a future in which a fleet of robots scours the ocean floor,
creating a map of literally everything both above and below
the sea bed. There are already designs for massive hubs
that would allow scores of AUVs to download information,
charge batteries and keep humming along the bottom in
their relentless search of the sea. That is the future, however,
and for now humans still have a tremendous impact on how
wrecks are found. The great majority of known wrecks that
lie within dive depths were found by divers or fisherman
using nothing more than a fish finder. In fact, if it lies within
dive depths, it’s probably covered with nets and fishing line.
Every new wreck we have found over the years has been.
Technology enables us to do tremendous things, but even
with all the funding that is still available and all the robots in
the world, it is the private individual who will find the wrecks
that lie in our own back yard. Even as I write this, a submarine I
have spent three years searching for was just found by another
group of technical divers. They also spent countless hours
looking over charts, reading old deck logs and towing a cable
over more than 100 miles of endless sand dunes, learning and
relearning the value of patience. But this time instead of pulling
up the cable and making the long trip home with only lines on a
chart to tell them where the sub was not, their patience paid off,
and they located the U-550, a submarine with its own incredible
story. But that story is theirs now and no longer mine to tell.
With their find they have reminded me of that earliest lesson,
patience. And now, at last, we come to the next great lesson in
wreck hunting: persistence.
AD
www.alertdiver.com
|
85
Clockwise from top: Optical mosaic of the Walter B. Allen; side-scan
image of unknown wreck; an example of GPS being used with side-scan,
magnetometer and bottom finder
“
Today we are
experiencing
something of a
renaissance
in
the world of science
and exploration.”
created by Tamara Thomsen and Woods Hole