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February 20, 2007
Lost Ring Found By Divers After 20 Years
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio (AP) -- A college ring lost more than 20 years ago by a former undercover officer for the CIA has been found in an underwater cave off the coast of Africa.
Steve Ruic, a writer on staff at Notre Dame College, received an e-mail about two weeks ago from a professional diver from Germany. Wilfried Thiesen wrote that he had found a class ring bearing the college's name while diving off Mauritius.
The ring was engraved with the year '76. The ring was missing the thin portion on the underside that ordinarily carries its owner's name.
Ruic publicized the discovery in both an e-mail to college staff and a newsletter to alumni, but no one came forward to claim it.
Then, while interviewing a member of the class of 1976 for an unrelated alumni magazine story, Ruic asked Dr. Maryellen Amato Stratmann if she'd ever been to Mauritius.
"I couldn't believe it," Ruic said. "She said, 'No, but Clare Cavoli Lopez has."'
Lopez, a 1976 Notre Dame College graduate and former CIA undercover officer, was stationed at Port Louis, Mauritius, from 1983 to 1985. During a dive, the ring slipped from her finger.
Ruic sent Thiesen's address to Lopez. She has exchanged e-mails with Thiesen, she said Monday, and they're arranging for him to mail it.
Posted by victoria at 03:09 PM
February 12, 2007
Lake Erie Bottom Covered with Wrecks
Geologists use sonar to scan the lake bottom for shipwrecks that prove popular with recreational divers.
By MIKE LAFFERTY, AP
COLUMBUS, OHIO -- The George Dunbar left Cleveland at 6 p.m. on June 29, 1902, bound for Alpena, Mich.
Loaded with coal, the 41.5-metre ship rode low in the water as it steamed northwest into rough Lake Erie weather, her boilers running full steam.
By nightfall, the Dunbar struggled past Kelleys Island, the wind and waves pulling at her seams. In the darkness, the ship began to take on more water than her crew could pump out. To lessen the strain, the Dunbar's skipper turned his ship into the wind.
But she already was lost. At 4 a.m., her hull split.
The skipper, his wife and daughter escaped the Dunbar, but seven crew members were lost to Erie, which has claimed an estimated 2,000 ships.
The Dunbar has survived more than a century of summer squalls, November gales and winter ice and the shipwreck remains preserved 14 metres below the surface, just over the international line in Canadian waters.
In 2003, Dale Liebenthal cruised over the wreck and took a ghostly picture of the ship, still heavy with coal, revealing her stern, bow and bulwarks. Her smokestack lies broken, about 12 metres off the port stern.
Liebenthal led a team of Ohio state Geological Survey scientists in a pilot study using a tool called side-scan sonar to produce images of 25 shipwrecks around Kelleys Island and the Bass Islands to the west.
Their work, just recently published because of budget cuts, helps the Ohio Department of Natural Resources comply with a state law that orders the agency to inventory, evaluate, protect and designate underwater shipwreck locations.
Archeologists and historians said they need this information to conserve wrecks, as well as provide information to divers and the general public. Side-scan sonar produces images similar to aerial photography but at an oblique angle.
Geologists already use the sonar to study the lake's bottom. Distinguishing between sand, mud and rock provides insights into fish-spawning areas, beach erosion and mineral production.
"We come across things using the sonar all the time. We wonder if they're ships," Liebenthal said.
The side-scan sonar is lowered into the water on a brace attached to the bow of the division's eight-metre research launch.
It operates just below the surface by bouncing sound waves off the lake bottom. Images are produced as the boat is slowly piloted in a series of precise, calibrated runs over wreck areas.
The sound echoes are recorded in shades of black and grey, depending on how reflective and hard a target is. Scientists look for the straight lines and angles that might indicate a hull or superstructure. Some images are more obvious than others.
The western basin of the lake is fairly shallow and the waters around the islands are popular with recreational divers. Some wreck sites have been similarly scanned with sonar by private diving clubs.
Still, Lake Erie remains almost totally unexplored. Ohio waters alone contain an estimated 600 wrecks.
"We're pretty far behind in terms of other Great Lake states," said Charles Herdendorf, a geologist and archeological diver who served as a consultant on the study.
"The Canadians are way ahead of us in mapping their shipwrecks and opening them up for diving."
The islands area is particularly rich in wrecks, thanks in part to two shoals north of Kelleys Island. Herdendorf estimated as many as 50 wrecks might litter the lake bottom around the islands.
"If ships got hit by storms, they could easily hit the shoals," said Constance Livchak, a Geological Survey scientist working on the project.
And many did.
Nineteen of the 25 wrecks in the study surround Kelleys and eight of those went down on the rocks.
Only the general locations of most shipwrecks are known. One purpose in searching them out was to fix their exact positions, because wrecks can move with time and the elements. Ice, in particular, acts like a bulldozer.
