
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.
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