The President s Corner by Mel Rich, Jr.

Transcription

1 FAIRFIELD COUNTY DIVING ASSOCIATION January 2006 Volume 13 Issue 1 Inside this Issue The President s Corner by Mel Rich, Jr. page 1 First Ever Prosecution of Alleged Scuba Diving Thieves by Karl Schembri pages 1, 2 Holiday Party Raffle Winners page 2 Events of Interest to FCDA Members page 3 FCDA Member Ads page 3 The Cousteau Wars: Family Feud Leaves Calypso High and Dry by Adam Sage pages 3, FCDA Financial Report page FCDA Calendar page 5 Scuba Pioneer Conservative Activist Nodine Rouse Dies at Age 80 page 6 Mystery of the Griffon: Search for the Great Lakes Oldest Shipwreck by Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki pages 7, 8, 9 FCDA Donors pages 8, 9 Next FCDA Meeting page 10 The President s Corner by Mel Rich, Jr. Happy New Year folks! With the holiday season behind us, it's time to gear down and enjoy a more leisurely pace! Our next club meeting is a great place to do just that! The meeting date is Friday January 27. Several members will be featuring either a short video or slide show running approximately five to seven minutes. So far the line up is Chris Bradbury - "Mantas of Yap" (video), Mike Cassetta - "Diving The Bonne Terre Mine" (slides), Jerry Kutz - "Ice Diving with the Stamford Fire And Rescue Department" (video) and Mike Samsen - "Underwater Photography, Balancing Natural and Strobe Lighting (slides). If you're interested in participating The police have filed charges against six expert divers accusing them of stealing and destroying priceless underwater heritage from Maltese territorial waters, in the first ever case of marine heritage pilfering to end up in a Maltese court. The accused face a maximum six years imprisonment sentence and a fine of between Lm500 and Lm50,000. The case is expected to start being heard in January following months of wide-ranging please contact me ASAP. We'll also be doing elections that evening. I want to thank Chris Matthews, who will be stepping down as secretary, for much of her time doing our monthly newsletter, record keeping and providing all those tasty snacks. If one of you can devote some time to the club as secretary it would be greatly appreciated. It would also be great for someone to take over as president. Some new blood would be good for the club! Hope to see you all there for a fun filled evening! Until then safe diving to all! First Ever Prosecution of Alleged Scuba Diving Thieves by Karl Schembri investigations by the police Cultural Heritage Crimes Unit and the superintendence of cultural heritage, as reported last September when the first suspects were arrested following raids on private collectors and a scuba diving shop. The suspects, who include two foreigners, stand accused of looting heritage items from Malta's seabed, some of them dating back to the Roman period. (Continued on page 2)

