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With our mission successfully completed we head back into Port Fourchon,
Louisiana. The success of the expedition is a testament to the quality
of the science team and the professionalism of the
ROV and Survey crew. I would like to say that
everything run as smooth as silk, but the fact is that we faced
difficulties at times as you do with any large complex operation at sea.
As technical issues arose the ROV, survey, or film crew
worked at
all hours to resolve the problems and keep us on schedule. As Tropical
Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley entered the Gulf of Mexico toward the
end of our mission, we were able to adjust our operation out of the
track of the storm and continue our work. Every objective of the project
was meet except one. In the last week we had to scratch the
Anona shipwreck site off the mission, as it
lay directly in the path of Bonnie. We were, however, able to use that
time to investigate a couple of new sites and revisit the other project
sites, which proved a great addition to the project and the mission. In
addition to the planned sites we were able to investigate a large gas
vent approximately six miles south of the
Robert E. Lee and
U-166 and ground truth an unidentified site
to the south of the Gulfpenn.
One of the most unexpected things we found
archaeologically was a large debris field 1,200 feet north of the
Alcoa Puritan and a 105mm shell
casing a couple of hundred feet south the main wreckage. These two
discoveries will allow us to retrace the final moments of the attack as
the U-507 slowly over took the Alcoa
Puritan, crippling it with its 105mm deck gun and then finally
finishing off the freighter with a torpedo just beneath the
superstructure on the starboard side. It seems that the freighter
settled to the seafloor just to the south of the location it was
torpedoed.
Each
member of the team will take away with them his or her own type of
"treasure" from this project. Each member of the science, ROV, survey,
and film crew found some unexpected discovery or some new experience
that sparked his or her excitement and contributed to the mission. As
for myself I hope the collaborations made here and knowledge shared
among all involved will prove beneficial long after this project is
over. When the analysis of the data is complete and our final report is
done, I hope it will be the beginning of several new studies rather than
merely the end of a contract. It has been a pleasure to lead such a
qualified and enthusiastic group on such a productive and exciting
expedition.
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