs possible.

Algae, both soft and crusty, provide the only food source for plant-eating fishes (such as parrotfishes, chubs, damselfishes or surgeonfishes) and invertebrates (some sea urchins, small crustaceans, and snails). Together with the microalgae that live inside the coral colonies, these algae provide the basic food and energy source much of what lives on the reef.

Builders of the Reef
Crusty algae are also active builders of the reef structure itself.

Red algae (such as Hydrolithon and Lithophyllum in the gallery above) produce limestone which cements together the coral pieces into a solid chunk. Without this ever-rising base, the corals themselves would not be able to build up vertically.

The algae then is what allows the reef to build up towards the ocean surface and cause waves to break off shore, at once forming the lagoon and protecting the interior island’s beaches from the full power of the ocean.

Where Tropical Beach Sand Comes From
Finally, other crusty species of green algae (Halimeda in the gallery) are important sand producers. Beaches along the reef and sand flats under the water are made up of many components, including coral debris and the skeletons of several marine invertebrates (like molluscs, sea urchins, and tiny shelled foraminiferans) but far and away, the biggest contributors are broken up Halimeda.

So next time you’re sipping mai-tais on a tropical beach, raise your glass to algae, the workhorses that make paradise possible.

Driving Inside the Soviets’ Secret Submarine Lair

From Wired: Driving Inside the Soviets’ Secret Submarine Lair

In 1953, Joseph Stalin signed the plans for a top-secret nuclear submarine base that would become the operational home for the fearsome Soviet Black Sea Fleet.

Hidden inside the base of a mountain in the port town of Balaklava on Ukraine’s Crimean coast, the 153,000 square-foot facility took nine years to build and its entrance camouflaged from spy planes. It could survive a direct nuclear hit and at maximum capacity could hold 3,000 people with supplies to sustain them for a month. Best of all, the vast subs that slunk in and out of here between tours of duty could enter and leave underwater, keeping them from prying eyes at all times.

Once the most sensitive and secretive of Soviet Cold War hotspots, today it is preserved as a museum. I manage to get special permission to drive into the base during the 8,000-mile Land Rover Journey of Discovery expedition to Beijing. We were the first to do so since the Soviet trucks and trailers that ferried in missiles, supplies and essentials over its 40 years of operation.

Driving through the cavernous entrance carved into the heavy rock of the mountain was pure James Bond, but the base that unfolded inside was a hard-hitting mix of superspy fantasy and the coarse reality of the Cold War world in which it played a key part.

The local guide explained how the facility was split into two clear sections on either side of the huge submarine channel that ran through the center, one side used for the operational running of the base and the other for arming the nuclear warheads. Then she dropped a bombshell of her own.

She had worked on the operational side of the base for five years with level-two security clearance — just one step below the highest possible — yet in all her time at the facility she had never known the nuclear side existed. She was only made aware of it when she began guiding tours here years later.

As she puts it: “It was in our culture then not to ask about what didn’t concern us. A common saying at the time was, ‘The less you know, the better you sleep.’”



Not only was this place so secretive that even its own employees were kept in the dark, every possible measure was taken to keep its existence unknown to the outside world. This included removing Balaklava from all maps in 1957 (it would be 1992 before it reared its head again) and employees’ family members from neighboring Sevastopol — itself a closed city that needed heavy security clearance to access — were put through extensive vetting before visits to loved ones were allowed.

Inside the base we first toured the operational side, working our way through the broad network of tunnels until we came to the dry dock, so large that it was capable of holding a 300-foot submarine.

Beside the dry dock was the huge submarine channel, with space for six such subs end to end. Curved to deflect any blast inside the base, the channel is lined with steel gangways above head height. It provides a fearsome environment, with a hulking sub sitting in the black water and the loud echoes of urgent footfalls, the clanking of tools, and the humming of generators.

Crossing to the other side of the base became even more interesting. Here even the tunnels making up the connecting network were curved for blast protection, as this was where the missiles were armed.

