Black Sea 2007, Day 14
It took us about an hour, but we found it again.
We’re sitting on top of the wreck we discovered last year during our trip in the Black Sea. We were just hunting around, trying to find what we could see, and ran across this pile of amphora with some wood sticking out of the sand. Some might think, “Hey, that just looks like someone dumped their trash at the bottom of the sea!” But, what’s cool is that if you look at it from above, it’s in the shape of a hull.
The reason ships, like this one, have been found in the Black Sea is because there is an anoxic level. What this means is there is level of salt water on top of a level of fresh water. Not a lot of critters and bugs live in this anoxic level, especially the type of creatures that eat organic material, like wood and rope. The biggest reason we come to the Black Sea is to check out what’s around, because it’s so well preserved.
Now, we are talking about wooded ships that were sunk over a thousand years ago, so they aren’t in pristine condition, but there’s still some wood left, and it tends to hold its shape a lot longer, if it was eaten away in the first 20 to 50 years. This is very exciting for archeologists, as this is a way to look into the past, as these wrecks are preserved so well after so long.
Don’t worry about my picture above: Doc Mike moved the dish before they tried to move the Zodiac back on deck. It’s hard to tell, but the bladder that helps float the Zodiac is punctured in the bow section. It seems during there wild ride, when they sucked 100 feet of rope into their impeller, they also hit the side of the ship at such a velocity they burst one of the seams. Did I mention the seas were calm that night?
posted by DaveandBrian @ 11:47 AM
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