Thanks,

SWC

COOS BAY — Several times a month, Glasgow resident Jack Hammar and his wife hop in their pickup truck and drive out to Coos Bay’s north spit, home to clams, beachcombing and the stern of a wrecked freighter: the New Carissa.

Imagine Hammar’s surprise, then, when just after the new year, his wife pointed at a familiar spot along the beachgrass-fortified dune that the brutal winter’s surf has been pounding for a month — a spot a full two miles south of 1999’s New Carissa wreck.

“Does that look like a shipwreck?” she asked.

Only the wooden prow was sticking out of the sand wall at that point, so the Hammars thought little of it and kept driving along the beach. As the days wore on, the eroding dune revealed more and more of its treasure. Now, there’s the full bow of a wreck that could be 150 years old sitting exposed on the beach, waves beating at it, slamming driftwood into its heavy hull, as they do its neighbor two miles to the north.

Move over, New Carissa. There’s a new shipwreck in town. “You have to see it in person,” Hammar said. “It’s so incredibly massive.

The thing is made with 12”x12” beams all jammed one next to the other, standing upright, sheathed on the outside by 4”x12” timbers, everything held together by iron rebar and scraps. It looks like it would withstand cannon fire.”

The discovery has quickly become a tourist attraction on the remote beach, despite its inaccessibility to vehicles without four-wheel drive.

On Wednesday, inquisitive locals were driving through the sand by the dozens. Those whose vehicles weren’t hearty enough hoofed it, up to three miles each way.

Reuben Lyon rode his mountain bike down the beach at high tide, braving sneaker waves that leapt right up to the foredune that once hid the mystery ship.

“I was shocked when I saw it,” said Lyon, who’s convinced he has a picture of himself as a child standing in front of the same shipwreck in 1948. “The last time it was visible was in the 60s.”

Whether the boat Lyon stood before is the same one or not remains to be determined. Archeologists and historians visited the structure last weekend to see if they could solve the puzzle. They hope to pinpoint the ship’s name and also where and when it met its salty demise.

“It’s a fabulous find,” said Anne Donnelly, executive director of the Coos Historical and Maritime Museum. “It’s a wonderful remainder of the kinds of ships that were built here.”

The leading theory is that it’s a steam schooner, built in the 1800s by a company called Kruse and Banks, in an era when Coos Bay was the largest lumber port in the world. One way to ship their cargo to hungry customers was to build ships. More than 350 vessels were built between 1850 and 1950, Donnelly said, in 91 different shipyards.

All of which makes for tricky detective work. The way the ship was built, the way the planks are constrained and the lead-topped caulk sealing them together suggests it was born in the 1800s, Donnelly said. But there are hex-head bolts and other fastenings that suggest a more recent vintage; perhaps a retrofit. “Somebody’s supposed to be checking out when hex heads came into use,” Donnelly said.

An important question is what’s still buried. By the looks of what’s on the beach now, the bow is broken apart from any other portion of the ship.

But the sides of steam schooners were constructed in such away that the sides of them dropped precipitously at the middle of the ship, at about the point where the North Spit vessel disappears into the sand.

“If it is a steam schooner, there may be a great deal of it further aft, buried in the sand dune still,” Donnelly said.

Historians and archaeologists will try to match the ship with the dozens of pictures on hand of ships that were around 100 or more years ago, cross-checking those findings with the records of some 25 ships that went down between 1868 and 1944 in a four-mile stretch near the Coos Bay bar.

“If we can work backwards from the wreck and identify which wreck it is, we can know what the circumstances of its stranding were,” Donnelly said. “The problem is, it could have ‘pulled a Carissa’ and wrecked in one place, then been carried to a different location by the tide.”

Now what? Unlike the state’s herculean effort to rip the New Carissa from its resting place — slated to start next month — there’s no funding to remove the North Spit’s newest discovery, or anybody lobbying for that to happen. Very little work could take place until September, when the nesting season of the threatened Western snowy plover ends, as the ship is buffered by critical habitat for the fragile bird to the east.

But by then, given the pounding the ship is taking now, there might not be much left to preserve.

