Posted on 06/17/2017 7:58:47 AM PDT by MtnClimber
One hundred years ago this week, the Coast Guard cutter McCulloch, a world-traveled vessel stationed in San Francisco, collided with a passenger ship in the fog and sank to the ocean floor off the coast of Southern California. For almost a century, the ship was lost.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the McCulloch had been found, four miles off Pt. Conception, west of Santa Barbara.
Searching in the Deep
“It’s been decades in the works,” says Robert Schwemmer, the West Coast Regional Maritime Heritage Coordinator for NOAA. “To put the first eyes on the ship on the eve of its 100-year anniversary was very moving.”
A historian and archeologist, Schwemmer has been studying the McCulloch for three decades and always hoped to find the remains.
In 2013, maritime historian and shipwreck researcher Gary Fabian located a mass on the ocean floor using sonar. Suspecting that it might be the lost wreck, Fabian contacted Schwemmer with his hunch.
Years later, Schwemmer took the research vessel Shearwater over the potential wreck site. Using sonar, he saw high-relief images of the sea floor and a mass that could potentially be a wreck — but more importantly, he saw lots of fish.
“Fish are an indicator of habitat, and shipwrecks are great habitat,” he said......
Finally, in October 2016, Schwemmer, along with a NOAA research team and a local branch of the Coast Guard, devoted an annual reconnaissance cruise to looking for the McCulloch......
When the ROV footage revealed a 14-foot bronze torpedo launcher mounted on the bow of the vessel — a feature unique to the McCulloch — Schwemmer was sure that the long-lost cutter was found.
(Excerpt) Read more at ww2.kqed.org ...
The outer banks would be great off season.
Empty beaches
I’ve been out on Lake Michigan a few times, mostly close in tourist stuff but once went out of sight of land on a large private boat. The weather seems fairly unpredictable out there and that is some very cold water.
I’ve seen an old map entitled “Ghost Fleet Of The Outer Banks” published by National Geographic I believe back in the 60’s showing the identified, named wrecks at that time here in NC, but it’s not even close to the state database of over 5,000 known but mostly unidentified.
I loved Nags Head too, but the DC crowd discovered the banks and from Nags Head on up north to the end of paved Highway 12 it’s built up so much. I like the end of the earth feel of the place, the wildness. So, it’s Hatteras Island for me, or maybe the 4x4 beaches up past Corolla after the road ends. Ocracoke is nice too, in a wacky artsy sort of way, must be sort of like what Key West was like before it turned into a big time tourist mecca.
"So I climbed up on the big fish..."
"Mammal"
"Fish, mammal, whatever"!
“The ends of the earth”
That is why I posted Sable island.
Until recently it was almost impossible to see unless the currents invited you in the off season!
I’ve never been to the shore on this continent any further north than Ogunquit, Maine (postcard pretty, surreal actually) or Port Townsend, Washington (family there at one time, long since removed to the saner side of the Cascades). Much of the California coast tugs at my heartstrings, too, I hate what has happened politically in that state. Stinson Beach is awesome.
MtnClimber,like your screen name I am a mountain guy but we all like the sea on a nice day.
I’m here to tell you the sea will try to kill you LOL
you can try to fight 50 gabillions of water but you will die.
All you can do is go with the flow.
Hurricane Eva on a submarine off the Hawaiian coast was a hoot
Slippin and slidin in yer own puke, rockin and a reeling...
(has the makings of a song in there, take the puke out)
Both coasts are amazing.
To bad the attract liberals
But if it was only a 3 hour tour, why did the Howells take along all those clothes?
Sea story.
My old friends Monty and Ralph borrowed Montys Dads pickup and went to Baja Mexico where they proceeded to get drunk.
They captured a seal and got it drunk.
They tossed it in the bed of the truck and took it home to Dad.
Happy Fathers day!
That seal had crapped all over the bed of the truck and Monty said they never could wash it out, couldn’t chip it away with cold chisels LOL
Monty never got Dad’s truck again.
The border was kinda lax back then
All the banks counties are red, surprisingly enough. Military retirees offsetting the Jerseyites trying their best to recreate Cape May with little plastic dollhouses on the dunes.
The Beaches below La Bufadora in Baja Mexico were astounding and deserted when I was in the military.
You could surf, hang glide off of sand dunes in to the sea wind, ride dirt bikes on the beach.
No one there but lobster fishermen and that made for good grub
Mexico is sitting on a goldmine, too bad their government and elite are utterly corrupt scumbags and their populace is by and large ignorant and far too docile. Maybe a big wave of Americanized Mexicans heading back en masse will force them out of the middle ages. Trump will be good for ol’ Meheeco despite themselves.
There is a place in Oahu affectionately known as the toilet bowl that is like this but it only goes like 20 foot high..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6c0ytz6xBU
You can sit in it, the sea rushes in it spits you out into the air and you land were you start and not a bloody mess on the rocks LOL
The Mexican Gov are Aholes
Sounds like a blowhole, I’m more than a little afraid of those things. It’s a good way to get dead in a sudden and unexpected manner.
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