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Originally Posted by captain_mrw
I still can't figure out why we are protecting wreck sites as grave sites? So what if people died there? I mean, don't go and monkey around with remains, but how many bus accidents are we going to leave on the side of the road as a grave? Or plane wrecks? Train wrecks? Why just shipwrecks? If they were in plain sight they would have been cleaned up and demolished decades ago. If they were in a shipping lane do you think they moved the channel? NO, they dynamited the wreck and wire dragged what was left.
I think we should leave jumpers remains on the sidewalks, and no touching their wallets folks ...
Captain Mark
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Of course, this issue has pretty much been hashed over a million times in the past few years and a search will get you all the answers you could ever hope for. I come from an area where a well-treated wreck essentially lasts forever and we are, perhaps, more sensitive to not trashing them than might be the case in some other areas. That doesn't mean that access to some wrecks isn't pretty tightly controlled (or prohibitedf) but it doesn't happen very often.
It's my suspicion that most people wouldn't object to divers visiting the site of fatal wrecks if they felt like the divers were going to treat the site with respect and dignity.
We clean up the sites of car, plane and train wrecks (because we can), recover the bodies and often mark the site of the accident for posterity. It's hard to do much of that with wrecks and most non-divers don't feel the sting of being denied access to the wrecks. Of course, blustering insensitivity (not to mention pilferage, desecration and general loutishness) on the part of some overly dramatic divers spoiling for an argument doesn't help our cause, either.