Submerged: adventures of America’s most elite underwater archeology team

314 Pages·2003·4.11 MB·English

by  Daniel Lenihan

Dedication
To Calvin R. Cummings
Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
MAPS
PART I - CAVES, DAMS, SHIPWRECKS, AND DREAMS
CHAPTER ONE - FOR WHOM THE HORN WAILS
CHAPTER TWO - SCRU
CHAPTER THREE - THE FLORIDA CAVES
CHAPTER FOUR - TIME FOR A CHANGE
CHAPTER FIVE: - DRY TORTUGAS
CHAPTER SIX - DAMMING THE PAST
CHAPTER SEVEN - A RETURN TO XANADU
PART II - THE SCRU TEAM
CHAPTER EIGHT - BISCAYNE: BAPTISM OF FIRE
CHAPTER NINE - BULLY HAYES AND OTHER SHARKS
CHAPTER TEN - IN OUR GLORY
CHAPTER ELEVEN - ISLE ROYALE: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
CHAPTER TWELVE - PEARL HARBOR: USS ARIZONA
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - CONTEMPLATION VS. ACTION
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - ISLE ROYALE: THE FINAL CHALLENGE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - ISABELLA
PART III - REACHING OUT
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - PROJECT SEAMARK
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - BIKINI: OPERATION CROSSROADS
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - THE ALEUTIAN AFFAIR
CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE MICRONESIAN SWEEP
Pohnpei: Ancient Temples in Nan Madol
Kosrae
Majuro
CHAPTER TWENTY - SUNKEN LEGACY OF THE CONFEDERACY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - RETURN TO THE TORTUGAS
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - PEARL 2001: THE ADVENTURE
CONTINUES
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE
OTHER BOOKS BY DANIEL LENIHAN
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Maps
SITES DIVED BY THE NPS SCRU TEAM (excluding South Seas)

PART I
CAVES, DAMS, SHIPWRECKS, AND DREAMS
A passion for extreme diving combines with a vocation as a Park
Ranger/Archeologist. Diving caves in Florida and Mexico and shipwrecks in the
frigid water of Lake Superior and behind dams in the desert southwest hone the
skills needed to form a permanent cadre of underwater archeologists in the
National Park Service: The Submerged Cultural Resources Unit or “SCRU
Team.”
CHAPTER ONE
FOR WHOM THE HORN WAILS
The foghorn from the Rock of Ages light at the southern end of Isle Royale
National Park wails ominously every five seconds. Its usual dreamy quality is
strangely foreboding, oppressive this afternoon. There is no fog about our boat,
though the lighthouse is shrouded with wisps of Lake Superior mist. Patches of
sunlight play over the glass-calm water surrounding five National Park Service
divers grouped on the fantail of the thirty-eight foot motor vessel Superior
Diver. The date is June 15, 1982. No one speaks as we intently study the
emerald-green expanse of Lake Superior from the stern of our anchored vessel.
No flicker of movement, no slick undulating circle disturbs the verdant glass—
nothing that would indicate the presence of a diver’s bubbles boiling to the
surface. They are late . . . very late, and unspoken fear is tangible. The rising
tension has become a sixth member of the team gathered on the deck.
A stopwatch suspended to a clipboard at the divemaster station ticks
relentlessly. The mundane instrument has suddenly assumed an unprecedented
degree of importance. If the ticking isn’t an indicator that hope is fleeting fast,
the foghorn’s plaintive wailing leaves no room for doubt.
I am conscious of a faint slapping against the hull from the wake of a passing
boat, and the damp smell of lake water steaming off the recently doffed neoprene
dive suits lying on the deck. Body heat, a sign of life; it’s not hard to make a
connection to the two suits still more than one hundred feet below in the thirty-
four degree lake water.
Lake Superior is not the Caribbean—it is cold, harsh, and extracts heavy
penalties for even small mistakes. I have dived over the hulks of many ships that
have felt its power, when its explosive temper had turned the placid lake surface
into a raging cauldron of foam and freezing spray. Twisted steel and smashed
wood mingled at the bottom with the toys of children, bodies of sailors—it is the
story we are here to tell. Our task is to unravel the archeological residues of the
human dramas that played out in these waters and match them to the written
records of the past.
Below us lie the casualties that resulted from the pursuit of great profits in
the industrial hotbed of the Great Lakes at the turn of the twentieth century. One
more voyage, just one more capital-driven run, taunting the gales of November.
How easy it is for us, swimming over the cadavers of ships through silent depths,
ice water in our veins, to relate to the victims of disaster; archeology and history
had come alive to us on this lake. Now two of our people, like many a Great
Lakes ship, had “gone missing.”
Our divers are meticulous about tracking their bottom time—the period from
leaving the surface until the return to the decompression area, a place under the
boat that serves as a safe haven. Here they can switch from air tanks on their
backs to breathe pure oxygen from regulators attached to long hoses suspended
from large green cylinders strapped to the deck; they have unlimited time to
slowly complete a safe ascent.
Before they had exceeded their planned arrival time by a full minute, the
surface spotter registered enough concern that others began gathering around
him, peering into the distance and checking the clipboard notation of the divers’
descent time. When I heard the shuffling of feet and spied the hunched-over
form heading toward my bunk, I was already getting my shoes on. The voice
inflection of the crew, lack of an undercurrent of banter, and sudden muting of
the Waylon Jennings tape alerted me that something was wrong as effectively as
an alarm bell.
During the previous decade supervising hazardous diving operations, I had
occasionally wondered how I might react to losing a member of my team. I find
now that part of my consciousness is operating at warp speed, looking for
solutions, while another part stifles images of drowned divers that, unbidden,
keep trying to emerge from my memory.
Seconds later, I become strangely detached, reflective. I notice little things,
like Jerry Livingston’s hands. Our diving illustrator has strong sensitive hands,
those of an artist. Where he leans on the rail, his knuckles are starkly white. He
has spoken not a word but his hands tell it all: He thinks they’re in serious
trouble. If this lake were a forgiving place, we wouldn’t be here, anchored off
Isle Royale, diving on the broken hulks of ten large ships. Archeologists seldom
get to pick where they will dive but almost by definition the area won’t be