The Conquistador (Conq) - my home away from home...

Well, she aint much, but she always gets the job done. My dreams of living on a boat have been with me since childhood. I always yearned to live near the ocean, and how much closer can you get than floating on it. You haven't slept until the sea has rocked you to sleep with a serenade of waves, squeaking ropes, and the dings and clacks of nearby sailboats. To some, this probably sounds horrible, but to me it is absolute peace.

The Conq is a 36 foot UniFlite fiberglass boat built in 1969. She has twin Crusader 454's for power, and will make 25 knots in calm seas. The big silver tubes are shipwreck excavation tools, they fold down over the props and deflect the prop-wash down to the sea floor. This clears the sand away gently, leaving the shipwreck and any loose artifacts resting on the bottom of the 30 foot wide, 8 foot deep crater we make in the sand.

We have decked the boat out with a hookah system (surface supplied breathing air, no tank required), built our own dive platform, and added all the tools needed for good archaeology. The most important tools are our remote sensing survey instruments. These allow us to locate shipwreck sites by simply driving the boat in a lawn-mowing type pattern. all in all, she is a great vessel, and a comfy (if cramped) place to live. It sleeps 6, has a full kitchen and bathroom / shower with hot water, refrigerator, microwave, stove, and all the acutrements of home...in a MUCH smaller space.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Well, being this close, it was only fitting that I went over and visited the most photographed lighthouse in the world. One thing I didn't know was that the entire structure was moved several thousand feet a few years ago. Beach erosion threatened the foundation, so a new foundation was built in a safer lcoation and the entire lighthouse...in one piece, was moved. It's a beautiful lighthouse, and is still open for tours which are well worth the climb, if for nothing other than the view from the top.

The climb is equivelant to 17 stories, and definitely requires a rest stop at the half way point, but people in reasonable shape can make it no problem. The view from the top is absolutely breath-taking, it is still a functioning light house, so they don't really let you up into the top, but the security guard allowed me to pop up and grab a quick shot after some small talk about how it all worked. All in all, it made for a fun and photo-packed 2 hours, well worth the $10 entry fee which goes towards the up-keep of the structure.

Cape Hatteras, NC

I've recently been working out of Hatteras Village on the outer banks of North Carolina. If you are not familiar with area, the outer banks are a small chain of barrier islands that stretch out to almost 50 miles offshore of the mainland United States. They culminate in a point known as Cape Hatteras (left) which is a known shipwreck location due to the many sand bar areas that extend many miles offshore, often rising to depths of only 6 feet. Anytime you have 6 feet of water many from shore...shipwrecks are certain to occur.

We were performing magnetometer and side scan sonar surveys, and located shipwreck sites near the shoals...some known, some not. The weather out here is intense...storms can blow up in as little as 20 minutes, and seas can go from 2 feet to 8 feet in the same period. The names around here give you some idea...there are reasons for names like Cape Fear, Cape Lookout, etc.

We were working from the 50 foot fishing vessel "Rebel" owned by Capt. Gene Woodbury. It is a beautiful 1960's wood hulled boat with classic lines and old school hardware. It was a perfect platform for all of our toys, and the entire project was enjoyable. We managed a little fishing on the way out, I caught a few spanish mackeral, one small tuna, several bonita, and a fairly respectable barracuda.

The outer banks are like a different world...they practically have their own English dialect out here. The people are incredibly friendly and remind me of original settlers, they have a slight european sound, and life here is generally slow-paced and rustic in nature. The fishing villages of old have been replaced by charter boats catering to tourists, but the feeling, architecture, and lifestyle are still very "early America" in nature.

One of the first American colonies was established here, the Wright brothers made their first flight here at Kitty Hawk (only a few miles from where we stayed at one point) and the area in general has more shipwrecks per square mile than most other areas due to the unpredictable weather and shallow shoals. Something tells me my time here on the Outer banks is just beginning, we certainly located wrecks that a worth a closer look, and I look forward to a return visit.