Mag needed ASAP Helo crash Tampa Bay

[Dell Winders]

Dell I am boatless.

Also, I saw what I think is the second blade on the sidescan. It is in pieces. Robinson will not pay $1000 for a piece of the blade. They want the whole thing.

That's two good reasons. I have a 13 foot whaler with a 35 Evinrude I can launch at Apollo Beach, weather permitting, or it's probably not too much work to get the 17 foot Jet Boat going if I can get some one to work on it.

When I plotted a possible location of the rotor blades psychically, the second blade appeared to be buried under the sand about 450 yards w/nw of where you recovered the first blade. I thought I was wrong when you indicated you had found both blades. If I was correct, the SSS would not have seen the second rotor blade. Is it possible the pieces you saw in the scan were from the tail rotor?

Also of interest, I am picking up a shipwreck carrying a large quantity of British Gold & Silver sank off Apollo Beach, circa 1860. Dell

 

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[Salvor6]

Just had a great meeting with G.I.B. He said (Darren in NC and Old Man take note) what he posted on Treasurenet was public domain and I owe him nothing. Larry invited me out on his boat next Fri. (I have the day off) and we are going to find the second blade, spend the night on board and search for any more debris.

Dell the second blade that I saw on the sonar was 150' away from the first blade.

 

[aquanut]

Just had a great meeting with G.I.B. He said (Darren in NC and Old Man take note) what he posted on Treasurenet was public domain and I owe him nothing. Larry invited me out on his boat next Fri. (I have the day off) and we are going to find the second blade, spend the night on board and search for any more debris.

Dell the second blade that I saw on the sonar was 150' away from the first blade.

I'm glad to hear that.
Aquanut

 

[old man]

Just had a great meeting with G.I.B. He said (Darren in NC and Old Man take note) what he posted on Treasurenet was public domain and I owe him nothing. Larry invited me out on his boat next Fri. (I have the day off) and we are going to find the second blade, spend the night on board and search for any more debris.

Dell the second blade that I saw on the sonar was 150' away from the first blade.

Pete. I did take note and I applaud you for fnally getting back in touch with GIB and patching things up. I should leave it at that, but I won't. My policy is and always will be to share in a project. While it might have been public knowledge, it would be come personal with me, when it was taken a step further about making plans to contact each other and go to a site.
I'm just saying that that is how I operate. I am not trying to put my believes on others. I think we as an industry, need to not alienate others. We have a bad enough name right now. I am not lecturing you Pete, I am just saying I would have included GIB from the start, once we traded phone numbers and PM's.
End of my speal, time to move on.

 

[Darren in NC]

Pete, I'm cool with it. I'm glad you and GIB talked and worked things out. Since you were contacted by a friend who new nothing of GIB, I see no foul play here. As I'm sure old man would agree, you don't answer to us. At the end of the day, we all have our opinions and you are free to your own. Bottom line - you guys kept all lines of communication open and made a recovery. Now I hope you get the rest! Sounds to me like GIB still has an opportunity to put together a great article.

 

[G.I.B.]

And the saga continues:

So we meet up for a beer in Gulfport. Prior to getting to the meeting I had already found out that the second blade is still out in the bay. Yep, only one blade had been recovered.

I'm wondering why we are now having the meeting. So at the beer meeting Pete tells me that the other guy had held the one blade and was now asking 10K for it. Something of a legal mess had taken place and Pete was now wanting to go after the second blade. Problem, no boat.

So, I offered up my boat again. My wife (and diver) has a broken arm, so I'd decided to set the past aside and strike out anew with Pete. We agreed to go out at the end of the week, on Friday. I'd supply the boat and he would supply the coordinates for the blade. He said he would be able to get the numbers from the fellow he went with the first time.

During the week we had scattered communications. Pete said he had to work on Friday, pushed it off to Saturday. I planned on getting the boat ready and over to that side of the bay ahead of time. Pete said he had the coordinates but left them at work. He would give them to me on Friday so I could move the big boat over there. I'd agreed to pick him up by dinghy near the dive site, and then conduct the dive. I tried to narrow down the departure time, meeting time, diving time and so on.

While waiting I got my boat, a 40' sloop' stocked up. Beer and sandwich stuff in the galley, reefer up and running, dive and water tanks full and on board, so on and so forth. My Yacht Club was going on a club cruise this weekend and I canceled my participation. I'd already agreed to do this dive with Pete.

The end of the week is here, and no final word from Pete on exact dates and times, but my boat is ready to go. The original plan was to meet up at 0700 this morning (Saturday) and head over to the site, or go by myself and meet him in Apollo Beach.

Last night a friend of mine called me. He told me he read a story about the blade recovery in the Tampa news paper Friday morning. He told me the paper said they were going out again this weekend to find the second blade. They, being the same two that found the first blade.

I'm catching on- I know I'm slow sometimes. Then I get a message from Pete on Friday night saying his boat had been stolen and he has to go to the police department to report it on Saturday so he has to cancel with me.

So, here I sit on Saturday morning typing this. I imagine they are back at the dive site by now.