“We don’t know until we know what’s there,” Donnelly said. “If we’ve got a complete 250-foot-long ship, that’s one thing. Clearly, nobody can hope to remove what could be a 250-foot-long ship. The cost would be insane.”

Ultimately, the State Historical Preservation Society will decide what to do, Donnelly said.

Copyright © 2007 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

The final resting place of three German submarines found at the bottom of the Black Sea has been brought to the agenda of the Turkish media.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that a team led by Selçuk Kolay, a Turkish submarine archaeologist, has located the three U-boats, a type of Germany military submarine, off the Black Sea coast of Turkey and will present his findings at a conference on shipwrecks to be held Saturday in Plymouth, England.

Many mass circulation newspapers in Turkey announced the following day that �Hitler's lost fleet has been discovered.� However, the submarines had been discovered previously, Kolay told the Turkish Daily News: �I only identified the submarines and researched their history.�

The vessels, including one once regarded as Germany's most successful U-boat, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines. They were transported across Nazi-occupied Europe by road and through rivers from Kiel, Germany's Baltic port to Constanta, the Romanian Black Sea port.

In two years, the fleet sank dozens of ships and lost three to enemy attacks. But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany, leaving the three remaining vessels stranded.

With no base and unable to sail home � the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to them because of Turkish neutrality during the war � their captains were ordered to scuttle the boats before rowing ashore and trying to make their way back to Germany with the crew. However, all three crews were caught and jailed by the Turks.

Kolay identified the boats through research in German archives, interviews with surviving sailors and sonar studies of the seabed. �The only story I will tell at this shipwreck conference will be the conversations I had with the commander of U20 [one of the three submarines], Rudolf Arendt, about the submarines as well as the background history of how the ships arrived in the Black Sea and how they were scuttled,� Kolay said, adding that he was surprised by the reports in the media.

The Turkish Naval Forces discovered the first U-boat. �Submarine Rescue Commander Mehmet Kanyon called and asked if I could identify it and so I did. The story of the U-boats is a very interesting detail of the war,� said Kolay.

He has already completed successful dives to the U20, almost four kilometers offshore and about 25 meters under water. He believes he has discovered another, U23, at twice that depth, 5.5 kilometers from the town of Ağva, but bad weather forced him to suspend diving until spring.

He thinks he is also close to pinpointing the third boat, U19, thought to lie more than 300 meters underwater and 5.5 kilometers from the Turkish city of Zonguldak.

Kolay emphasized he has discovered and identified more than 60 shipwrecks to date and never attempted to salvage any of them as he has no intention to salvage these U-boats either. �I am not interested in the pieces or material of the wrecks. I am only interested in their history,� he said.

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

China was a major maritime power between the 10th and 16th centuries, and the great exploits of Zheng He give an idea of Ming Dynasty's (1368-1644) might on the sea.

The 2,000 wreckages won't be the last to be found, because State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) Director Shan Jixiang says many more are waiting to be located.

Archeologists and other experts are now trying to find the sunken treasures in the Grand Canal, and their number can be "big", Shan says.

Work on the 1,700-km-long canal linking Beijing with Hangzhou began in the 5th century BC. So deft were the engineers of the times, and so farsighted was their vision that the canal is in use even today.

The discovery of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) ship Nanhai-I, which was finally hauled from South China Sea on Saturday, prompted the government to draft a plan to protect its relics lying under water, Shan says. In fact, the work on the plan has already begun.

The discoveries have created the need for regulations and actions, too. "Now that everyone has realized the value of the cultural relics lying under water, it has become all the more urgent to keep thieves and smugglers away from them."

If the country wants to better protect these priceless objects, it has to join the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, says Zhang Wei, director of National Museum of China's underwater archaeological center.

China has just two instruments to protect its underwater heritage: the Cultural Heritage Protection Law, promulgated in 1981 and amended in 2003, and the Regulation on the Protection of Underwater Heritage, announced by the State Council in 1989.

Most of the relics looted from the seas and rivers often make their way abroad, and smugglers have been particularly rampant over the last two years, Shan says.

Art collectors and dealers across the world have become especially interested in China's underwater heritage since 2005, when about 15,000 relics, mainly 300-year-old blue-and-white porcelain, were found on a 13.5-m sunken ship off the coast of Fujian Province.

