Today was another awesome day out on the water although this time we stayed dry. Instead we got to play with some very cool and expensive toys, namely a sidescan sonar - the Klein system 3000... oh yeah baby!!!

It's an impressive piece of machinery and produced amazing images of the wrecks. The boilers of the steamship we've been working on over the past few days stuck out like a sore thumb, you could even see the stack! We also did a pass over the Industry, which has a number of cannons on it - they came up like a dream.
We mowed the lawn in a more or less straight line... perhaps a little less then more when Karson and I took over the driving. Keeping the boat in a completely straight line is a lot harder then anticipated, but we did manage to get some good results.

The boat was laden with enough gear to send a man to the moon... it probably took about as long to set it all up. But you can't have the milk without the cow, so the equipment had to come. Seeing it in action was part of the fun, the software i.e. Hypack kept us on track and most importantly of all we could see the results in real time. Few things in life are more exciting then watching the wreck pop up out of nowhere on the computer screen... it definitely got the heart pumping.

So a great day out on the water, even though there was no dive gear in sight. Thanks heaps to Southeastern Archaeological Research Inc (SEARCH) Michael and Jason - you guys were great! SEARCH is one of the leading cultural resource management firms focusing on maritime archaeology, and they generously offered to give two days from their busy schedule to bring their equipment to the field school for a training exercise.



Comments (3)
What sort of radical comment it that about cows and milk? I thought milk came in plastic or cardboard containers??? What's this cow thing? Sounds like good work you guys are doing. A lot of it goes on down under, the local police were given 5 side scanners were several million Aussie dollars and don't know how to use them or have any need to use them, real shame when there's people out there crying for them in research and adventure.
Posted by Warrick McDonald | July 9, 2007 7:59 PM
'the Klein system 3000... oh yeah baby' what a strange girl you are, you're meant to be interested in Jimmy Choo shoes not sonar systems. What went wrong? :p
Posted by Foxy | July 9, 2007 10:25 PM
Do all the students wear 80s one-piece terry cloth outfits while observing Hypack? Oh wait...thats just Karson.
Posted by Double D | July 12, 2007 12:45 AM