We saw the cabinet where the radioactive parts of the weapons were stored. Now empty, its massive steel roller door sits ajar just as it was left when the lethal payload it once concealed was taken by Soviet authorities.
Even the tunnels making up the connecting network were curved for blast protection.

Finally, we came to the epicenter of this underground lair, the room that stored the armed missiles. It looks innocuous now, but to imagine this place primed with as many as 50 nuclear devices left a sobering scent in the air.

As a final unusual touch, our guide pointed out a simple-looking plastic mount, similar to a small patio light, attached to the wall of the room and holding a solitary human hair. This most basic of devices monitored the humidity in the room, which had to be critically maintained at 60 percent — deviation either way could have resulted in an explosion large enough to destroy the entire base, not to mention the mountain that housed it and much of the surrounding area. If the hair began bending, that was the engineers’ cue to adjust the ventilation, and quickly.

Rolling back out into the sunlight of Balaklava’s bay was almost as odd as driving in had been, but for quite different reasons.

Now instead of Cold War killers, the bay is home to a glittering array of yachts from all over the world and at the water’s edge instead of subs skulking in and out, throngs of locals indulged in a spot of fishing while shooting the breeze over a couple of beers.

If that isn’t a sign of progress, we don’t know what is.

Easter Pause

So sorry to have missed so many days of posting - unexpected family matters cropped up.

And now it's Easter, so more family matters.

Will get back on track Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

New French Rebreathers for Russian Navy Divers

From Ria Novosti: New French Rebreathers for Russian Navy Divers
The Russian Black Sea Fleet is considering replacing Soviet-made underwater breathing equipment used by its combat divers with new French-produced Amphora closed circuit rebreathers, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The respirators are currently being tested, the spokesman said. If the tests are successful, they would replace IDA-71 individual breathing apparatuses that have been used by Soviet and Russian navy divers since 1971.

The French rebreathers are lighter and smaller than their Soviet analogues and are equipped with an advanced breathing mixture supply system, the Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Unlike IDAs, which are attached to the diver’s back, the Amphora apparatus’s main unit is fastened to the chest, he said. As a result, Russian navy divers will have to undergo additional training to be able to implement their combat tasks with the new rebreathers, he added.

The Amphora is based on the combat diver Frogs (Full Range Oxygen Gas System) apparatus. It is made up of two components: a 2.1L Oxygen cylinder which provides a dive duration of 240 minutes at 7 meters, and a 2L mixture cylinder to be filled with nitrox, which gives a dive duration of 60 minutes.

Scanning Titanic for the future

From Engineering &Technology Magazine: Scanning Titanic for the future

Thanks to recent advances in technology, marine archaeologists are finally able to make a full 3D map of the world's most famous shipwreck more than 25 years after its discovery.

RMS Titanic will never be raised from her resting place two and a half miles down. She can however be raised virtually for all to explore thanks to a new 3D map. April will see the first release of a 'virtual' Titanic, an enormously detailed interactive 3D map that will allow those of us who cannot afford $60,000 for a submersible dive an experience similar to diving down two and a half miles to the wreck itself.

A full century on, Titanic continues to fascinate as a tale of hubris and disaster, and it seems incredible that the site has not been rigorously mapped since its discovery by Robert Ballard in 1985. The reason is simple: it was impossible. The suite of technologies required to do it to marine archaeological standards at great depth has just not been available. James Delgado, chief scientist and principal archaeologist on the Titanic mapping project at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration federal agency (NOAA) explains why: "Ideally we would have done this after Ballard discovered the site. But we had no GPS, no GIS systems to hold the surface support vessel stationary, and no autonomous underwater robots. We also lacked the vast computing power required to stitch together the terabytes of data."
Beginning the scan

Portions of the wreck were relatively well known, especially the bow section, but no comprehensive and systematic approach had ever been attempted.The detailed mapping took place on a 2010 expedition sponsored by salvor RMS Titanic Inc, and co-led by David Gallo, special projects director at Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). At an estimated cost of $5m, the expedition team used two REMUS 6000 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) owned by the Waitt's Institute for Discovery and operated by Woods Hole.

