Run-in with the Marine Patrol

[ivan salis]

use "greek fire" instead----we want to be really historically correct

 

[Gold_Needle]

Ah yes, absolutely correct, my apologies.

 

[southern maine diver]

Harr Cap'n...

Rammin them would be a good idea Sir...
But how bout layin low in the water liken we're disabled Sir
then we run up the good ole "Jolly Roger" n

we open up on em with a broadside!!! (just to clear her decks)
then, We heave to and throw the grapples into her...

Let the men scurry about her decks and throw the bastards overboard
or set them adrift in them thar rubber inflationable emergency boats...

we take their booty n we send em packin with ther tails between ther legs

Aye, Cap'n... twood be a good day for the men n we might just teach them thar
"Maurine patrol" guys a lesson or two...

What say ye?

Wayne one Eye...

 

[transplant]

In the 70's i work with them for a couple of years. we were arm to the teeth it would make a pirate look like a sunday school teacher. we knew that everyone we approach was armed. and the first thing we did I.D. ourself and take their guns ,them ask for there hunting license.most of our side arms were..45 cal. we alway show our pump 12.GA. we figure it was better to have to explain our action in court than for our family having to go to our funeral

 

[pcolaboy]

I should make it clear that I have no problem with the Marine Patrol. They are WAY underpaid for the duties they have to perform. I am merely against the bureaucracy that has been created by a group of archaeologists that have used and abused their credentials to wield unprecedented power within state governments for their own agendas - NOT for the benefit of the true preservation of history.

More and more history is being lost everyday because Fascist Archaeology (not all archaeologists are fascists ok) determines whether sites are historically important enough to study and preserve but at the same time not allowing 'amateurs' to at least recover the left-overs. A very good example is the USS Convoy that sank in Pensacola Bay shortly after the Civil War. The wreck was positively located by divers in the 1960's, but years of channel dredging have literally strewn the remains over nearly a quarter mile of bottom. In the early 1990's as the historical underwater resources movement was gaining momentum, several divers were fined and charged with theft of state property by merely recovering bottles and plates from part of the huge debris field. Meanwhile, there was a shipwreck survey done in Pensacola Bay with the help of the Navy, and guess what? The Convoy wreck area was not deemed culturally significant to perform any formal study. But to this day, you will lose your boat, gear, and everything else if you recover as much as a grain of sand from this wide area. This is what I mean about their mentaility of "they'd rather let it rot and dissintergrate than allow an amateur to recover it." It's a total crock of sh.. !!

I truly hope that I'm totally off-base on this issue, but the pieces are beginning to fit in favor of my thought process.

:P

Damn right I'm fired up !!

Pcola

P.S. I know some of you State Archaeologists monitor this forum and I invite you to join in on this debate out in the open. Don't bother trying to lure me into obtaining artifacts because anything stray I find by accident goes to the T.T. Wentworth museum anyway.

 

[Zephyr]

Okay, a silly question: Would people get in trouble with the FMP if they started putting 50+ year old items into the water for the archeaologists to find...? (j/k of course. But at what point does an object cross from being junk to being a relic?)

(And IIRC, any property the US Navy lost (ships, planes, the occasional admiral's gold toilet seat) still belongs to the Navy and is off limits, but it's cheaper to let the state handle the enforcement for them.)

 

[Salvor6]

Hey Pcola, you are right! State Archaeologist Roger Smith is a charter member of Tnet but he doesn't have the backbone to post on a treasure hunting bulletin board. He won't even post on SUBARCH.

Well I guess this is my last post. Roger and a couple guys from Texas A&M have my house surrounded.

 

[pcolaboy]

Hey Pcola, you are right! State Archaeologist Roger Smith is a charter member of Tnet but he doesn't have the backbone to post on a treasure hunting bulletin board. He won't even post on SUBARCH.

Well I guess this is my last post. Roger and a couple guys from Texas A&M have my house surrounded.

LOL...too much! I actually met Dr. Smith in 1992 during the initial Emmanuel Point Shipwreck survey. My fraternity brother was on the first student team involved and introduced me to him because I wanted to volunteer (being a business major as I was). Dr. Smith seemed nice enough but not so politely declined my request for being a volunteer. Hmm...didn't my tuition and meager state taxes somehow help pay for that survey?

 

[MichaelB]

I guess I need to go throw the hucap off of the 1920 Model T that got snagged on my fishing line back into the water so I cannot stand accused of breaking the 50year rule. And we wonder why it takes so much money to run out Government..........

 

[thepirate]

Hi PCola - you,ve hit it on the head! Total Catch 22 situation. Your idea of some form of training or certification would be spot on.

In the UK we have something like it in the form of the Nautical Archaeological Society. I wonder if you couldn't kickstart some of your pet archaeologists in the US ( even on this website?) to set up or at least sponsor something similar - I see they do have similar organisations in Canada etc..Surely better for the archaeologists to try and get more people involved on a practical level on what could effectively be regarded as "training wrecks". How many people out there would just like the opportunity to put their love of diving and history into practise without fear of the authorities' over-zealousness!!

