Friday 27 April
Today the team had probably our best day of excavating, and of course… sandbagging. Mike and Deb were the first in the water and excavating and able to make a lot of progress on the stern. Plenty of artefacts were found and most noteworthy of those are some casks and we were successfully able to remove one of them to send up to conservation on the barge. Despite looking like they were in such good condition, the custom-made X-ray machine was able to discover that they were actually very deteriorated on the inside. A number of smaller artefacts such as nails, glass, and fragments of leather came up as well. Volunteer Liesel Gentelli, was hard at work with Andrew Viduka on the X-ray machine and getting it going on some of the first artefacts and really showing its potential.
 |
 |
 |
| Eric Bruning | Deb, PeteV & Amelia helping with sandbagging (photo by Jen Rodrigues) | Stern area of Clarence with sandbags (photo by Deb Shefi) |
We were able to get a lot of divers in doing plenty of hours work on the site and really pushing through the stubborn clay that had slowed us down earlier in the excavation. With the help of some new tools, there was no problem getting through it, but it seems to be pretty extensive and will most likely go all the way to the bow.
The sandbagging that has taken so much time in filling 1,052 bags is finally finished, at least on land. With Matt Carter and Fiona Shanahan loading up all the bags on the truck back at camp for the rest of us to load onto boats at St. Leonards and deliver out to the site to unload them as best we could into piles. We were finally able to finish that and they are now ready for their new home for many years to come on the wreck once the excavation is complete and this will help to protect/preserve the wreck for future studies.
by Eric Bruning Volunteer