2 Page 2 Holiday Party Raffle Winners The club held its monthly raffle at the Annual Holiday Party. to support our DAN sponsorship. The winners were: New England Dive T-shirt - Kate Rickard; Flashlight holder, Hawaiian fish shirt donated by New England Dive Center - Dave Reiger; T-shirt and head wear donated by New England Dive and Dive Bag donated by Orbit Marine - Ed Arsenault; Dive scissors donated by New England Dive - Mel Rich; Uzzi Tshirt donated by New England Dive - Pat Franz; blue swim shorts donated by New England Dive and mesh bag donated by Orbit Marine -Ben Danielczuk; Mask and red backpack donated by New England Dive - Donna Vella. Remember, you can't win if you don't buy tickets and you can't buy tickets if you don't come to FCDA events and meetings! First Ever Prosecution of Alleged Scuba Diving Thieves by Karl Schembri (continued) (Continued from page 1) wrecks, although the accused They are also charged with holding illegal exploration for national heritage which would require a special license, illegally removing the discovered artifacts without a permit from the heritage authorities, failing to report their discoveries to the authorities, and damaging and destroying heritage items. Their arrests earlier this year had sent shockwaves among the diving community used to "taking souvenirs" from deepwater P.O. Box 3005, Fairfield, CT Internet mail: fcda@aol.com President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer 2005 Board Mel L. Rich, Jr. Mark Shannon Christina Matthews Paul J. Gacek were notorious among divers for their unrestrained looting for business. The items seized by investigators that will be presented as evidence in court include ancient amphoras, cannonballs from the period of the Knights of St John, and priceless artifacts pilfered from a World War I shipwreck off St Thomas Bay the 153-metre ship SS Polynésien known as one of the greatest shipwrecks in the world. Among diving circles, it is also known as "the plate ship" because of the impressive number of fine porcelain plates, brass lanterns, period decorations and furnishings buried on the wreck, together with, it is believed, priceless sealed champagne bottles dating back to the WWI period. News coverage of the arrests had also triggered a petition to the culture minister signed by more than 500 bona fide scuba divers and concerned citizens, calling for an amnesty to collectors who present their underwater artifacts to the authorities. "The aim of this petition is to protect the artifacts which over the past years have been salvaged from the seabed and now form part of private collections," the petition read. "The diving community is now aware that investigations are underway and there is the risk that some antiquities and artifacts may even be destroyed intentionally by their possessor in an effort to avoid being prosecuted. "The minister, Francis Zammit Dimech, however remained noncommittal when asked for his position. Reprinted from CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network December 28, 2005; Malta Today.

3 Page 3 Events of Interest to FCDA Members DATE February 25, 2006 March 4-5, EVENT Boston SCUBA Show - 10 AM - 3 PM. Holiday Inn and Resort, Marlboro, Massachusetts (Jct. RT.495 and RT.20) Spencer Slate The Righting of The Spiegel Grove, Cousteau s The Silent World Revisited, Dave Clancy s Subs Sunk East Coast, New Fred Calhoun film. $20 each at the door, or write: Cecile Christensen, 2 Ocean Ave. (1-H), Magnolia, MA Show phone: Boston Sea Rovers 52nd Annual Clinic - Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston, MA. For more information, March 24-26, Beneath the Sea Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucus, NJ. For more information FCDA Member Ads Hey - have you got a non retail-diving business that you d like to share with fellow members of FCDA? Get your business card size ad in the FCDA monthly newsletter Surface Interval for only $50.00 for one year. Give your business a boost and help support the production of our monthly newsletters. For more information, write to FCDA, P.O. Box 3005, Fairfield, CT or to fcda@aol.com. The Cousteau Wars: Family Feud Leaves Calypso High and Dry by Adam Sage The vessel made famous by Jacques Cousteau, the late French underwater explorer, has decayed beyond repair during a bitter feud between his widow and son over its ownership, according to officials in the port where she is docked. They say Cousteau's beloved vessel, the Calypso, is so decrepit that she would need to be rebuilt before going to sea again. Authorities in La Rochelle on the French Atlantic coast, where the Calypso has languished since 1998, say that salvage plans have been blocked by the dispute between Cousteau's second wife, Francine, and his son from his first marriage, Jean-Michel. Calypso, once known to millions of viewers across the world as a pioneering oceanographic research ship, is rusting and rotting as lawyers argue over her fate. "According to experts, she can't even be repaired. She has to be rebuilt," said Marc Parnaudeau, the councillor in charge of the case at La Rochelle. He added: "We just want this legal wrangle to end as quickly as possible." But a swift solution appeared unlikely last night as the family quarrel intensified. Francine Cousteau accused her stepson of "irresponsible stubborness" and of manipulating the media. Both run rival associations which claim to perpetuate the work of the explorer, who died in His wife heads L'Equipe Cousteau, and his son Les Campagnes Océanographiques Françaises (COF). Each claims to own the boat and has a different project in mind. Francine Cousteau says she has signed a deal for the Calypso to be renovated in the Bahamas by the American cruise line, Carnival Corporation, at a (Continued on page 4)