Have a look at their website on www.nasportsmouth.org.uk

I reckon if you at least covered their courses and had some form of archaeological qualification , the boys in blue may let you keep your gear. At least it may lend some authority to your desire to do the right thing with regard to these dispersed wrecks.

Good luck,

Pirate.

 

[tom yerian]

Welcome to the PIRATE WORLD!

My advice, right or wron, take what you find, f... the law, for it is an unjust law, and tell them to kiss you ra..Don't be a wimp and let the gov screw you!
What would you do if while down there you found an emerald studded bishops cross on a ten foot gold chain. Would you leave it there, would you tell the authorities, or, WOULD YOU KEEP IT?. You have the moral right to keep it, fi they took it from you it would either disappear, or would end up in the hands of a rich collector
The Gov.can go f... themselves;Keep it!!!!.Wt

 

[Lobster Pirate]

re-breather = no bubbles
underwater night vision mask = no lights

No one was there!

 

[bell47]

re-breather = no bubbles
underwater night vision mask = no lights

No one was there!


I like the way you think! ..... You should dive where you want to and just have a secret pocket in your BC...just keep your mouth closed!! Loose lips sink ships... and reveal where others went down!

 

[boogeyman]

Sounds like a problem we had back in the 60s with the sheriffs patrol boat. Seems they didn't like all of us (hoodlum) teenagers dragging grapnels from the docks looking for fishing gear outboards etc. Everytime we saw em coming we'd run back to the parking lot. Out of their jurisdiction... They started calling the city cops, and this particular officer delighted in hassling us. He decided that the coins we had found on the beach were lost property and had to be turned in to the police etc. etc. One night we found 7 bikes that had been dumped off one of the docks. Well, being fine upstanding law abiding citizens we went to the payphone and called PD stating that we had recovered what appeared to be stolen bikes. Our favorite officer showed up took one look at the oozy foul smelling pile of rotten bikes and told us to just put em in the trash can over there. Needless to say, we told him we wanted them! He spent 30 minutes trying to talk us out of it. Finally, he had to load ALL the stinking rotting mess in his trunk getting his uniform gunked up not to mention the police car. Gave us a property receipt and left grumbling. 90 days later we got a notice saying we could come to the police Dept to get our found property. The next time we ran into our favorite officer we gave him the letter & receipt and asked very kindly if he could tell the property officer we'd changed our minds and didn't want them. The look on his face was only surpassed by knowing that the junk had stunk up the property room for 90 days!

Our favorite officer never bothered us again, and I ran into him around 7 years later in a store, and he told me he got razzed regularly about his recovered sunken treasure. Taught me one thing... Ya just gotta have fun with it!!!!!

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

Sounds like the government is continuing to take away the rights of the U.S. citizans. My gesture would be if the wreck or dive spot is not protected and you locate it, anchor your boat, ship, whatever far away and dive a good ways from the wreck. Then go make your claim or better yet, hide them from the government officials so it can't be taken from you! What ever happened to the finders keepers ruling?

 

[HAVE DETECTOR WILL TRAVEL]

You can find tons of stuff on a shark line and and leave your detector at home. Ask any of the pro's.What are they gonna say, You can't even look at the bottom. Mark it, leave it, come back another evenin. There jealousy and greed have cost them dearly I'm sure . Our government has a tendency to alienate its own citizens so that other citizens/officials can feel importrant by using there authority to gain recognition amongst there piers. They are really like children and you have to treat them so. With that in mind just be smarter if you want to exercise the freedom God gave you, the one George Washington, my ancestors and thousands of others fought for and not the prefab one of today. There collective stupidity has rose me to the rank of genius.

 

[JOe L]

Sounds like the government is continuing to take away the rights of the U.S. citizans. My gesture would be if the wreck or dive spot is not protected and you locate it, anchor your boat, ship, whatever far away and dive a good ways from the wreck. Then go make your claim or better yet, hide them from the government officials so it can't be taken from you! What ever happened to the finders keepers ruling?

I have made this statement in a few threads and even started a thread down in Rants " Are we not the government and WE put the people in their positions to SERVE us." Or I should say serve out best interests. Have any of you been asked by the people that REPRESENT you your opinion, I know I haven't
How can we change this, I want to TH and recover from the lands I own. I have written letters, email my officials and have NEVER gotten one response....

 

[Salvor6]

You never will get a response from your government JOe L. America is now a police state like the former Soviet Union and the state archaeologists are in control of all cultural patrimony.

 

[JOe L]

You never will get a response from your government JOe L. America is now a police state like the former Soviet Union and the state archaeologists are in control of all cultural patrimony.

Very Sad Isn't it. People are so helpless right now in our Country, even when we try to do something about it.

 

[MD Dog]

Just a thought here. Have you considered getting together with a few other like minded individuals from your state and filing a lawsuit for their failure to perform or for acting in bad faith when they don't recover a historically significant find. You could even start with a small suit and use the funds from that to go for bigger and better ones. If you see something that is a significant artifact just leave it in place and notify all the officials who could have jurisdiction. Then wait if they don't take action within a certain ammount of time inform them a second time and make nsure everything is documented in writting, record names of who is talked to by phone, get dates and times, use certified mail and notary publics etc.. After two notices if they fail to act I would file a suit.