Kenny Keeping, Adam Johnson, Carrie Atkins, Jennifer Cobb and Carina King.

Welcome to the 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. The PAST team will build on the study of the site undertaken by Indiana University in 1998 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

Please also visit the PAST Foundation's 2005 Field School Partners:

Quiescence Diving Services
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary