And then it was the last day
Weblog
We have spent the couple of days approximately 20 hours underwater, with each time effectively 25 minutes dive time at 24 metres. We have covered a large area and managed to map the site reasonably well. We go back with measurements, film and photo footages, drawings and observations. Now we have to put this all together to create a good site plan and to answer our scientific questions. We have it all and will thus be able to come up with a recommendation for the future, and perhaps a future excavation proposal, depending on the further analysis of the results. It’s all very exciting!
One thing is sure, we had a great time working together with the different groups. I would like to thank all of them, not only for the diving but also for all the discussions we had, the exchange of knowledge and all the fun. In the end, a beautiful project like this should be enjoyed, and we did with a smile even while making days from 5 o’clock to 23h.
So thank you, the team in Ramsgate: Mark James, Alex Hildred, Dan Pascoe, Johan Opdebeeck, Pete Magowan, Mark Hobbs, Graham Scott, Paolo Croce, Thijs Coenen and Kester Keighley.
The lovely Dan (Poppy) and Ben of our ship The Predator (project savers).
Alison James, Angela Middleton and Mark Dunkley from Historic England.
Peter Holt for being our telephone hotline for Side Recorder.
Peter Hamer for equipment maintenance and delivery.
Pidge the cook.
Kai Dieho the camera man.
Willemien van de Langemheen and Debbie Hickman for the wonderful job they did to communicate the project to the outside world and to maintain contact with the press.
And last but by no means least: Ken Welling, the licensee of the Rooswijk shipwreck, for sharing the enormous amount of information he gathered about the site with us, as Rex Cowan did, thank you both.
It was a huge success and let’s do it again!
Martijn Manders