| Blue Water Rose 1st Trip |
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July 7, 2006 -- R. Duncan Mathewson, III
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It hasn’t taken our salvage boats long to get hot on the trail to the “Motherlode”.
A few days ago, the last trip back from the Margarita site brought in a group of
artifacts recovered from a number of closely associated mag hits designated as
“Cluster A” on our site chart.
These artifacts include an olive jar neck, a number of unglazed earthenware and
olive jar sherds, a sheep (?) leg bone, iron spikes, an iron padlock, and a number
of EO’s (encrusted objects). These artifacts clearly indicate a concentration of
shipwreck material including rock ballast of different sizes and shapes, including
limestone, shell concreted basaltic igneous and pryoclastic volcanic rock types.
Included in this small assemblage is a well-preserved piece of a lower hull timber
possibly from a floor or first futtock frame from the bottom part of the vessel.
This small piece of timber has an iron drift pin through it which once attached it
to the lower hull structure framing. The iron drift pin originally was about 2’
long and held the frame together with the keel and keelson. It has now completely
decomposed and only exists as a cast of its former shape. The ferrous chlorides and
oxides from its disintegration has permeated the wood around it – thus preserving it
in good condition over the 384 years it has been in the “Quicksands”.
This archaeological discovery was very important as it has demonstrated for the first
time since the site was first discovered in 1980, that lower hull structure has indeed
survived the test of time beneath the Margarita sands.
The lower hull structure is what we are looking for as it was part of the cargo hold
that contained the heavy treasure. And now we have recovered a small but crucial
piece of the archaeological jigsaw puzzle. We now need to concentrate on continuing
our test excavations around the “cluster” mag hits to follow the artifact scatter
pattern where ever it will lead us. Some recent pictures are included below.
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