"The ice covering the lake cracks and grinds together, pushing up and down . . . and then it scours the bottom," Liebenthal said.
Five wrecks were recorded on Gull Island Shoal but the sonar failed to find much of anything left.
Around the islands, wreck sites can be close together. A ship's identity can be uncertain, even when sonar reveals a vessel.
For example, images recorded off the northwestern shore of Kelleys show either the Oak Valley or the L.B. Crocker.
Sonar also can reveal why a ship went down. The C.H. Plummer, which burned at its dock in 1888, probably was lost to a boiler fire and not to the spontaneous combustion of its cargo of lime, Herdendorf said.
"Where the coal was stored is the only place in the shipwreck where the fire had burned completely through. The rest of the shipwreck was intact," he said.
Carrie Sowden, a marine archeologist with the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermillion, said she plans to use the data to plan dives at the sites.
Posted by victoria at 09:49 AM
February 01, 2007
Japanese Honour Memory of Turkish Shipwreck
NKARA - Turkish Daily News
The Turkish Memorial and Museum on the Japanese island of Oshima, already a major attraction for Japanese tourists, is planning to attract more Turkish tourists to the region. The museum in the village of Kushimoto, where the two structures were erected, commemorates the shipwreck of the Turkish frigate �Ertuğrul� on Oshima's shores.
The voyage of the Ertuğrul was planned by Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II as a goodwill trip to Japan in response to a Japanese delegation visit in 1887. However, the Ertuğrul sank on Sept. 15, 1890 on its way back from Japan; a total of 533 sailors died in the accident while 69 were rescued by the Japanese.
Residents of Kushimoto established the Turkish Memorial and Museum after the accident to commemorate the Turkish vessel. Surrounded on both sides by the Pacific Ocean, Kushimoto is a coastal town located in the city of Wakayama. The sites attract around 125,000 tourists a year, and the tragic story of the Ertuğrul is included in the curriculum of Kushimoto primary schools.
Kerem Kiyoshi Oishi, 60, grandson of fisherman Okazaki Oishi who was among the Turkish sailors' rescuers in the accident, will take over the post of museum director. His daughter Ece Wiskumi Oishi, 20, sells Turkish handicrafts and souvenirs in the area.
Kerem Kiyoshi Oishi explained that the names like his and that of his daughter and traces of Turkish sailors still maintained a meaningful presence in almost every house in the community. "The memories of Turkish soldiers and sailors who were rescued by our grandfathers still live with us."
Initially a monument was erected on Sept. 15, 1891, the first anniversary of the event, on the rocks, 400 meters from where the frigate sunk. The current Ertuğrul Memorial was erected in 1929 with the support of the Kushimoto Municipality and later renovated in 1937 by decision of the Kushimoto Governorship.
In 1974, a Turkish Museum was built near the memorial in cooperation with the Kushimoto Municipality and then-Turkish Ambassador to Japan Hüsrev Gerede.
The museum featured the first findings of the Kushimoto fishermen from the sunken wreckage as well as some personal belongings and photographs of the frigate's commanders and crew. An "Atatürk Corner" was later established in the museum, which also holds a Turkish national team strip signed by Turkish Football Federation chief Haluk Ulusoy during his visit to the museum. Objects and souvenirs sent from Mersin, twinned with Kushimoto, and Yakakent, are also on display.
The two venues ranked third among the most-visited historical places in the Wakayama region, famed for its natural beauty, also ranking first in the must-see list of promotional books prepared by the Kushimoto Municipality and travel agency tour programs.
Souvenir shops selling gifts specific to Turkey have been opened near the memorial and museum, which have had other important guests from Turkey, including former Naval Forces Commander Adm. Nejat Tümer, current commander Adm. Yener Karahanoğlu, Güven Erkaya, İlhami Erdil and Özden Örnek.
Ertuğrul was a turning point':
Visiting the Turkish Memorial and Museum, Murat Saka, a military attaché at the Turkish Embassy in Tokyo, said the memorial and the museum were a symbol of southern Japan. He termed the sinking of the Ertuğrul frigate "an important turning point" in the development of relations between Turkey and Japan.
Saka added that interest in the memorial and museum is still increasing and that the results of further exploration of the Ertuğrul wreck this month are likely to attract more tourists. The museum is working in coordination with the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry for its promotion in Turkey, stated Saka, suggesting that cultural tours could be organized in cooperation with the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB). "We don't want those sailors who once came to Japan and lost their lives here to be forgotten."
Wakayama Governor Yoshinobu Nisaka thanked the Turkish officials who had visited the memorial and museum and said that as the governorship they would continue their support for the excavations in the frigate as well as further promotion of the memorial and museum.
Posted by victoria at 04:25 PM
