This old steel barge was named by
Capt. Doug Currier after I found my third barge in a year. The official name is
Bob's Barge #001, because he said at this rate I'll need the digits. I
guess it's only natural that we'd find a number of these old barges in the
dumping grounds, but I always hope that big bump on the depth finder will
turn out to be something a bit more worthwhile.
We found this one in Sept. of 2004 at the southern edge
of the dumping grounds in about 155 FSW. It's in many ways a copy of
the Bate's Barge (also in this site). This un-powered rectangular
barge is probably around 100 - 120 ft. long with a 40 - 45 ft. beam.
This one has two rows of three hatches running along the deck, which is
completely featureless. There are only a few cleats located around the
perimeter to break up the profile. Each hatch opens into a relatively
small area (20 x 20?) - it appears designed to transport a loose cargo prone to
shifting. There was some discussion as to whether the dividing walls
were wooden or steel - my impression was wood based on the color, but they
were still intact which would be unusual. The photo above will give
you an idea of the general shape of these steel barges, but ours are much
smaller.
The wreck is upright and intact on the bottom and
appears to have been scuttled - it is completely empty, and it appears that
a small hole has been blown into each cargo section below the water line.
It appeared taller than the Bate's Barge, but this might just be my
imagination. The most interesting part of the dive for me was circling
the wreck and looking around the bottom at all the pieces of broken pottery
and glass. I'm not sure if it's representative of this area of sea
floor, or if maybe the barge was loaded with junk for the trip out, but
there was quite an assortment of shards everywhere - I didn't see anything
intact. Slav brought up a
number of pieces, and the remains of a gun stock - probably a pistol. Not
much left, but fun to look at. I saw a very large lobster under a
rock, but was about out of time so didn't have time to tease him out.
|