 

[Salvor6]

G.I.B. the company I work for cut our hours down to a 4 day week last month. When I went to work last Mon. they said we're back on 40 hours. No Fridays off anymore. I really need the extra income. My dive buddy that went with me last time does not want to go back for the second blade so its still out there. I sent you the GPS numbers yesterday. Did you get them?
The reporter from the Tampa Tribune wanted to come with us but he backed off when I told him we are going on a sailboat and you said it would take 4 hours to get to the site. I hate sailboats. So here I am Sat. morning typing this reply.

 

[Salvor6]

Larry I am sorry if I messed up your plans . I went to pick up my boat at H Marine, 222 14 Ave. S. in St. Pete. When I got there the lot was empty, all the boats were gone and there was a for sale sign on the building. I was going to meet you at Apollo Beach with the reporter like as agreed. My plans are messed up too.

 

[G.I.B.]

No sir, I didn't get any numbers from you via text or email...

 

[Salvor6]

I checked my outbox. Thought I sent it to you. Here they are: N27 46.893, W82 26.014. Plug that in your GPS machine and double check it out on Google Earth. Since you don't have a steady job, go for it and collect the reward. I don't have the spare time. Like my dive buddy known as "XXXXXXX" here on Tnet, I'm not interested anymore.

 

[truckinbutch]

 

[Dell Winders]

Thanks for posting the coordinates, Pete. It looks like my Google aerial location is pretty darn close. Although there could be some discretion between Google and a GPS. Anyway it gives me confidence that the Treasure Wreck I'm picking up in that area is there and I can find it.


I have friends I can stay with and work from their house in Apollo Beach. There is only about 8-10 inches of freeboard at the transom of my 13 foot dinghy and that can cause concern even in a moderate chop. Regretfully, I guess I will have to wait to get one of the bigger boats going before I tackle this. Dell

 

[Trembull]

View attachment 724422

Looks like they have stolen your Dock or maybe the Trailer!

 

[G.I.B.]

Went out to the site with a buddy of mine and did some dives. Vis was about 3' I went to the listed coords and found a couple of big pieces of plexiglass from the windscreen. Also found some smaller items. I'm wondering if the big plexiglass pieces was what was believed to be the second blade... possibly



Started diving the surrounding areas. The bottom, near the site, had a 16" layer of silt. I followed my anchor chain down and saw it disappear into the silt. The only way to follow the chain was by seeing the difference in silt color from being disturbed by the chain. The blade, being here over a month, would be silted over with no visible sign of it's presence.

Did 5 tanks on a search pattern in three areas. Nothing but a few odds and ends. There were a couple of other boats in the area, no luck for them either, for what I could see. During our dive a FWC boat cited a guy in a kayak who was wearing a wet suit and dragging a treble hook looking for the blade. I don't think he had a life jacket with him.

So, a few days on the boat and in the water. Daytime temps were very nice, tapping 80. Water was very comfortable with the wetsuit. Vis sucked.

...the mystery remains

 

[scubatreasure]

Pete, you wanna go diving for that helicopter proppeler....OH...never mind...lol...

 

[G.I.B.]

Photos of the finds, and refreshments below...

Perhaps one day I shall resume the hunt.

 

[Dell Winders]

When I plotted a possible location of the rotor blades psychically, the second blade appeared to be buried under the sand (silt?) about 450 yards w/nw of where you recovered the first blade. I thought I was wrong when you indicated you had found both blades. If I was correct, the SSS would not have seen the second rotor blade. Is it possible the pieces you saw in the scan were from the tail rotor?

Also of interest, I am picking up a shipwreck carrying a large quantity of British Gold & Silver sank off Apollo Beach, circa 1860. Dell

Dell

 

[G.I.B.]

Dell

Dell,

I went 350' west and north of the site, and did a pretty good visual search pattern. I believe that the tail rotor was still attached to the main body of the Robbie.

If you have a specific spot for me to ground truth / search near Apollo Beach, please PM me and I'll have a look and report back to you what I find.

G.I.B.

 

[Dell Winders]

I was saying that in my post of 1/05 that I was mentally picking up the 2nd rotor blade as being buried under the sand/silt and it would not have been seen by the Side Scan Sonar, if that were the case.

Pete, in his post seemed to indicate that they had found both Rotor blades with the SSS. That meant my mental image of the 2nd rotor blade being buried was inaccurate.

Pete, then said that according to the scan, the 2nd rotor blade appeared to be broken up in pieces and scattered on the bottom.

G.I.B. you mentioned how quickly your anchor disappeared under the silt, indicating to me that the Rotor Blade, could just as easily have covered with silt. If it is covered with sand, or silt as I originally indicated, then it is unlikely it will be seen in a visual search.

I never plotted a location of the tail rotor. That was merely a question to Pete, of what he saw?

I'm always open to Ground Truthing to learn if my attempts at Psychic Archeology, are right or wrong so that I can learn to improve. Thank you, & Pete for sharing this information with me. Dell

 

[Salvor6]

G.I.B. I see you found my dive mask.