The water is clear! and it was warm! But I did not see any artifacts today! We dove just west of the area that we were surveying. We decided to survey this area just to see if the concentration of the artifacts extended or not. So, not finding any artifacts may have been a good thing. Each day, we are getting closer to answering mysteries of the Ertugrul shipwreck. Besides the project, I used full face mask for diving. I didn’t feel comfortable having something on my mouth all the time, and my jars usually got really tired. With full face mask, I can breath normally without any effort.

read more | Randy's blog

Claude went out this morning for his first dive with the team, but I stayed ashore with Ann to explore Kushimoto for a couple of hours on foot, accompanied by Jun Kimura, a Japanese graduate student of maritime archaeology at Flinders University in Australia; he received an M.A. and soon will begin doctoral studies there under Mark Staniforth. Tonight we are all invited to an official dinner by the mayor, so I'd better get dressed--with a tie for the first time since I arrived here.

read more | george's blog

Today, it was decided that we would not go out to the sea. We went to interview two old grandmothers in Kashino village. Their fathers helped the initial salvage operation after the wreck. The story itself was interesting. Combining the stories that I heard, here how it goes. At the night of Sep 16, villagers heard a loud noise, and they went out to see what had happened. When they went out, they saw many foreigners climbing up the coast line.

read more | Randy's blog