Saturday, 7 Jan 2012
After breakfast we started preparing the magnetometer for its check-out, an important piece of equipment that surveys magnetic fields to help us detect archaeological artefacts. With the equipment set up in the Caribe, the larger inflatable boat, we left for the inside of the reef. But after about an hour we lost power to the computer operating the mag! We went back to the Kanimbla to trouble-shoot the power inverter.
After lunch and our afternoon briefing we prepared for our next dive. Our team was assigned to do a drift snorkel dive from inside the reef break north to the lagoon. We loaded our snorkel gear into one of the inflatables and headed for the reef. Only half an hour into our dive, Jacqui Mullen spotted a pintle, rudder fitting.
Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
About 10 metres away Maddie spotted a matching gudgeon. A real find as they are indicative of the size of the vessel they were attached to. We continued our dive and about 15 metres further on I found a pulley sheave with its bronze coak still in place.
Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
At the end of the dive, we were in deeper water and spotted an unidentifiable conglomeration of iron and timber. That will be something to look more closely at later. We got into the boat and headed back to Kanimbla. We were met with great excitement over our finds. We took some of the other divers back out to show them the material and finally got back to Kanimbla at 4.30 pm.
We downloaded the GPS tracks of our dives and the locations of the finds. It has been another very big day with significant finds in a number of areas. Stay tuned…. This is turning out to be a fast-paced project with new discoveries every day.
Below are a few more photos of what else has been happening.
Lee Graham found another piece of timber possibly from the shipwreck. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
Glass calm water at Frederick Reef. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett
Cheers
Paul Hundley (Sr. Curator and archaeologist)