4 Page 4 The Cousteau Wars: Family Feud Leaves Calypso High and Dry by Adam Sage (continued) (Continued from page 3) cost of $1.3 million ( 695,000) and turned into a scientific education centre. Jean-Michel Cousteau wants to keep the vessel in France, where he has asked naval architects to draw up plans for restoration. "This is an historic vessel that ought to have been classified as part of the French national heritage a long time ago," he said. Neither wife nor son can pursue their plans until the court case is settled. The Calypso is a former Royal Navy minesweeper which was bought by the Guinness brewing dynasty after the Second World War and leased to Cousteau for a nominal one franc a year. Wearing his trademark red woolly hat, he used the boat to film some of the most celebrated underwater documentaries ever made, such as Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World) which won first prize at the Cannes Film festival in But the Calypso was damaged in Singapore harbour in 1996, a year before Cousteau's death at the age of 87. She was brought back to La Rochelle and has not sailed since. In November a Paris tribunal approved Francine Cousteau's ownership claim on the grounds that Leon Guinness, the Anglo- Irish multimillionaire, had sold the ship to her association for 1. But the COF has appealed against the judgment, arguing that a 1974 customs document makes it the proprietor. Francine Cousteau's association responded: "This shows the COF is ready to do anything to prevent the ship being salvaged and to paralyse the work of L'Equipe Cousteau." French commentators say that personal jealousies are fuelling the row. Cousteau's first wife, Simone, who shared the Calypso with him, died in 1990, apparently unaware that he had had 2 children with Francine, an air hostess he had met on Concorde. Six months later, when Cousteau married Francine, who was 40 years his junior, his son reacted angrily. Jean-Michel Cousteau's hostility towards his stepmother increased when she claimed to represent her late husband's memory. Reprinted from CDNN December 28, 2005 ;Times Online 2005 FCDA Financial Report Balance as of 1/1/2005 $3, ITEM INCOME EXPENSE OVER/(UNDER) Ad Income $50.00 $50.00 Clambake $1, $1, ($244.27) DAN Sponsor $1, ($1,000.00) Dues $ $ Egg Hunt $51.00 $ ($56.57) Food $ ($309.16) Postage $ ($123.70) Pumpkin Carving $43.00 $51.38 ($8.38) Raffle $ $ Refreshments $ $ ($85.07) Shirts $ $ Speakers $75.00 ($75.00) Xeroxing $ ($158.03) Holiday Party $ $ $43.44 TOTALS $4, $4, $12.26 Balance as of 12/31/2005 $3,235.32

5 Page FCDA Calendar DAY DATE TIME EVENT Friday January 27, :00 PM January Meeting Friday February 24, :00 PM February Meeting February 25, 2006 Boston Scuba Show March 4-5, 2006 Boston Sea Rovers 2006 March 24-26, 2006 Beneath the Sea 2006 Friday March :00 PM March Meeting Friday April 28, :00 PM April Meeting Saturday April 29, :00 AM Underwater Easter Egg Hunt/Beach Cleanup 11:00 AM Registration (High 1:08 PM) 12:00 Noon Water 1:00 PM Cookout Friday May 19, :00 PM May Meeting (Moved - Memorial Day) Saturday June 3, :00 PM "Kick Off the Season" Clambake Friday June 16, :00 PM June Meeting (Moved - Vacations) Friday July 28, :00 PM July Meeting Friday August 25, :00 PM August Meeting) Friday September 29, :00 PM September Meeting Saturday October 21, :00 AM Underwater Pumpkin Carving/Beach Cleanup 10:00 AM Registration (High 11:22 AM) 11:00 AM Water 12:00 Noon Cookout Friday October 27, :00 PM October Meeting Friday November 17, :00 PM November Meeting (Moved - Thanksgiving) Saturday December 2, :00 PM FCDA Holiday Party

