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From Mail Online

An Indian seaman's tale of being shipwrecked on a remote northern Australian island could shed light on the 230-year-old disappearance of a renowned French explorer, one of maritime history's greatest mysteries, an anthropologist said Thursday.

In 1785 Jean-Francois de Galaup de La Perouse was sent by King Louis XVI to chart the globe and map lands that had eluded English explorer Captain James Cook.

Three years later the explorer and his 220 crew were shipwrecked after setting sail from Botany Bay in New Holland -- now Australia -- in the direction of New Caledonia. His two frigates were eventually found off the tiny Solomons island of Vanikoro, northeast of New Caledonia and locals said the survivors built a vessel to sail back to France.

After they left, they were thought to have vanished at sea. But the survival story of an Indian sailor, Shaik Jumaul, hints at a bloodier end for La Perouse and his crew -- some 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) back towards Australia.

Jumaul's tale, chronicled in The Madras Courier newspaper in 1818 but largely ignored until now, detailed the shipwreck of his merchant ship off northern Australia in 1814, according to Australian National University anthropologist Garrick Hitchcock.

Hitchcock, who detailed his research in The Journal of Pacific History, said the Indian sailor was marooned on Murray Island in the Torres Strait. When he was rescued by merchant ships in 1818, he told the crew he saw cutlasses and muskets on the islands that were not English made, as well as a compass and a gold watch.

"When he asked the Islanders where they obtained these things, they related how approximately 30 years earlier, a ship had been wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef to the east, in sight of the island," Hitchcock said.

By Marija Andric - RD

Some call it the Shipwreck Coast. Others call it the Graveyard of the Great Lakes. The waters along this 80-mile stretch of Michigan coastline between Grand Island and Whitefish Point have sunk hundreds of ships.

(And you have to see the reason why there are thousands of shipwrecks below Lake Erie.) Edmund Fitzgerald, Cyprus, and Vienna are just a few of the vessels lost beneath the waves, their names forever etched in maritime lore. Their wreckages lie in varying depths of Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes.

Every summer, thousands of visitors come here to explore the wrecks and the breathtaking bluffs, including Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. People are attracted to the “human drama, the battle of man versus nature, and our age-old romance with the sea,” says Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise.

The museum is at the center of all this activity. It’s a definite first stop for any visitor interested in the maritime history of Lake Superior.

In the 19th century, Munising, near Grand Island, was one of the busiest ports on Lake Superior and one of the few harbors where ships carrying passengers, iron ore, timber and other cargo could seek sanctuary from the lake’s stormy seasonal fury. (To get even more spooked, check out these chilling ghost stories.)

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From Yahoo News

A British father was arrested in front of his family at a Turkish airport after trying to bring home 13 historic bronze coins he found while snorkelling on holiday.

Toby Robyns, 52, was arrested at Bodrun airport on Turkey’s Aegean coast and could face up to five years in prison if convicted of trying to take artifacts out of the country. Mr Robyns, an ambulance driver from Southwick, West Sussex, told police he had no idea it was against the law to take the coins.

"We were on a daily tour. When our boat stopped I took my goggles and dove into the water. There were broken ceramics in the sea. When I cleaned the sand off with my hand I saw the coins. I never thought that carrying them would be a crime,” he said, according to a Turkish police statement.

Police said the coins were 800 years old and were found when Mr Robyns put his luggage through an X-ray machine at the airport.

Mr Robyns’ wife, Heidi, and two young sons returned to the UK while he was reportedly taken to a prison in Milas, around 30 miles away. Mrs Robyns declined to comment when reached at the family home near Brighton.

The family had been on a two-week summer holiday in Bodrun Mr Robyns has not been charged with a crime but is likely to be held in prison until prosecutors make a decision.

Turkey’s judicial system is on an August break, meaning that Mr Robyns could face several weeks in prison before any decision is made. He appeared before a magistrate’s court the day after his arrest but will need to appear before a higher court if he is charged.

He could face between three and five years in prison if convicted of smuggling historical artifacts, according to the BirGun newspaper.

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From USA Today
 

"We've located the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis in Philippine Sea at 5500m below the sea."

That tweet from entrepreneur and billionaire Paul Allen around 12:20 p.m. Saturday confirmed what many have been searching for since the ship was sunk on July 30, 1945.

Allen, who is leading a 13-person team on his 250-foot research ship, the R/V Petrel, said the wreckage was found at a depth of more than 18,000 feet.

The heavy cruiser, carrying 1,197 sailors and Marines, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine while sailing back to the Philippines after delivering components for "Little Boy," the atomic bomb that helped end World War II. It took only 12 minutes to sink.

While 900 crewmen made it through the initial sinking, only 316 survived to be rescued when help arrived five days later on Aug. 2. Many had died of exposure or thirst, drowned or were attacked by sharks.

Families of those aboard the ship found out about the deaths of their loved ones just as the rest of the country was celebrating the conclusion of World War II.

The latest break in the search for the wreckage came in July 2016, when the Naval History and Heritage Command Communication and Outreach Division reported that a sailor had confirmed that a tank landing ship, LST-779, had passed the Indianapolis 11 hours before the torpedo struck. That backed up the testimony of Captain Charles McVay III and was confirmed by deck logs.

