Water Logged

Day 28: Mapping: The Adventure Continues

By Sam Blake (9/30/02)

A view of the vessel's stern

 The day began with a brief piece about our work on the local news, delivered by Dr. Dasovich. In the morning crews set to work with the intention of filling in the holes in the overall basemap. Much of the excavation around the stern has been completed, making it ready for mapping.
After lunch the focus shifted somewhat. Several teams had completed their assigned units from the morning, and it was determined that dredging should commence in the area of the port primary rudder. Several small nails were recovered from the screen, although most were fragmented.

Brian maps a portion of the vessel's midsection

The glory of dredge work as experienced by Andy Weir as he works on the primary port rudder

 Finally another test trench was dredged along the aft hold bulkhead. Among the numerous bits and pieces recovered from this trench perhaps the most impressive is a graphite pencil. The piece was recovered whole and the team leaders were amazed to discover a graphite pencil dating from this time period - perhaps it was dropped by a purser during the loading of the vessel prior to its fateful last trip.