piratediver
Sr. Member
August 18, 2009
PROVINCETOWN - Cape treasure hunter Barry Clifford has offloaded more artifacts recovered from the pirate ship Whydah, including two more cannons first identified by the late John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1984 when he worked as a diver, he said today.
Kennedy, who died in 1999, noted the cannons' location during excavation work on the Whydah wreck in 1984, according to Clifford. A compass with the initials "JFK" etched on it was recovered late in 2007 near the cannons, he said.
In 2008 Clifford brought up 13 cannons from a new, rich vein of underwater treasure that he had skipped over more than 25 years ago. Last week he unloaded a fourteenth cannon and then today he brought a fifteenth one.
“There's gold dust and coins everywhere,” Clifford said this morning of the new vein he is mining now.
The two most recent cannons, estimated to be nearly 300 years old, are on display outside the Whydah Pirate Museum off MacMillan Pier in Provincetown. The cannons will be on display for the next couple of weeks, Clifford said.
Kennedy and Clifford first dove together in waters off Martha's Vineyard in 1979 and 1980, according to Clifford. They first looked for the Whydah, starting from Orleans, late in 1982. Kennedy was a crew member on-and-off until his death, Clifford said.
"John said that he saw all these cannons in 1984," he said. "No one believed him. He drew a picture of it."
The JFK Jr. compass is part of the Whydah's traveling exhibit, now at Chicago's The Field Museum, Clifford said.
Originally a slave ship, the Whydah was captured by Capt. Sam Bellamy and used in the subsequent hijacking of 54 other vessels. It ran aground in 1717 and sank off Marconi Beach in Wellfleet in a ferocious northeaster, killing all but two of the 146 pirates on board.
Clifford discovered the wreck in 1984, the first fully authenticated pirate vessel ever found.
Over this past year, Clifford said in a Times interview last month, he hauled over 30,000 pounds of artifacts and the material encrusting them off the ocean bottom at the site of the Whydah wreck. Thanks to modern satellite positioning technology controlling seven anchors, Clifford and crew can more accurately tell where they've excavated.
Last year, following up on notes made by Kennedy from one of the first dives done on the Whydah site, Clifford went back to a part of the wreck site he'd already thought was played out, Clifford said in an interview with the Times last month.
Thirty more feet of sand had drifted over the site in the years since Kennedy drew out rows of cannons he'd seen on the bottom.
Ten feet deeper than where they'd stopped decades before, the crew found the cannons, along with a compass that had Kennedy's engraved initials. Clifford believes a large portion of the ship lies somewhere in the sands beneath that spot.
Clifford theorizes a number of the cannons were plundered from other ships, and that several of them were already antiques at the time the ship went down.
This is where I'll be spending my vacation days this year for sure!
Pirate Diver
PROVINCETOWN - Cape treasure hunter Barry Clifford has offloaded more artifacts recovered from the pirate ship Whydah, including two more cannons first identified by the late John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1984 when he worked as a diver, he said today.
Kennedy, who died in 1999, noted the cannons' location during excavation work on the Whydah wreck in 1984, according to Clifford. A compass with the initials "JFK" etched on it was recovered late in 2007 near the cannons, he said.
In 2008 Clifford brought up 13 cannons from a new, rich vein of underwater treasure that he had skipped over more than 25 years ago. Last week he unloaded a fourteenth cannon and then today he brought a fifteenth one.
“There's gold dust and coins everywhere,” Clifford said this morning of the new vein he is mining now.
The two most recent cannons, estimated to be nearly 300 years old, are on display outside the Whydah Pirate Museum off MacMillan Pier in Provincetown. The cannons will be on display for the next couple of weeks, Clifford said.
Kennedy and Clifford first dove together in waters off Martha's Vineyard in 1979 and 1980, according to Clifford. They first looked for the Whydah, starting from Orleans, late in 1982. Kennedy was a crew member on-and-off until his death, Clifford said.
"John said that he saw all these cannons in 1984," he said. "No one believed him. He drew a picture of it."
The JFK Jr. compass is part of the Whydah's traveling exhibit, now at Chicago's The Field Museum, Clifford said.
Originally a slave ship, the Whydah was captured by Capt. Sam Bellamy and used in the subsequent hijacking of 54 other vessels. It ran aground in 1717 and sank off Marconi Beach in Wellfleet in a ferocious northeaster, killing all but two of the 146 pirates on board.
Clifford discovered the wreck in 1984, the first fully authenticated pirate vessel ever found.
Over this past year, Clifford said in a Times interview last month, he hauled over 30,000 pounds of artifacts and the material encrusting them off the ocean bottom at the site of the Whydah wreck. Thanks to modern satellite positioning technology controlling seven anchors, Clifford and crew can more accurately tell where they've excavated.
Last year, following up on notes made by Kennedy from one of the first dives done on the Whydah site, Clifford went back to a part of the wreck site he'd already thought was played out, Clifford said in an interview with the Times last month.
Thirty more feet of sand had drifted over the site in the years since Kennedy drew out rows of cannons he'd seen on the bottom.
Ten feet deeper than where they'd stopped decades before, the crew found the cannons, along with a compass that had Kennedy's engraved initials. Clifford believes a large portion of the ship lies somewhere in the sands beneath that spot.
Clifford theorizes a number of the cannons were plundered from other ships, and that several of them were already antiques at the time the ship went down.
This is where I'll be spending my vacation days this year for sure!
Pirate Diver