6 "If there's not an ocean in heaven, I'm not going." Norine Rouse, one of the country's first female diving instructors and a champion of sea turtle and reef protection off of Palm Beach County's shores, died Tuesday. She was 80. Although she didn't start diving until her 40s, Mrs. Rouse, known as the turtle lady, became one of the area's underwater pioneers and a soughtafter expert on sea life. She was one of a handful of people licensed by the state to swim with sea turtles and would steadfastly record and photograph their behavior for scientists' use. "She loved sea turtles more than people," said J.D. Duff of the Scuba Club Inc. Duff met Mrs. Rouse in 1977, while in college, and she later hired him to his current job. From the 1970s to the 1990s, she tracked the annual return of two loggerhead turtles, which she named Raja and Robert, to the same local reefs. "Sometimes it seemed like she had a personal relationship with the turtles," Duff said. When Robert the turtle returned each Christmas, Mrs. Rouse would don her trademark yellow wet suit and take kitchen scrubbies out to clean him. She was born in Savannah, Ga., the only child of a housewife and mechanic, on May 9, After 20 years of marriage, she divorced and took up diving after watching a Jacques Cousteau film. In 1966, Mrs. Rouse moved to Freeport, Bahamas with $125 she had won on a television game show and became a diving instructor there. "They hired me to show even a woman could do it," Mrs. Rouse said in a 2000 interview. That very idea is what made Connie Gasque take up scuba diving. After seeing Mrs. Rouse on television in 1984, Gasque took up the sport and has been diving since. "I owe my knowledge and love of the ocean to her," Gasque said. Needing money and more challenges, Mrs. Rouse came to Palm Beach County in 1969 to teach diving to the scientists and crew of the Ben Franklin, an underwater research vessel. Later she opened the Norine Rouse Scuba Club of the Palm Beaches, where many of today's diving instructors got their start. Her first dive shop was in John D. MacArthur's Colonnades Hotel on Singer Island, and she later set up shop at the Buccaneer Marina, where she taught members of the Florida Marine Patrol to dive. "The biggest thing was being comfortable in the water," Mrs. Rouse said. "I was more comfortable in the water than on land." She led expeditions for television crews and magazine photographers. "She didn't like to be photographed above water, but she loved it underwater," Duff said. During a 1981 excursion in the Sea of Cortez, she rode a manta ray for the 18 most thrilling minutes of her life, she said. Later that year, she was paralyzed from the waist down from the bends, also known as decompression sickness, a condition that afflicts divers who surface too rapidly. Doctors told her to Page 6 Scuba Pioneer Conservation Activist Norine Rouse Dies at Age 80 give up diving, but she continued diving for rehabilitation. She was walking on her own after several months. Mrs. Rouse admitted to being the type of diver who liked to stay down until the last few breaths of air remained in her tank. She always wanted to spend as much time as possible in the water. After observing anchor scars on reefs near the shoreline of Palm Beach, Mrs. Rouse encouraged the Port of Palm Beach and the Coast Guard to restrict anchoring to certain areas. Her affinity for marine life was even more renowned. She abhorred spearfishing and would not help stranded spearfishermen unless they left their spear guns in the water. "I would not allow one on my boat," she said in "We bent a few spears and made an underwater monument out there. We'd give a free dive (in exchange) for a spear gun." Her zeal grew to mythic proportions. Accounts circulated about her skewering fishermen's fins with their own spears and pulling the mask off of one fisherman underwater. She said those stories were not true. She recorded every dive, stopping at 7,650 in 1995, when the lingering effects of the bends forced her to stay ashore. "The doctor thought I should quit diving because they really didn't have statistics on people my age," she said. "He said, 'Maybe 20 feet (underwater),' but that's not worth getting wet for." Reprinted from CDNN December 29, 2005 Source: Palm Beach Post