An international team of archeologists have found an ancient civilization in the bottom of Lake Issyk Kul high in Kyrgyz Mountains.

The advanced civilization dates back to 25 centuries ago and includes major settlements currently sank under water.
The civilization has been described as an equivalent to the Hellenic civilizations of the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) and the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, according to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.

Last year also, archeologists found formidable walls in the north coast of the lake, some stretching for 500 meters at the depth of 5 to 10 meters.

The recent findings are a turning point in the many years of archeological explorations in the lake.

The expansion of the underwater-city and the treasure trove it contains indicates that it has been a metropolis in its time.
MGH/DT

A shipwreck off the south coast may provide valuable information about the nautical and economic history of the region, according to the Department of Antiquities.

The shipwreck at Mazotos is the first underwater research project to be exclusively run by Cypriot institutions.

The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities.

According to a statement from the Department of Antiquities, the shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period.
Part of the cargo of the ship lies on the sea bottom and consists of amphorae, most probably from Chios.

No other ceramic types were identified for the time being or any other parts of the ship (such as anchors) but the spatial distribution of the amphorae may indicate that the hull of the ship is buried under the sand.

Study of shipwreck reveals treasure trove of details

Communications, at 812-855-0084 or traljame@indiana.edu.

IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker examines possible wreckage from Capt. Kidd's Quedagh Merchant

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Resting in less than 10 feet of Caribbean seawater, the wreckage of Quedagh Merchant, the ship abandoned by the scandalous 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd as he raced to New York in an ill-fated attempt to clear his name, has escaped discovery -- until now.

An underwater archaeology team from Indiana University announced today (Dec. 13) the discovery of the remnants. IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker said his team has been licensed to study the wreckage and to convert the site into an underwater preserve, where it will be accessible to the public.

Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, said it is remarkable that the wreck has remained undiscovered all these years given its location, just 70 feet off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic, and because it has been sought actively by treasure hunters.

"I've been on literally thousands of shipwrecks in my career," Beeker said. "This is one of the first sites I've been on where I haven't seen any looting. We've got a shipwreck in crystal clear, pristine water that's amazingly untouched. We want to keep it that way, so we made the announcement now to ensure the site's protection from looters."

The find is valuable because of the potential to reveal important information about piracy in the Caribbean and about the legendary Capt. Kidd, said John Foster, California's state underwater archaeologist, who is participating in the research.

IU anthropology doctoral student Fritz Hanselmann documents one of the "great guns" as described by Captain Kidd

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"I look forward to a meticulous study of the ship, its age, its armament, its construction, its use, its contents and the reconstructed wrecking process that resulted in the site we see today," Foster said. "Because there is extensive, written documentation, this is an opportunity we rarely have to test historic information against the archaeological record."

Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer -- someone who captured pirates. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years.

Historians write that Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with valuable satins and silks, gold, silver and other East Indian merchandise, but left the ship in the Caribbean as he sailed to New York on a less conspicuous sloop to clear his name of the criminal charges.

Anthropologist Geoffrey Conrad, director of IU Bloomington's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, said the men Kidd entrusted with his ship reportedly looted it, and then set it ablaze and adrift down the Rio Dulce. Conrad said the location of the wreckage and the formation and size of the canons, which had been used as ballast, are consistent with historical records of the ship. They also found pieces of several anchors under the cannons.

"All the evidence that we find underwater is consistent with what we know from historical documentation, which is extensive," Conrad said. "Through rigorous archeological investigations, we will conclusively prove that this is the Capt. Kidd shipwreck."

Photo by: Howard Pyle for Book of Pirates

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The IU team examined the shipwreck at the request of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional De Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático.

"The site was initially discovered by a local prominent resident of Casa De Campo, who recognized the significance of the numerous cannons and requested the site be properly investigated," said ONPCS Technical Director Francis Soto. "So, I contacted IU."

Beeker and Conrad have worked closely with ONPCS for 11 years since they began conducting underwater and land-based archaeological research related to the era when the Old World and New World first met.

"It continues our work down there from the age of discovery to the golden age of piracy, the transformation of both the native and introduced cultures of the Caribbean," Conrad said.