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From BBC News

A ship excavation is expected to reveal a "treasure trove" of items and stories from Europe's global trading history.

An international team of maritime archaeologists are diving, excavating and recording the wreck of Dutch ship the Rooswijk off the Kent coast. All 300 shipmen died when the vessel, carrying coins and silver ingots, sank on Goodwin Sands in January 1740.

Never before have any of the Dutch East India Company's 250 wrecks been scientifically excavated on this scale.

Historic England manages the protected site and is working with the Dutch government, which owns the ship's remains. It is only now, after more than 250 years, that the sands have shifted enough to unveil the wreckage.

Some explorations were carried out last year and those finds are being showcased as part of the #Rooswijk1740 project, led and financed by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, with open days in Ramsgate between 19 August and 16 September.

They include a large seaman's chests, pewter jugs, ornately carved wooden knife handles and leather shoes.

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From Daily Mail

Staring out to sea on a flawlessly sunny day, underwater archaeologist Ibrahima Thiaw visualises three shipwrecks once packed with slaves that now lie somewhere beneath Senegal's Atlantic waves.

He wants more than anything to find them.

Thiaw has spent years scouring the seabed off the island of Goree, once a west African slaving post, never losing hope of locating the elusive vessels with a small group of graduate students from Dakar's Cheikh Anta Diop University.

Goree was the largest slave-trading centre on the African coast between the 15th and 19th century, according to the UN's cultural agency UNESCO, and Thiaw believes his mission has a moral purpose: to heal the open wounds that slavery has left on the continent.

"This is not just for the fun of research or scholarship. It touches us and our humanity and I think that slavery in its afterlife still has huge scars on our modern society," he said, pulling on a wetsuit and rubber boots for the day's first dive.

Thiaw believes his native Senegal, with its own long and violent history of trade in human flesh, could tell the world more about how modern capitalism was founded on violence inflicted on African bodies.

"The Atlantic slave trade was the foundation of our modernity, so this is a history for all mankind," he added, referring to the so-called "Triangular Trade" of human labour for consumer goods between Africa, the Americas and Europe.

After making final checks on the magnetometer that will run up and down a painstakingly designated strip of seabed for traces of wreckage, Thiaw disappears under the surface of the dark green waves.

- 1,000 slave shipwrecks -

African nations affected by the slave trade have never fully come to terms with it, Thiaw believes, and even today in countries like Senegal, a caste of people still refer to themselves as slaves.

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By James Draper - Mail Online

Holidaymakers can expect to witness numerous unexpected wonders when they explore the world.

But tourists visiting the Micronesian archipelago of Palau discovered an unusually rare sight, re ently - after stumbling across a doomed WW2 plane.

The long lost craft - believed to be a Japanese Aichi E13A long range reconnaissance seaplane - was found in a shallow river on the archipelago of Palau, which boasts 500 picturesque islands.

An image of the remarkable relic, which surfaced on Imgur, shows the plane largely intact with the wings still attached to the fuselage. Eerily positioned upside-down, it's not clear which country the military craft belonged to, but the undisturbed site has now become something of a makeshift grave.

And, clearly, it exerts a fascination with holidaymakers, two of whom can be seen canoeing past the plane's rusted body. Unsurprisingly, the image has stunned people across the internet, with one saying:, 'Looks like a movie set or the beginning or end of a novel.'

Another added: 'If was the pilot that died with that plane, I'd be happy with my final resting spot. So beautiful and serene.' A third chimed-in: 'For me, it's the juxtaposition between the wreck and the person kayaking carefree right next to it.

It seems disrespectful given that someone could have died in that wreck.' Aviation historian and seaplane pilot Paul Beaver told MailOnline Travel that the plane is Japanese.

He said: 'It's an A13 floatplane. It is inverted and has lost its floats. This is a rare beast.'

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By Anna Slater

A giant bronze eagle perched atop a Nazi swastika which was lost in a shipwreck during the Second World Wa r will be sold off to raise money for its military.

The giant statue sunk on board Nazi battleship Graf Spee off the coast of Uruguay in 1939 - but a private salvage company recovered it in 2006, some 75 years later.

The bronze symbol, which weighs 300 to 400 kilograms and is nine feet wide, sat on the ship's prow. The figure recovered from the seabed by Alfredo Etchegaray 11 years ago and as authorities decided what to do with it, it was kept in a warehouse heavily guarded by the military.

After a long battle in court, the Supreme Court ruled the Uruguayan state was the piece's rightful owner. But it also said Mr Etchegaray, who worked for a private salvage company, should get 50 % of its profits when the eagle is sold.

Mr Etchegaray previously told the BBC the eagle could be worth up to £10 million - which will go towards funding the country's armed forces and its Defence Ministry.

The German embassy in Montevideo has urged Uruguayan authorities not to put it on display because it could glorify the Nazi regime.

According to the BBC, Guido Westerwelle, who was the German foreign minister during a visit to Uruguay in 2010 told officials in Montevideo: "We want to prevent wreckage from the ship, in particular the Nazi symbols, from landing on the market for military insignia."

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