7 Page 7 Mystery of the Griffon: Search for Great Lakes Oldest Shipwreck by Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki The mystery of the sailing ship Griffon has tantalized adventurers and historians ever since the vessel, loaded with furs, disappeared in 1679 on its maiden voyage in northern Lake Michigan. It's the oldest and most elusive of Great Lakes shipwrecks. And Steven Libert, an amateur underwater explorer who says he has been hunting the Griffon most of his adult life, thinks he may have found the wreckage. But for about a year, he has been locked in a legal battle with the State of Michigan over salvage rights to what's left of a ship he discovered while diving in 2001 near Poverty Island. The sides have forged a delicate truce, however, that apparently will enable Libert to continue work next spring toward unlocking the mystery of his find. If it really is the Griffon, it may be the grand prize of his shipwrecks. But it's not a prize that will bring him riches. The Griffon wasn't carrying treasure, and its cargo of furs is long gone. Its value is historic and, for Libert, intrinsic rather than monetary. "It's the hunt for it, knowing that obviously you do something better than someone else. It's competition," said Libert, 51, a Virginia resident who also owns a home in Charlevoix. The air in his scuba tank was running low, and Libert was about 100 feet below the surface of the dark Lake Michigan waters on his last dive of the 2001 season. Visibility was about 3 inches when he swam into a long pole sticking out of the lake bottom. "I didn't even know what it was," Libert said. "My face mask ran right into it. I don't know how to explain the feeling. Talk about shock." He sent up a marker and his crew used global positioning devices to note the location. But when he went back to the surface to refill his tank, the air compressor failed and then a storm moved in. Libert had to wait until the following spring to dive again and take another look. "That was the hardest thing, waiting all that time, wondering: 'Is this the mast of a ship? Is it anything like that?' " Libert said. When he made it back, Libert wiped off the zebra mussels and took some infrared video of his find. Could it be the legendary Griffon? Libert wasn't sure. But his discovery intrigued Scott Demel, a curator at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, which is interested in excavating and possibly displaying the wreck, if it proves to be the Griffon. "I think everyone would agree it's the Holy Grail of the Great Lakes," Demel said. Libert took Demel to the site later in 2002 to take samples of the pole for carbon dating. But carbon dating isn't an exact science because fluctuations in temperature and climate can affect the test results, Demel said. "It can't pinpoint exactly how old the wood is, but it certainly gives us windows to work from," he said. The results of the carbon dating give Libert's discovery a 33% probability of dating to Those aren't great odds, but it's one part of the puzzle, Demel said. The court battle has stopped Libert from getting back to the site. He says it's too early to tell whether his find is the Griffon, a French vessel that explorer Rene- Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sent out on its fatal trip with a crew of about five. But Libert points to other evidence, such as ax marks on the wood indicating it was hand hewn. He said it's possible he found the Griffon's bowsprit and the rest of the ship is loosely buried behind it. Uncovering the truth has been tricky for Libert, whose real job -- the one that pays the bills -- is working as an intelligence analyst for the Department of Defense. He has formed the company Great Lakes Exploration Group LLC to salvage the ship. And he's trying to use a combination of his own money and whatever investors and grants he can attract to fund the venture. The Field Museum is helping Libert write a grant to fund more research. "We're not wealthy, but believe it or not, I pull money from other sources -- everything in order to be able to do this," Libert said. But he can't explain the exact nature of his lust for shipwreck exploration. "If you could answer that, you'd be helping me out, and my wife also," he said. So far his biggest cost has involved a lawsuit against the state. Michigan claims all ship- (Continued on page 8)

