Things you've found under water

[yaml]

1975 - san francisco beach -surface interval - while the fresh caught barracuda was frying did a little "lite" snorkeling - found a complete set of dentures; also found a wedding ring in back of sunset house on beach dive out on eden rock in the 70's; damn that's a long time ago

 

[Dondon462]

A 1616 ship that appears to be "Spanish" and the cargo hold is FULL!!..top layer Chinese porceline....now I am putting together a team of volunteers to survey the site and recover the Maritime History .... Something tells me TONGA is going to be an interesting story over the next few years...cause we also found a few more wrecks!!! all unsurveyed...all the details are on www.bluetreasure.me I will post here again with some pictures later in the year..but if you want to jojn us PM me...thanks..Don

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

A 1616 ship that appears to be "Spanish" and the cargo hold is FULL!!..top layer Chinese porceline....now I am putting together a team of volunteers to survey the site and recover the Maritime History .... Something tells me TONGA is going to be an interesting story over the next few years...cause we also found a few more wrecks!!! all unsurveyed...all the details are on www.bluetreasure.me I will post here again with some pictures later in the year..but if you want to jojn us PM me...thanks..Don

Dondon, excuse me for being a bit of a skeptic but you have raised a few red flags. One, you found a 1616 wreck and the hold is still full? Second, you nailed the date of the wreck with out knowing 100% the origin of it or the name? Third, you say you found a 400 year old, possible Spanish ship with a full cargo hold and you are enlisting strangers for your venture rather then friends and family.
Would you care to elaborate on these points.
ZDD

 

[samer0214]

Here is what I found, and it wasn't even Christmas!

12 Drummers Drumming
11 Pipers Piping
10 Lords a Leaping
9 Ladies Dancing
8 Maids a Milking
7 Swans a Swimming
6 Geese a Laying
5 Golden Rings
etc.

You know the rest 😜

 

[Wingy]

A dog named Ringo's collar (dont want to think about what happened to Ringo) a pygmy seahorse inside a sequinned g string , a tin of bully beef in PNG that I would assume had been there since the diggers in Kokodo were given bully beef as rations.

 

[Bill Parker]

I found and brought back this anchor off of Marietta Landing in Lake Murray (Ok, USA):

 

[Dondon462]

Dondon, excuse me for being a bit of a skeptic but you have raised a few red flags. One, you found a 1616 wreck and the hold is still full? Second, you nailed the date of the wreck with out knowing 100% the origin of it or the name? Third, you say you found a 400 year old, possible Spanish ship with a full cargo hold and you are enlisting strangers for your venture rather then friends and family.
Would you care to elaborate on these points.
ZDD

Hi There...wow someone read my post...funny but I often wonder if people think I am "telling stories" as it is "unbelievable hey!..Well you first need to read the blog and other info on my web site www.bluetreasure.me Over 400 years the name has gone or is yet to be "discovered " during the archeological surveys yet to be started, we have a metal "thing" from the wreck that goes 'ding dong" with a date...but you are right..it could have been 20 years old before it went down so would then be 1636...gargo hold is full because we have not touched anything because of politics, which has now been sorted..taken three years!!....can't say too much, but we are 90% certain it must be Spanish because of insortmation "discovered" in Spain....strangers become friends very fast on an exciting adventure and I want passionate people only for this project...I have been amazing sceptics for the past 30 years and continue to do so...but if you are up for it, I would love to have you and any other divers on the 'team"...life is not a rehersal!!...I have just signed my first diver from ScubaBoard and start the search in Australia for three more divers this week....

Who am I?? ..Without trying to bore you, or take liberties here is a story I just put in Dive Log mag in Australia to introduce divers there to this project..

Thanks!!!YOU FOUND WHAT?

Most people would consider good health the greatest treasure anyone could have in life. I subscribe to that, second only to my belief, that a life of no regrets is important and will make it quite interesting. Opportunity rarely knocks twice, so here I am, after three years planning, preparation and execution, about to uncover what I believe may be, one of the more significant hauls of underwater Maritime History the world has seen for some time! I use the word “MAY” deliberately, as to be a real adventure, it must have an unknown outcome and I love adventure!!

43 years ago, during my training as a “British Sub Aqua Scuba Diver”, BC’s did not exist and PADI was not on the horizon. Then, as a qualified 15 year old S.C.U.B.A. diver, I was still reading about “Captain Kidd” and the swashbuckling exploits of pirates and plunder, while I watched in awe, as Jacques Cousteau grew to become my hero through his documentaries. The preceding years had been spent exploring the imaginary depths of my lounge room, after school, with the help of a black and white Television and Lloyd Bridges in “Sea Hunt”. The ocean became a constant in my life, surfing and sailing to extreme lengths. This included a solo yacht race around the world in 1990. The Antarctic beckoned, so after sailing 200 teddy bears south in 1993, I returned in 1995, to live there with my wife Margie, in a 2.4 x 3.6mtr box, chained to rocks, beside Mawson’s Huts, a year of compete isolation.

