California Wreck Divers

For detailed information on most of the wrecks in Southern California waters, check out our website, California Wreck Divers at www.cawreckdivers.org
And check out my digital pic for a "goodie" I recovered from a wreck in the Bahamas last month. The trip was on the SEA FEVER out of Miami. No, it's not a piece of dishware, it's the brass faceplate, rim, and indicator arrow of an engine room telegraph. It will become part of a display at our annual Best Display and Rare Find competition meeting. Date and time on our website.

As a co-founder of California Wreck Divers (1971) it has been suggested that I share with the Board my views on shipwreck artifact recovery.
There are four classes of shipwrecks: 1: war graves,
2: historically significant, 3: archaeologically significant, and 4: insignificant. Totally agree hands off the first three. As to class #4, collectable artifacts, i.e. portholes, gauges, valves, cage lamps, etc. are soon so overgrown to be totally unrecognizable to most recreational divers. If left "in situ" Mer Madre will eventually destroy them and/or they'll sink into the sea bed. Of artifacts recovered and placed in nautical museums, only 10 to 15 percent of them are ever displayed at one time. The rest are stored out of sight, out of mind. Bottom line: recover artifacts where it's still legal to do so and don't where it's not. But please do us all a favor: don't just toss them into your backyard; restore and display them.

Frank Farmer