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Welcome Aboard!
Back row, left to right:
Chris Cartellone, Byron Hartshorn, Rhonda Rodriguez,
Pruitt Brown and Sarah Wilson.
Front row: Mike Traher, Craig Stewart, Anne Corcadden,
Sheli Smith, Charles Wyche, Shawn Arnold and Renee Post.
Welcome to the
2006 PAST Foundation Underwater Field School at Key
Largo, Florida. This season, twelve wonderful students
join the staff of PAST to research, explore and learn
about two wrecks in the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary. Through a collaborative effort with NOAA,
the PAST team will study a group of artifacts recovered
in 1992. The artifacts are believed to come from the
wreck of the Adelaide Baker, lost in 1889
just south of Duck Key. Built in the 1860s in Maine, the
bark Adelaide Baker is one of the nine wrecks
that form the
National Marine Sanctuary’s Shipwreck Trail. The
artifacts we will study are being considered for a
touring exhibit and educational programs. The PAST team
will carefully document all the objects and then help
the staff of the sanctuary ready them for use in
exhibits and education.
The second
shipwreck our team will study is the Slobodna
built in 1884 in Austria and lost only four years later
on Molasses Reef in the Keys. The Slobodna was a
composite ship built of wood and iron sailing with a
cargo of cotton from New Orleans. Today the wreck sits
in 28 feet of water and although it's a well-known dive
site, there is no comprehensive site map. This year the
PAST team will build on the
work done in 2005 and focus on creating a
detailed site map locating the various ship parts
resting on the bottom.
Our days are
full with lots to do and our evening are full of guest
lectures on topics relating to the work we are doing and
the study of maritime cultures. We are all here and
ready to go. I hope you will follow our work and
adventures over the next two weeks as we work to help
the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary enhance and
interpret two of the many treasures within these
protected waters.
Dr. Sheli O.
Smith
Principal Investigator
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Field School
Hurricane Contingency
In the
event that a hurricane or other serious weather
situation should require an evacuation of the
Florida Keys, it will be difficult or impossible
to arrange air transportation out of the Miami
area. All field school personnel will relocate
as a group to the
Fort Pierce/Port St. Lucie area, where the PAST
Foundation has already made arrangements to
house the crew. Safety comes first; all else is
secondary.
If an evacuation
becomes necessary, specific details and contact
numbers will be posted here and on the
main
PAST Foundation web page. To keep updated on
the current situation in the North Atlantic and
Caribbean, visit
Weather Underground's Tropical Weather page. |
Please
also visit the PAST Foundation's 2006 Field School
Partners:
Quiescence Diving Services
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary |
