Supermen

Friday afternoon 22 August
Our wreck will again lie undisturbed (we hope). Four days of diving has provided us with the information we need to plan for a full-scale operation; this morning we took our last dive of the season.
[An aside: Joe just walked by and saw my writing. Asked me to be sure to mention that he’s a super-hero. There you have it, Joe. Now everyone reading this blog knows.
Speaking of super-heroes, there is a team of them on board the Hercules. I just had another amazing meal prepared by Elliot, the chef.
At first I wrote “cook” but that would have been plain wrong. For chef he is, in fact as in title. Every meal I have had on board here rates many stars. He manages to produce miracles in a kitchen just barely big enough for him to turn around, but large enough for objects to launch in dangerous trajectories when the ship lurches in heavy seas. We came in to dock early today because of a malfunction in the thrusters (which keep the ship stabilized on a GPS point); while the rest of us take a siesta in celebration of the luncheon-feast, Jeff the engineer is fixing the problem. My favorite story about Jeff (so far) is that he got this job as the result of a chance meeting with “a guy in a taxi, coming home from a bar”.
I don’t see Jerry, the boatswain’s mate just now, but that is unusual — he is inevitably around, doing what needs to be done to make the ship run. He is not too proud for any job, even the grossest. I exaggerated the siesta; I see Derek (WID) and Todd (RPM) on the sun-beaten stern deck, filling diving tanks. When I asked, Todd said that he is the “deck monkey and diver”. Whatever that means. He’s always around, doing dirty, heavy, hot, hard work. Howard, DSO (dive safety officer) also gets the title of one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He has perhaps borne the brunt of the WID team’s presence, for it falls upon him to organize our shared use of the RHIB and diving equipment. Somewhere, deep in his soul, he surely must wish we would go away. But no such word or even the hint of such a thought has surfaced. Maybe he’s such a nice guy that his soul actually has not entertained such a thought? Hard to believe, but it just might be true. Edwin, the first mate, also currently captains the ship. I know him least because he is necessarily occupied on the bridge. Like Elliot, Edwin hails from Malta; other members of the crew are from Key West, Australia, the Philippines, and finally there is Kim the gypsy, who roams between domiciles in the UK and France. Which is fitting, for his job is to fly the ROV — to control its path as it roams over the seabed searching for the targets identified by the multibeam scanner. As you might remember, I spent my first day on the Hercules glued to the video screen, watching the ROV at work. One can get mesmerized and Kim’s precision is vital to RPM’s mission. Like everyone on the crew, he has gone out of his way to welcome us. Just now, he is burning a copy of the morning’s ROV run, so that I can share it with the Ancient Seafaring class I’ll teach in the spring. Dr. J (Jeff Royal) is the archaeological director of the survey. I wrote about him in an earlier posting; in the several days since then, I have discovered only more positives that I would add to my description. But I won’t cause him to blush here. Finally, there is the man who makes it all happen: George Robb. I met him for the first time here in Albania, though I know his name because of his associations with INA and his several years of survey work in the Mediterranean. I have been most pleasantly surprised. Ten days is hardly time to claim to know a person. But it is true that all-day field days, with all their stresses, make for a thorough introduction. I came to Albania leery on many fronts; I leave with no reservations whatsoever in continuing and building upon the relationship George and I have established. We share a vision and I am grateful to him for communicating his knowledge and experience. I am where I am now in my career in great part because of the generosity of colleagues. It is my luck this summer once again to be among such people.
Let me add one more kudo for the entire crew: they are in the last week of a 4-month season. Anyone who has worked intensely in the field, especially for that long, recognizes how trying it must have been, in these last days, to accommodate a new bunch of people. Thank you to the entire RPM crew for your essential help in launching WID’s Albanian adventure.

Finally, one more person very important to the success of this past week: Ardiola, our interpreter. A pre-med student turned archaeology major. Dependable, clever, full of pizzazz. If this is the kind of students we attract, then underwater archaeology has a bright future here.

OK, I realize that my “aside” has turned long enough to be its own posting. More on the wreck later, I promise!