Maritime History Beneath The Waves

Maritime History Beneath The Waves. . A British Army surgeon who visited St. Augustine in 1784 wrote that a ship was wrecked on our coast every two weeks to a month. One couldn't walk 100 paces on the beach without seeing "the skeleton of a foundered ship, or its wreckage." He mused that "should the sea withdraw after centuries, it would be an astounding thing to come upon the reliques (sic) of these ships.", While we cannot part the seas, archaeologists at the St. Augustine. Lighthouse and Maritime Museum can dive beneath the waves to investigate four and a half centuries of lost ships. The Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program serves as the research arm of the Museum and employs professional maritime archaeologists and conservators who work in the water, on the beaches, and in the laboratory., Above, archaeologists raise an iron cannon from a Revolutionary War-era British refugee ship lost while trying to enter St. Augustine in December 1782. Below, scientists excavate a beached shipwreck believed to be the Carolina Eddy, which ran ashore in 1880. Left, a Museum diver recovers a brass shoe buckle and some broken pottery from the "Anniversary Wreck", an unidentified cargo vessel lost between 1765 and 1800.