Much of their work is focused in the area of La Isabela Bay, the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement established by Christopher Columbus. The Taino were the first indigenous people to interact with Europeans. Beeker said much of the history of this period is based on speculation, something he and Conrad are trying to change.

The IU research in the Dominican Republic typically involves professors and graduate students from various IU Bloomington schools and departments, including the School of HPER, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the departments of anthropology, biology, geology and mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Anthropology doctorate student Fritz Hanselmann, who teaches underwater archaeology techniques in HPER, said there have only been a few pirate ships ever discovered in the Americas, and that IU's multi-disciplinary research will make a significant contribution to the field.

HPER Dean Robert M. Goodman accompanied the most recent expedition to learn more about this successful interdisciplinary and international research collaboration. He also went to explore potential public health linkages between the School of HPER and the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, founded in 1538. It is the largest university in the country and the oldest in the Americas.

"Indiana University is working to increase its international presence," Goodman said. "Earlier this month, the IU Board of Trustees was presented a strategic plan that calls for increased student and faculty participation in study abroad and international service learning programs, as well as the development of strategic international partnerships that support overseas study, global research and the recruitment of international students.

"The archeological work being done by IU in the Dominican Republic affords us tremendous entrée for wider areas of collaboration," he said. "Because of the network that Mr. Beeker and Dr. Conrad have established, the Universidad Autonóma de Santo Domingo is eager to establish a formal agreement with IU. We met with the secretary of state for environment and national resources, the dean of faculties of health sciences at the university, representatives from USAID, and the president of the hotel association, all of whom are eager to foster relationships between IU and agencies of the Dominican Republic. This was an incredibly productive trip for IU."

Beeker and his students have conducted underwater research projects on submerged ships, cargo and other cultural and biological resources throughout the United States and the Caribbean for more than 20 years. Many of his research projects have resulted in the establishment of state or federal underwater parks and preserves, and have led to a number of site nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.

Beeker also serves on the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He can be reached at 812-855-5748 or cbeeker@indiana.edu. To learn more about the Underwater Science program visit http://www.indiana.edu/~scuba.

Conrad can be reached at 812-855-5340 and conrad@indiana.edu.

Francis Soto, with ONPCS, can be reached at 809-685-9072 and francis_soto@hotmail.com. To learn more about Beeker and Conrad's search for Columbus' sunken ships, read http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/3790.html.

When New York's most prominent shipyard, Bidwell and Banta, launched the Niagara in 1846, the vessel was one of the largest, fastest, and most luxurious steamboats the world had ever seen. Seeing the much-heralded Niagara for the first time, one reporter wrote that "we had been lead to anticipate a most magnificent boat, but the reality far exceeded our anticipations."

Mike and Warren prep for a deep dive in Lake Erie that requires commercial dive gear, including a dive helmet.

The Japanese attacked military airfields at the same time they hit the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. Overall, twenty-one ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were sunk or damaged, aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged, American dead numbered 2,403. That figure included 68 civilians, and there were 1,178 military and civilian wounded.

Battleship Row

USS Arizona Memorial

For more information find the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma on the map.

Mike and the dive team continue the search with a helmet dive on an unidentified wreck.

Survivors of the Niagara disaster estimated that only 20 minutes elapsed between the outbreak of the fire and the total abandonment of the ship. Since the passengers and crew had little time to collect their belongings, the Niagara took an abundance of cultural artifacts down with it when it sank. In about 50 feet of water, the remains of the Niagara settled to the bottom of Lake Michigan about one mile off shore. Memories of the disaster persisted and were occasionally revisited in newspapers and by maritime buffs, but deeper knowledge of the Niagara and Great Lakes palace steamers faded.

At 8:45 in the morning a French ammunition ship, the Mont Blanc and the Norwegian cargo ship Imo collided in the narrows of Halifax harbour. Vapors from vats of benzol, which were wrongly stored on the deck of the Mont Blanc, were set afire by sparks from the collision. The Mont Blanc was shipping large quantities of munitions to Europe as part of the war effort. She was carrying over 2700 tons of explosives, such as TNT, guncotton, and picric acid. The fire engulfed the Mont Blanc and the crew quickly abandoned ship upon the Captain's orders. They rowed to safety in two rowboats and reached safety on the Dartmouth shore as the burning ship continued to drift toward the busy port of Halifax.