8 Page 8 Mystery of the Griffon: Search for Great Lakes Oldest Shipwreck by Peggy Walsh- Sarnecki (continued) FCDA Donors The business listed on this page has donated dive gear and dive services to help support the Fairfield County Diving Association. New England's Tech Diving Center! (Continued from page 7) wrecks within its waters. But Libert says he should be able to maintain salvage rights to his discovery, and he doesn't give up easily. The Griffon sailed under the French flag, and Libert persuaded the French government about a year ago to make a claim and give him the rights to salvage the ship. Melissia Christianson, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Attorney General's Office, said there is still no agreement on salvage rights. "We are currently exploring with the other side whether or not we can find cooperations," she said. Though the rights to the wreckage are likely to be decided in federal court, it appears as if the two sides may have put aside their differences long enough to decide whether the shipwreck is indeed the Griffon. "Right now it can't be distinguished from a simple timber," Christianson said. "There's no evidence to believe that it is the Griffon." Though Christianson is skeptical, Libert is hopeful. "People are finding it hard to believe because it's been lost for so long," he said. Libert has been looking for (Continued on page 9) New England Dive Center 476 North Colony Street Wallingford, CT The region's foremost source for scuba and technical diving gear, training and everything for the recreational or serious tech diver Fax Dealer for OMS, UWATEC, Oceanic, Mares, Dacor, Cressi-Sub, P o s e i d o n, Scubapro, Bare, O'Neill and Henderson. Draeger Atlantis I Rebreather training, certification and rental. New England Dive Center offers complete training for all levels of diving, from Open Water through the most advanced technical courses. Our instruction provides certification through SSI, PDIC, TDI and IANTD. Visit us on the Web:

9 Page 9 Mystery of the Griffon: Search for Great Lakes Oldest Shipwreck by Peggy Walsh- Sarnecki (continued) (Continued from page 8) the Griffon for 28 years, researching in libraries and seeking out any other source that might lead to a clue to its whereabouts. Names were different in La Salle's day and the Griffon's name can be found different ways -- le Griffon, Griffin and Griffon. Along the way, Libert said he has searched for other wrecks, including the Carl D. Bradley, which sank in Lake Michigan in 1958, and the Bonhomme Richard, John Paul Jones' ship, which sank in the North Sea while battling the British in "I think individuals have a role to play in exploration, not just big companies or governmentsupported ventures, but individuals," Libert said. "It's just a drive that I think a lot of individuals have, not just myself." That attitude prompted him to start diving along the Griffon's likely path. Someone once told Libert that searching for the Griffon was like looking for a needle in a haystack. "I said no, it's more like looking for a needle in a hay field," Libert said. Said Demel: "It's the last frontier on the planet, to look at territory that's underwater." Reprinted from CDNN January 2, 2006 FCDA Donors The business listed on this page has donated dive gear and dive services to help support the Fairfield County Diving Association. Orbit Marine Sports Center, Inc 3273 Fairfield Avenue, Bridgeport, CT (203) 333-DIVE (800) 395-DIVE Capt. Noel s Diventures!! The Spirit of the Good Life! Cozumel February 9-13, 2006 Winter Break Bonaire March 16-20, 2006 Early Spring Break! Cancun/Tulum Mexico May 25-29, 2006 Memorial Day Weekend Turks & Caicos June 28-July 1, 2006 Papual New Guinea & Australia - July 26 - August 6, 2006 North Carolina July 30-August 5, 2006 Freeport, Bahamas August 31-September 4, 2006 Palau November 12-19, 2006 Grand Cayman December 7 11, 2006 PLEASE BUY LOCAL! Mail order/internet sales hurt all local retailers. We re the ones who fill your tanks, service your gear, train you to dive, take you out diving and REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU! SUPPORT US SO WE CAN SUPPORT YOU! Orbit Marine is 33 Years Old! Orbit Scuba Courses listing Open Water Advanced Open Water Rescue Diver Underwater Photography Wreck Diver Divemaster Assistant Instructor Instructor, Nitrox Advanced Nitrox Cylinder Inspector DAN O2 Provider Deep Diver Night diver Underwater Navigation Visit Orbit Marine on the Web -

10 Page 10 Next FCDA Meeting Next FCDA Meeting - Friday, January 27, :00 PM Coast Guard Cottage - South Benson Marina - Fairfield, CT FCDA Members Present! Chris Bradbury - "Mantas of Yap" Mike Cassetta - "Diving The Bonne Terre Mine" Jerry Kutz - "Ice Diving with the Stamford Fire and Rescue Department" Mike Samsen - "Underwater Photography; Balancing Natural and Strobe Lighting Fairfield County Diving Association P.O. Box 3005 Fairfield, CT Address Service Requested