First, a series of deep-ocean transponders were deployed on to the seabed to enable the AUVs to navigate accurately. The vehicles communicated with these via sonar, and cross referencing allowed the robots to determine their own position. The initial survey required the AUVs to swim over a 10-square-mile area to identify areas of specific interest for inspection. In a series of 18-hour dives the bright yellow robots, named Ginger and Mary Ann, scanned the sea floor in spaced lanes, criss-crossing the area, or 'mowing the lawn', as Delgado calls it, before surfacing to report their findings to the mother ship. From the preliminary survey it was clear that over 50 per cent of the shipwreck site was totally unknown and had never been explored.

The first sweep of the site was conducted using sidescan sonar mounted on the AUVs, placing the wreck in the context of the general geology of the seabed. Sub-bottom profilers enabled penetration of the sea floor as parts of the superstructure are submerged in the sediment. These were needed to characterise the state of the bow section, which is buried up to 20m into the sediment.

Simultaneously, downward facing digital'cameras synced'> with strobes firing 10m above the seafloor, fired from the underside of the AUVs and generated what Gallo calls a 'Google Earth' type view of the site. Once the main areas of interest had been identified by the AUVs using the sonar sensors, the modified Remora ROV, a remotely operated vehicle piloted from the mother ship was sent down to join the AUVs. This small robot was attached to the ship by three miles of fibre optic cable and transmitted advanced live 3D imagery to the team to form the bulk of the data that will be launched online.

Gallo says: "To have two AUVs and an ROV in the water, two and a half miles down, was brand new." The three robots added to the complexity but greatly enhanced the efficient use of ship time, which was especially important since two consecutive hurricanes, Danielle and Earl, caused the team to abandon the site for over a week.
Completing the picture

Bill Lange is a key member of the mapping team and a research specialist and head of the advanced imaging and visualisation lab at WHOI. He was on watch as the original team searched for the wreck during the 1985 expedition. "After seeing nothing but fish for weeks, we started to see objects from the debris field and had a bit of a debate as to when to wake up Ballard. From there on, the rest is history. We were a ship full of engineers and scientists and everyone was excited by the discovery, but nothing prepared us for the world reaction," he says.

Lange is responsible for the gathering and processing of all the visual data gathered by eight cameras deployed on the wreck both on the AUVs and on the tethered ROV. Everything from 2D cameras and HD video to'3D IMAX cameras were deployed to bring the site to life in high definition. Lange's work has been key in the intervening two years since the expedition, post-processing and integrating the sonar maps with visual and geological data. Individual images are stitched together in a mosaicking process to create large-scale, almost panoramic views of the wreck.

"We have an image of everything. That's what's important," says Lange. "This has never been done before in the deep sea. Some of the images capture huge boilers and engines seemingly frozen in time as they rise from the ocean bottom." The completed map will show close-ups of the many artefacts, and wide-angle, high-altitude views of the bow, stern and the large object field to the east of the stern.

The imagery is so good that Delgado is certain that the map generated from the 2010 expedition will allow on-going archaeological investigations of the site.

"What we now have is a clear idea of what caused the transition from ship to shipwreck in a forensic sense," says Delgado. "The visualisations show us everything from a tea cup to a crab on the hull."

His team's job has been to categorise and assign coordinates to every object. The 5,500 objects to be auctioned in April represent a fraction of 1'per cent of what has been found. Delgado likens it to a airline crash investigation. The very first underwater archaeology only took place 50 years ago.

Dave Conlin, chief of the US National Parks Service, Submerged Resources Centre in Colorado, is a marine archaeologist and is part of the team analysing the cruise data and contributed to the design of the research objectives for the mission. He says: "The idea that Titanic ruptured, spewing objects over the sea floor, is incorrect. Millions of artefacts remain inside the structure in a tremendous state of preservation and open up the possibility for further research."

Delgado has a keen interest in those who did not survive the sinking, especially those third class, steerage passengers and the crew, about whom relatively little is known. "Future study of their baggage, which is likely to have survived more or less intact, would give us a better sense of those people, enabling us to give voice to those who were seemingly erased from history or silenced by the events of that night, and the cold dark waters of the North Atlantic.