At 9:04:35, with firefighters on the scene and school children gathering to watch, a massive explosion ensued. More than 2.5 km2 of Halifax was leveled and windows were shattered as far as Truro, Nova Scotia, 100 kilometres away. An anchor from the Mont Blanc was found five kilometres from the harbour. The disaster resulted in approximately 1635 deaths (approx. 1000 died instantaneously from the blast), nine thousand injured and approximately 30 million dollars in damage. 325 acres of city was destroyed. 1500 people became homeless as a result of the devastation. The following day a blizzard hit the city, crippling recovery efforts.

If not for the efforts of neighboring Provinces, the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee the devastation would have escalated further. Each year, Nova Scotia donates a giant evergreen to the people of Boston as a thank you for their assistance following the Halifax Explosion.

Click Here To view rare film footage shot in the aftermath of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Six minutes of black-and-white moving images, attributed to professional cameraman W.G. MacLaughlan, document in eerie silence and jerky movements the waste and devastation of a city destroyed, and the efforts that went into rebuilding it.

For more information on the Halifax Explosion find the Mont Blanc on the map.

Every Christmas since 1917, Nova Scotia has donated a large Christmas tree to the City of Boston in thanks and remembrance for the help the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee provided in the time of major need. The tree is Boston's premier Christmas tree and is lit in the Boston Common throughout the holiday season.

For more than a century, the ship and its contents laid undisturbed, frozen in time. However, with the invention and popularization of scuba gear during the 1950s and 1960s, this suddenly changed. In the mid-1960s, divers discovered the remains of the Niagara. For more than two decades, treasure hunters and salvagers thoroughly stripped artifacts and fittings from what was probably Wisconsin's greatest treasure trove of nineteenth century cultural artifacts. Rumors tell of entire crates of unbroken china and other artifacts being hauled off to the garages of Wisconsin and Illinois. Unfortunately, the knowledge that could have been gained by studying those artifacts is lost forever.

The structure of the wreck itself suffered additional damage by looters. One of the Niagara's two great paddlewheels, 30 feet in diameter, survived upright and largely intact into the 1980s, until a diver toppled it in a search for artifacts. Today, fragments of the wheel lie on the port side of the hull, directly abeam the engine assembly.

Despite the unfortunate pillage, the wreck of the Niagara remains a rich source of information about mid-nineteenth century shipbuilding technology and maritime culture. In 1993, the Wisconsin Historical Society began archaeological and historical research on the Niagara, one of the few examples of sidewheel steamers still in existence.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 of Ghostships of the Great Lakes and go to the Shipwreck Map > to learn more about the Niagara now!

J. Richard Steffy, who made his living as an electrical contractor until he was 48, then cast security aside to pursue his passion, studying shipwrecks, and become a leading a expert in the field, died Thursday in Bryan, Tex. He was 83.

The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, Jennifer Steffy, his daughter-in-law, said.

Using the hull timber drawings and photographs, J. Richard Steffy was able to make this 1:10 scale site diorama of the Serçe Liman1 shipwreck as found on the sea floor.

Mr. Steffy helped make shipwreck analysis a scientific discipline. Beginning at his dining-room table manipulating pieces of wood, he thought of new ways to reconstruct ancient boats and ships in three dimensions. He then added what he learned from historical archives to interpret partly preserved shipwrecks.

His enthusiasm, talent and scholarship would eventually make him a full professor at Texas A&M University, despite never having graduated from college. In 1985, he would win a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. His book, “Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks,” (1994) became a standard in the field.

He pioneered the arcane art of examining wood fragments and myriad lumpish remains of amphora containers, and of reconstructing entire ships and cargoes — sometimes conceptually and sometimes in reality. He reveled in the mission.

“I like to think that shipbuilding was the most important early everyday technology,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “The Greeks and Romans built big and beautiful temples, but I think there’s really nothing like a ship, their ships.”