With $250,000 from Microsoft in America, I launched “Expedition Reef Bound” in 1997 for “International Year of the Reef”. It was a 17 week, live interactive web site, (something novel in those days!) following my adventures onboard the 18mtr expedition vessel “Spirit of Sydney”, through the Great Barrier Reef. It was ground breaking technology for it’s time, that went on to win a coveted global “Envision Award” , from 1000 entries, as the best “Adult education/entertainment “ web site in the world that year. With US DIVERS sponsorship and my hero Jacques Cousteau as the company figure head, he was sadly to pass away in the middle of our expedition. I decided then, I needed a ship, not an ordinary ship, but a close equal to “Calypso”! I wanted my boyhood adventures to get real!..I mean who doesn’t right!

Three years later I found the ship. With Dick Smith sponsorship, I took control in Finland of a 36mtr Ice ship, renamed “Sir Hubert Wilkins”. After a quick trip to New Zealand and a refit that included a helipad and the exact same model helicopter as carried onboard “Calypso” ( Wahoo!!!) I headed out with a volunteer crew, (all ala RED beanies!), for three “interesting” Antarctic seasons, on, in and under the ice. In 2003 to get warm, I set out on a seven month treasure hunting expedition to the Philippines. “Huey” was the cutest little expedition ship you could imagine. We carried all the toys, Nitrox, ROV, towing Magnetometer, 5 man recompression chamber, Dredges etc.

When you pay the Philippines government $200,000 for the exclusive rights to look for just one ship, a “special” ship, of Spanish origin from the “Manila Galleon Trade”, you hope you find something right!..We did!!..It was truly amazing, bordering on awesome....it was called “corrugated iron”. So we eventually departed rich with fond memorizes of having to do our veggie shopping with the helicopter, as it was simply too dangerous to travel the local roads, of being escorted by an armed body guard 8 mtrs behind, anytime we walked in Manila, of trying to stop armed members of the NPA Terrorists from boarding our ship and of the beautiful and friendly Philippine people and crystal clear waters, devoid of any fish!..I would not have missed that expedition for the world!! “Life Aquatic” with Team Zissou is real life for me now and Jacques Cousteau still the legend.

I sold the ship and moved on to racing rally cars and a world first solo Gyrocopter flight around Australia. Then in March 2010 life took an amazing turn. I was about to set off on one of my most “fun” adventures. 4000 miles in a little open boat from Tonga, across the Pacific to Kupang in west Timor. I would follow in the footsteps of William Bligh, after the Mutiny on the Bounty!. We had just 40cm of freeboard when we left and only carried the things he carried, no toilet paper, no charts, only two weeks of water and virtually no food. As we set out, I had no idea I would loose 18kg, go close to dying, nearly run out of water and get kidney stones, but I knew, I would be back in Tonga as soon as I could get there!

WHY? Well in the month of final preparations in Tonga, I had stumbled across some information that made me believe the Kingdom of Tonga is full of unexplored wrecks. I met the late King His Majesty George Topou V and spent time with the then Prime Minister. There was a chap in Jail for plundering a wreck and I had a meeting with a senior cabinet minister about that and the issue of historically significant wrecks in Tonga. He asked me to return and Help!.

I survived the Talisker Bounty Bounty voyage and returned to Tonga in October 2010, in a Nordhavn 76 trawler, ready to start diving, but the game had changed. I did not even get wet! More research literally made my eyes pop. Last year confirmed my research and theories! This year marks the beginning of a unique period in Tongan maritime history, where for the first time, some of the mysteries of their rich underwater heritage &#8220;May Be&#8221;, unlocked by Tong Blue Ltd. ..Follow the blog on ' + picTitle + ' <\/title><\/head><body><CENTER><IMG SRC=\"'+ picURL + '\"><P>"'+picTitle+'"<\/P><P>'+the_location+', '+the_year+'<\/P><P>&copy '+the_photographer+', Image ID: '+the_photo_id+'<\/P><\/CENTER><\/body><\/html>') newWindow.focus() } func

 

[Wisnu]

I found the complete gear - first thought somebody drown, apparantly gear only, ie. Scubapro ladies hawk complete with regulator, integrated octopus - power inflator, tank and 6 kg soft weight at Bangka dive site; end of March 2013.
The dive guide took it and brought to the dive center - Nomad Diver bangka.

 

[Divemistress24]

The only identifying marks on this gear was a visual inspection sticker from a dive centre in the Phillipines. We googled them, emailed them, gave them all the serial numbers and they have put us in touch with the owners, and luxury superyacht (TV (ex-MADSUMMER) | Lurssen yacht charter ? 78.33m Luxury Motor Yacht) we are arranging to reunite them with their gear very soon!
Sophie
Nomad Divers Bangka

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

The only identifying marks on this gear was a visual inspection sticker from a dive centre in the Phillipines. We googled them, emailed them, gave them all the serial numbers and they have put us in touch with the owners, and luxury superyacht (TV (ex-MADSUMMER) | Lurssen yacht charter ? 78.33m Luxury Motor Yacht) we are arranging to reunite them with their gear very soon!
Sophie
Nomad Divers Bangka

Well done.
ZDD