"Titanic was a short-lived, floating community that ended suddenly and with as well preserved a record as Pompeii." There are no plans for future expeditions but Delgado feels we need to know more about the basic oceanographic conditions prevailing at the site, more sediment and corrosion studies, and a better understanding of the environmental factors. These might answer key archaeological questions regarding change and the nature of preservation at the site, and could help in the exploration of other, more historically important, older shipwrecks.
Midlife crisis

As for the much discussed imminent demise of the wreck under the onslaught of rust-munching bacteria, Conlin says: "The wreck has been degrading gradually over the past 100 years. There is no evidence to support a dramatic change in the environmental conditions which would change this. The wreck is a very complex structure made up of many different materials and is sure to be around for many years to come."

Materials scientist and metallurgist Tim Foecke of the National Institute of Standards and Technology agrees: "We have been studying the steel recovered from the wreck extensively. The bacterial colonies, called 'rusticles', are changing the environment on the hull, but the ship is rusting at a rate expected for being in seawater. The excitement comes because the wreck is in a deterioration midlife crisis. Things are starting to collapse, and in a couple of decades it will have folded in upon itself and will stabilise again, and in a century or so will reach its final state, an iron ore deposit."

Cynics might speculate that the hype about the wreck's rapid deterioration is timed to coincide with the upcoming auction, but it is clear that the ship can still exert a strong fascination. "Titanic is the Mount Everest of underwater archaeology, the most famous shipwreck on the planet, and it's been a terrific privilege to have been part of a very talented team," says Conlin.
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Titanicomania: A taste of the past, or plain bad taste?

For a ship that sailed for only two weeks, Titanic still exerts an extraordinarily tenacious grip on popular culture, spawning countless TV documentaries and numerous movies - the latest, an $18m, 3D IMAX remastering of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster, which is due for release this month.

The original release of Cameron's epic grossed $1.8bn'worldwide and is still the third-largest earning movie of all time. The new release is expected to add to the total.

Some 17 new books are slated for 2012, and 11 new television documentaries will be aired. From Titanic the musical - reopening at the Liverpool Empire, to Titanic balls, complete with 1912 menus; it seems that we just can't get enough of events celebrating the iconic wreck's centennial.

Over 40,000 advance bookings have been made for the nine-gallery immersive Titanic Belfast experience, which will open in April for the anniversary of the sinking and is expected to be visited by over 400,000 people in its first year. Titanic Belfast is expected to become the largest tourist attraction in Northern Ireland.
Memorial cruise

A Titanic memorial cruise on the Fred Olsen liner, the Balmoral, will replicate the maiden voyage and sold out almost two years ago. The 1,309 paying passengers (exactly the same as the number on the original sailing) and 500 crew will embark in Southampton. Certainly, all will expect to complete their cruise in New York rather than end it prematurely. Opportunities will abound to wear period dress and indulge in the food and drink served on the original voyage. Tickets cost between $5'and $15,000.

Those with a little more cash to spare, who are of a non-claustrophic nature and have a true obsession with the'ship, might choose to take one of several submersible cruises down to the wreck itself,'over two and a half miles deep into the sea. A cool $60,000 will secure a seat this summer in a three-man Russian Mir submarine organised by Deep Ocean Expeditions that will spend three to four hours visiting the wreck, and two and a half hours each way descending and ascending.

Highlights of the dive will look down into the cavern where the rich and famous once trod Titanic's famous grand staircase, and explore the iconic bridge and promenade areas.

Almost a century to the day after the ship's collision with the iceberg on 15 April, RMS Titanic Inc, the official salvor of the wreck, will be auctioning 5,500 artefacts that have been retrieved over the course of five expeditions.

Everything from jewellery to cash and clothing will be included in this one-off sale. Casual buyers are not welcome as everything must be sold as a single lot, including the largest piece - a 17t section of the hull. The items were last appraised at $189m and are expected to end up in the hands of a major maritime museum. Qualifying bidders will be announced on 1 April.