Scilly Divers. Cockney Buccaneer.: Wreck Activity his week.

I had an underwater Archaeological team over the last 5 days doing an assessment of one of my wrecks. Phoenix sunk in 1680. Lucky they got some good weather to complete the work. They took lots of measurements and photos and cleared a lot of the weed away. The boat was 'Sea Watch 1' and the dive team were Wessex Archaeology who were contracted to Historic England and looked after by skipper Nigel Hodge on the wreck. They will also be properly recording all my finds from the wreck.

Sea Watch 1

Some of the 16 or so ballast guns still on the site. These form part of the evidence as to what wreck this is. I found the wreck using an old chart from 1680 which gave me an approximate area in which to search for this wreck. It was quite a large bit of sea but after a long search I finally found it in 2016. I researched out that Phoenix was carrying "a Kentledge of broken guns" Kentledge is an old english word for 'Ballast' Here they are!

While they worked on that site I went off magging around some other rocks for another one on my list. Sadly didnt find it but thats the challenge. i will just keep at it til I do find it or just move to another place where another on my list awaits discovery. The weather dictates where I search on any given day. That is not to say that the phoenix project is at an end as I am still searching all around that area of the wreck to make sure no more of it exists elsewhere. I dont hold out a lot of hope for that as the Phoenix is clearly in a very good position for that expert early 17th century salvageman Thomas Ekins who lifted all the guns from this wreck. The site is shallow and away from any rocks and the water clear. This is why not much of her remains today...just ballast guns and small artifacts. One can never be sure and so I have a few small mag hits still to visit thereabouts. Once that is done I'll move on permanently to another project on my list.

Setting up the magnetometer on my punt to search close in to the rocks