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Home Mediator Recent activities
Recent activities

Mystery solved

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On Sunday November 22, 2009 we went back to the Mediator for the first time since a long time. The reason for the long period of absence is that we are lacking sufficient volunteers to do the regular things. But this time 5 members of the hard core of the volunteers were present plus a number of guests for a guided tour. The idea was to check the status of the airlift, to find out what is blocking the entrance to the front hold (under the bow deck) and to restart the guided tours. This all with the intention to work at the Mediator at least every other weekend.

My goal was to find out what mysteriously blocked the portside entrance to the hold under the bow deck. Swimming under the bow deck from portside to the starboard side is one of the attractions during the guided tour, but last time we found out that this was no longer possible. I took some pictures of the area last time but apparently missed the essential piece. 

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Visit of archaeological divers from abroad

Wednesday, 25 March 2009 20:05
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From March 5, 2009 till March 19, 2009 two archaeological divers from the States and a group of archaeological divers (Mergor in Mosam) from the Netherlands were visiting Curaçao to work on the Mediator wreck. One of the two people from the States is the professional archaeologist under whose direction all archaeological activities on this wreck take place. He wrote an initial plan of the activities that could be undertaken during this period. That plan had to be adapted because it was not possible to dive on all days because of visiting cruise ships in the harbor.

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Here you will find the activities that happened since I came in contact with Stimana (November 2005) and which I find worth mentioning.

November 27, 2005 - A treasure-chest is discovered in the wreck of the Mediator

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To support the good work that Stimana is doing two local companies, the bank RBTT and the insurance company Fatum, decided to donate each 5000 Antillean guilders.

This is done in a special way. Normally on Sunday morning Theo van der Giesen with volunteer divers do their cleaning and archeological work on the wreck. This time also the supervising archeologist Dr. Wil Nagelkerken was invited to join the divers in the water. To his surprise a treasure-chest was found in the most forward hold. The treasure-chest was brought to the surface where in the meantime representatives of the sponsors were arrived. The chest was opened and in it two large gold ducats were found representing the gift from each of the two companies.
Stimana needs donations like these to continue its important work. Organizations or private individuals that want to support Stimana are invited to contact mister Gerd Glaudemans at telephone number (+599 9) 462-1200 (BDO Accountants).

Through this dive I came in contact with Stimana. I work at Fatum and was invited to participate in the activity. Since then I am one of the volunteers who on Sunday morning work on the wreck to clean it.

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Virtual tour of the wreck of the Mediator

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Over the past two years I have taken a large number of pictures of the wreck. During September and October 2007 I have created a number of panorama's of the wreck. I have arranged these to form a kind of virtual tour of the wreck.
The visibility was reasonable during these two months but even then it is impossible to get an overview of a larger part of the ship in one photo. So what I did was taking numerous pictures from a specific spot turning the camera from left to right and sometimes also up and down to compose a large picture of an area of the ship.
The result is a number of panorama's that each cover an area of the ship that is better visible in the composite picture than it is actually under water through your own eyes.

Enjoy the virtual tour by starting with the first panorama . It will give you a good impression of the wreck in October 2007. 

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New airlift operation

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Today we started the airlift operation at a new location: near the bow of the ship in the forward hold. For more than a year we have done this behind the stern of the ship, but we were not able to make much progress there. During the week sand and debris covered for a large part what we uncovered in the weekend. At the new location the airlift goes through a hole in the upper deck. The fact that we are working under deck now means that we probably have mostly sand to lift and not too many larger rocks. We hope to find remainders of the original cargo under the sand and we are hoping to find an entrance into the lower part of the hold where more of the original goods are expected.
The visibility was very low today (2 - 3 meters) and there were a lot of jellyfish in the water.

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