Mr. Steffy set sail on his personal voyage in 1963, when he wrote a letter to George Bass, an underwater archaeologist, about an article Dr. Bass had written in National Geographic about a shipwreck in Turkey. Mr. Steffy asked if he could build a model to help in the research, specifying that he meant a serious scientific representation, not a model for a mantelpiece.

Soon, Mr. Steffy was delivering an annual lecture to graduate students on ancient seafaring at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Bass taught. He got a grant to go to Cyprus to rebuild a ship from thousands of soggy wooden fragments; it took from 1972 to 1974. Around then, he bid farewell to the family business he had run for 22 years. He had little savings and two teenage sons.

“You’re crazy,” Dr. Bass remembered telling him. “You’ll starve.”

The two men joined with Michael L. Katzev, a noted underwater archaeologist, to form what became the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Dr. Bass gambled, too, giving up a tenured professorship at Penn for the new endeavor. The institute began in Mr. Steffy’s home in Denver, Pa.

His talent shone early when a woman called to say that a Viking vessel had washed up on a New Jersey beach. The scientists drove over to take a look. Mr. Steffy said that it came from Maine and estimated the date it was built. Newspaper clips proved him exactly right.

The institute moved to Texas A&M in the early 1970s, eventually extending its work to four continents. In addition to working at the institute, Mr. Steffy and Dr. Bass became the university’s first professors of nautical archaeology. There are now seven.

John Richard Steffy was born on May 1, 1924, in Lancaster, Pa. He attended a local community college and Milwaukee School of Engineering, without graduating.

His wife, the former Esther Lucille Koch, died in 1991.

Mr. Steffy is survived by his sons, David, of Great Falls, Va., and Loren, of The Woodlands, Tex.; his sister, Muriel Steffy Lipp, of Alexandria, Va., and his brother, Milton G., of Denver, Pa., and seven grandchildren.

Among the ships Mr. Steffy reconstructed were the Kyrenia, named after the Cypriot port near where it sank; an 11th-century merchant ship wrecked near Turkey; a first-century Roman boat found buried in Italy; and a British vessel scuttled in the York River in Virginia in 1781.

After an ancient wreck dated to about 1025 was found in the Aegean in 1973 with the largest collection of Islamic glass ever found, Mr. Steffy analyzed the waterlogged timbers. He found planks had been nailed to the frame, unlike the earlier method of inserting the frame afterward, Saudi Aramco World said in 1984.

In 1992, nautical remains were found in the Sea of Galilee. The boat was in the style used in the Mediterranean from the second millennium B.C. to the end of the Roman period in A.D. 324.

Dr. Steffy was the obvious choice to interpret what the news media had quickly named “the Jesus boat.” Shelley Wachsmann, an Israeli government archaeologist, explained: “He reads wood like you read a newspaper. He almost gets into the mind of the builder.”

The team watched breathlessly as Mr. Steffy took his first look at the boat, and solemnly declared, “Yup, it’s an old boat.”

The smell of chlorine fills the warm air as a couple of blurry masses move underwater. Scuba diving suits and other diving equipment hang on the wall in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation building. In one corner, silver diving tanks are lined up like tin soldiers. The pool may seem like a normal practice area for scuba divers, until further inspection reveals a cabinet labeled “Archaeology supplies.” This is where students majoring in underwater archaeology and science through the Individualized Major Program practice.

Charles Beeker, director of the Office of Underwater Science and the Academic Diving Program in HPER, said while other colleges offer graduate training in underwater archaeology, IU is the only college in the country to offer undergraduate work. While it may seem strange to offer an underwater archaeology degree in the middle of a non-coastal state, IU is known as a research university, he said.

“Why not IU?” he said. “We’ve had one of the oldest diving programs in the country ... (and) one of the best anthropology departments in the country.”

Underwater archaeology is just one subcategory of the underwater science degree, which uses scuba as a tool in a range of fields like biology or geology. Underwater archaeology is more specific, focusing on man-made materials. Other subcategories include marine biology, geology and underwater resource management, all of which, Beeker said, relate to each other. For example, he said, an archaeologist can’t bring up an artifact from the ocean without first thinking of all of the organisms living on the artifact.

