Wednesday, September 14, 2011

With Visibility So Bad You Couldn't See A Cannon In Front Of Your Face

Detroit Free Press: 200-year-old cannon still stuck in the Detroit River

200-year-old cannon resting on the bottom of the Detroit River will stay there a little longer, after weather, high waves and poor visibility foiled an attempt to raise it Wednesday.

Detroit police divers spent a frustrating day searching a 25-foot-by-25-foot patch of river bottom without success, said Joel Stone, curator at the Detroit Historical Museum. Underwater visibility was so poor, they were forced to search by touch.

The cannon was found in late July, and the site was marked by GPS, about 20 feet underwater and about 200 feet from the seawall behind Cobo Center.

That had to be annoying, searching 625 square feet for a cannon and not finding it has got to suck. I can certainly understand how hard it can be to find stuff in lousy visibility, and it sounds like they had it pretty bad.

Hopefully they'll recover it the next time and it is certainly a great training excercise for the divers involved.

Now, if they would just call for some volunteers next time....

Meanwhile, in other underwater exploration news, Students on a school trip discover two wrecks in Lake Huron:

Detroit Free Press: Saginaw high school students find 2 Lake Huron shipwrecks.

That had to be an awesome experience.

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