Sunk in 1545 by the French fleet, the Mary Rose was discovered in 1982 off the Southern shore of Britain. The Mary Rose was the pride of Henry VIII navy, and she went down with 500 hands.

The full article is in the English paper The Daily Mail. It has plenty of fascinating pictures and can be seen by clicking here

It has just been reported by AP that Odyssey Marine Exploration and the British Government have reached a deal on artifacts recovered from the wreck of HMS Victory, that was discovered earlier this year.

More details of the story can be read by clicking this link.

6/11/2009 If you are in the Great Lakes area this weekend and are into shipwreck discoveries you may want to check this event at the Red Barn in Sackets Harbor. Jim Kennard will be presenting on the shipwrecks Homer Warren and Etta Belle amongst others.


Explorer to present talk about shipwrecks Saturday in Sackets

SACKETS HARBOR — Noted shipwreck explorer Jim Kennard will present an all-day program on the "Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario" at 10 a.m. Saturday as part of the 2009 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Experience Series. Mr. Kennard's discoveries have received worldwide attention and have been featured in National Geographic Magazine...

The full article can be read here from the Watertown Daily Times.

6/4/2009 This story broke today and has had a lot of coverage over the internet. I'm not sure where I stand on this one. The treasure was Spain's even though they stole it from the New World, but on the other hand they have had 200 years to find it and did nothing about finding it.



TAMPA, Fla. – Florida deep-sea explorers who raised an estimated $500 million treasure from the 200-year-old wreck of a Spanish galleon should give all the loot back to Spain, a federal magistrate judge said.

But the two-year tug-of-war over the 17 tons of silver coins and other artifacts from what is believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas is likely far from over...

Click here for the rest of the article on Yahoo News

5/29/09 I came across this snippet in the Western Morning News today. A nice million pound contract for Geosa. Click the link below for the full story...


A WESTCOUNTRY oceanographer is hoping a £1 million contract to excavate a Dutch shipwreck will be the key to creating world-class scientific laboratories in the region.

Plymouth-based Geosa is to carry out recovery work for the second time, on Rooswijk, a Dutch East India Company trading vessel which sank in the English Channel in 1740. The Dutch government contract will include surveying, excavation, recovery and conservation of artefacts from the sunken ship.

The firm was also behind the excavation of the bow of King Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose, which included the recovery of the stem of the vessel in 2005...

Click here to read the full article

5/26/2009 My condolences to the family of Carl Spencer, a very experienced wreck diver who has sadly passed away. Even with all the technological advances this still remains a very dangerous activity, and this serves as a stark reminder of the perils that await the brave men and women who push the boundaries whilst helping us all discover what happened to the countless wrecks on our ocean bottoms.


A highly respected British diver has died during the exploration of a shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

Carl Spencer, 37, had been leading a 17-man National Geographic Society expedition to film Britannic, sister ship of Titanic, off the island of Kea when he suffered severe decompression sickness (DCS), also known as the bends, during an emergency ascent to the surface.

The 53,000-ton Britannic, even larger than her famous sibling and deemed equally “unsinkable”, was lost in 57 minutes after hitting a mine in 1916, while serving as a hospital ship during the First World War.

The wreck was discovered in 1975 by the French undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, but, lying at about 300ft (90m), it pushes divers to the limits of endurance....

The full article can be read here:
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6359021.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

5/25/2009 A good article published in The Western Star today about the search for the Henry Ford, a schooner famous for racing the Bluenose. The Picture above shows the Henry Ford racing the Bluenose.


No success yet, but search to continue for historical shipwreck off Norris Point print this article

NORRIS POINT
ASHLEY FITZPATRICK
The Western Star

Divers looking for the boat that beat the Bluenose have not yet found the shipwreck, but are also not ready to give up the search.

The true name of the boat is the Henry Ford. It is a fishing schooner built in Essex, Mass. Part of the Gloucester fishing fleet as of 1922, the Henry Ford was named for the famed American automaker and raced against the Bluenose to victories on more than one occasion. The victories, however, were never considered official.

In 1926, the Henry Ford was lost in a shipwreck. It is believed by divers with Newfoundland’s Ocean Quest Adventures to have struck a reef in the Bonne Bay area.

The site is known locally as Whale Back or Whale’s Back Ridge.

Over the Victoria Day long weekend, the team from Ocean Quest, along with interested guests, entered the waters around Whale’s Back Ridge and began a search for remnants of the Henry Ford.

Andrew Hiscock, an archaeologist with the team, said high winds and high waves impeded the search on Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday the crew had better luck, with the weather co-operating enough for five dives (about 45 minutes each), with 10 divers in the water, said Hiscock. That was not enough time. “We searched about one third of the reef,” he said.

The search yielded no treasures. Yet, because so little of the reef was covered in this trip, the Ocean Quest crew has determined it will head back to the reef in June to try to complete the search. If it still cannot cover the area in that time, Hiscock said, an additional return trip will likely be planned.

“We’re excited to head on back,” said Hiscock, who has researched the Henry Ford for the last seven months and selected the general dive area.

Hiscock said the Henry Ford has historical significance. He said the captain of the Henry Ford, Clayton Morrissey, was also captain of the Effie M. Morrissey for a brief period. The Effie M. Morrissey was the ship Bob Bartlett sailed in his Explorer Club and National Geographic adventures. It is the ship being rebuilt for this year’s Bob Bartlett celebrations. Effie M. Morrissey is also the sister of Clayton Morrissey.

Hiscock has maintained a blog including some of his historical research findings on the Henry Ford and notes on the search at the Ocean Quest Adventures website. He believes that the Ford will be found, even if it is not fully intact. “If we had a full day on it, we could search the entire area and I think we’d find something,” he said.

Yet even with the absence of a find, Hiscock said the area around the reef was worth the trip and hopes to have the team highlight it in future tours offered by the recreational dive company.

“It’s a kilometre out and you can see the bottom as clear as day,” he said. “It’s amazing.”

During dives on Sunday, the team was able to capture images of dramatic sea stars and even wolffish living in rocky hideaways. The striped wolffish is endangered.

“One of the biggest draws of the area — it’s called the wall. It’s a sheer drop down to depths you can’t dive on compressed air,” said Hiscock. “But the wall is just teeming with stuff, with life.”

Hiscock said Ocean Quest Adventures will be including a dive in the Bonne Bay area in the upcoming Atlantic Canada Challenge. The challenge, essentially a recreational dive tour, will include a marathon exploration of dive points from Port aux Basques to Conception Bay South and is a joint project between Ocean Quest Adventures and Marlin Diving Enterprises Inc. in Cape Breton.