Jessica Keller, a junior who works as a conservation technician in the underwater science lab for credit, was recently accepted into the individualized major program for underwater archaeology. She will be one of fewer than 10 students a year who graduate with a degree in underwater archaeology. Keller, who started at IU as a theatre major, said she chose the major because she likes the idea of discovery.

“There are so many things that aren’t found yet,” she said, which includes shipwrecks and artifacts. Keller isn’t sure what she wants to do after graduation, but she said graduate school would probably be her first choice.

Frederick Hanselmann, research associate and anthropology Ph.D. student, who also studies underwater archeology, said many students go on to study underwater archaeology further after getting an undergraduate degree.

“Everybody pretty much steers toward grad school,” he said.

He explained that underwater archaeologists, and archaeologists in general, have a greater chance of being hired to large organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a master’s degree. Some who look for a job with just a bachelor degree find jobs with Cultural Resource Management firms, which don’t pay as well. Cultural Resource Management firms work in salvage archaeology, where archaeologists go to a place that is about to be developed and try to excavate as much as they can before that happens. Also, depending on each student’s focus, they can go into the diving industry, marine conservation or biology, working on creating underwater museums of shipwrecks as well.

Beeker and anthropology professor Geoffrey Conrad sponsor students who want to major in underwater archaeology. Conrad said he enjoys sponsoring the program because he knows students are really passionate about underwater archaeology.

“I’ve seen students who’ve had undistinguished academic careers up to this point, and they come in here and it all clicks,” he said. “It’s something to get their hands on, and it’s very hands-on.”

Conrad, who is also director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, said the first student with an underwater archaeology degree graduated around 1998.

Conrad and Beeker have been working together since about 1996, when Beeker persuaded Conrad to travel to the Caribbean to look at a shipwreck Beeker was studying. Conrad said the trip grabbed his attention.

“That’s when I got hooked,” he said.

Before taking any other classes, students must get scuba certification through E370 Scuba Certification or a similar class. After that, students can take the spring semester class, HPER E471, Underwater Archaeology Techniques, which combines archaeology fundamentals with scuba diving. However, there is plenty of activity in the lab and in the pool.

The lab is a small room divided in two with lingering remnants from its previous incarnation as a weight room. On one side of the partition, artifacts from various shipwrecks rest in fish tanks and in plastic tubs with bubbling water. Books line a bookcase that makes up the partition and on the other side are computers, rolled-up maps, an informal table for students and Beeker’s desk.

Beeker, who is known to his students simply as “Charlie,” attended IU in the ’60s. He has been featured in programs on the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Learning Channel, especially with his work in studying shipwrecks. Senior Dylan Wickersham, who is double-majoring in underwater archaeology and environmental management, said Beeker’s knowledge is another reason underwater science is being taught in the Midwest.

“He’s been in the academic community for so long,” Wickersham said. “His passion for it, his drive, is inspiring.”

Students interested in the underwater archaeology major apply through the Individualized Major Program, present a curriculum and are interviewed by a panel. After that, the most important part, Beeker said, is to be certified in scuba diving.

“To me, the emphasis is ... taking a group of undergraduate students, giving them diving as a tool ... and putting them on a project,” he said.

Beeker said students first practice scuba diving in the HPER pool and are then taken to Mitchell Quarry in the spring to practice with simulated shipwrecks and artifacts. From there, they can apply to go on trips to the Florida Keys or the Dominican Republic to look at actual shipwrecks.

Beeker said it’s up to the students to come up with their own funds, but some students receive grants and scholarships.

Students in the underwater archaeology program are given small projects revolving around actual shipwrecks and artifacts to work on before doing their final senior-year project. Wickersham, who became interested in underwater archaeology after taking a scuba diving class with Beeker, is working on mapping a shipwreck site two hours north of San Francisco for his final project.

Measuring a shipwreck site, mapping it and working on proposals to make the site into an underwater park or museum are typical tasks, yet meaningful, Beeker said.

“(Students) are being guided on stuff that’s on the cutting edge,” he said.

Keller said pursuing an underwater archaeology degree requires adventurous, enthusiastic, hardworking students. Another crucial aspect, she added, is that underwater archaeology is the major to choose if “you don’t mind getting sand in your clothes.”