Black Sea 2007, Day 17
There was an ROV pilot who had been working with Dr Ballard for over 20 years. The last project he had worked on was the Black Sea in 2003, when they found Wreck D (which is the next leg of our expedition). Dr Ballard and Jim Newman (his Senior Engineer for several years) had a small ceremony for him where they placed his ashes on Hercules. In the next couple weeks or so, when we go to Wreck D, his urn will be placed amongst the wreck.
The vehicles were on deck for most of the day while we took care of some issues we’d been dealing with over the past couple days. The Flamingo is where the preservation process is taking place, as we’re not allowed to bring artifacts on board the Alliance. We spent part of the day passing people and equipment back and forth. At the end of the day, we had a Skype chat with video. They wanted to give us a salute, by showing some of them were half naked and drinking beer. Thanks, Dave Wright.
We had the Ukrainian version of a Coast Guard Cutter next to us for most of the day today, as President Victor Yuschenko will be visiting us tomorrow. This means we’ve had some pretty heavy security coming on board. When the security officer came in flip-flops and was smoking a cigarette I figured our NATO ship would be cleared for our high-profile visitor. If you’re not familiar, President Yuschenko is the gentleman who was found poisoned during the elections, and although he came through the ordeal he is still horribly disfigured in his face. His wife is an American, and actually was supposed to come out to the RV Endeavor when we were here last year, but it was either last moment or something came up. I really don’t remember.
We’ve started lifting Jars and Amphora off the wreck. They are getting catalogued by the archeologists and some will be raised with an elevator later. But, for now they are lined up like bodies in a morgue with toe-tags hanging off of them.
posted by DaveandBrian @ 11:00 AM
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