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Like it or not, most museums have FORMALLY agreed not to accept artifacts
collected by sport divers. They do this for a couple of reasons: 1. sport
divers don't map the position of an artifact on the shipwreck-or in
archaeologese, don't establish provenience of the artifact- before it is
recovered, rendering its worth as accurate information about the ship,
anecdotal at best, and 2. divers often destroy portions of a shipwreck to
get at artifacts, a practice preservationists abhor because it complicates
the business of archaeologists in sorting out the site (if they choose to
sort out the site), and it causes sites to deteriorate at a faster pace than
if they were left to the elements. Museums figure by not accepting artifacts
from sport divers, they are not encouraging such activity. Little do they
know! Thank god for techdivers with the wisdom and brawn to recover
artifacts- who can see through this misguided reasoning- and who know that
junkers are really important people making real contributions to mankind's
knowledge of historically important freighters, tankers, trawlers, tugs,
barges and the like that litter the seafloor, and about portholes and brass
objects. They know that junkers are not a bunch of wimpy tree-huggers, but
real MEN- weekend warriors doing battle with the elements, braving
treacherous currents, fighting-off venomous sealife, besting octipii and
sharks, to reach a finite number of ever-deterioriating shipwreck sites and
recover their artifacts. Wrecks sites, which by the way- were it not for
their efforts- would be lost forever to civilization. And finally, thank god
for techdivers who now have the equipment to reach the deepest wrecks, stay
the longest times, and collect maximum artifacts.  Our knowledge of wrecks
ought to multiply manyfold in years to come. My god!! It doesn't get any
better than this!! This is not an advertisement.







I am being held prisoner by Danny Gouge and he made me say all that stuff
above. Don't listen to him-- I mean me.

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