Why are there so many ship wrecks?

Hi all

I spent some more time talking with Sam today about the Monitor and Sam told me that the Monitor is only one of thousands of shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast. I asked why so many ships sunk in that area and Sam said there were several reasons. He said that the cold waters of the Labrador Current and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream collide in that area causing very strong currents and hazardous weather. There are also some places where it is difficult to navigate, particularly in the Diamond Shoals area off of Cape Hatteras where the Monitor lays.

Due to all the shipwrecks, they call the area off the coast of North Carolina the Graveyard of the Atlantic! Luckily today, NOAA’s Weather Service helps mariners to know the weather conditions at all times, and NOAA’s Coastal Survey office also helps mariners by keeping the nautical charts updated, so ships will know if the sea floor has changed due to storms, such as hurricanes, making the waters non-navigable.


I asked Sam if the Monitor protected any other shipwrecks in the area, and he said that they have a special project called, “The Battle of the Atlantic.” Archeologists and other divers have been surveying and documenting shipwrecks from World War II. Sam told me that in the summer of 2008, they surveyed three WWII German submarines, U-85, U-352, and U-701. Last summer, they worked on the HMT Bedfordshire, which is an English ship! It was sunk by U-558 on May 12, 1942 right off of Cape Hatteras. Sam also told me that some of the sailors who died on the ship were washed up on Ocracoke Island and are buried there in a small cemetery that now belongs to the British government. Every year on the anniversary of the sinking of the ship they have a small ceremony. He showed me some pictures of the ceremony last May when Monitor staff went to participate.

Sam said that this next summer they will be surveying more ships and some will be merchant ships that were sunk by the German U-boats. He gave me the web site for “The Battle of the Atlantic” expedition, and I can’t wait to learn more and to follow next summer’s blogs about their expedition!

http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/missions/battleoftheatlantic2/welcome.html

It all sounds really amazing. I had lots of questions about how archeologists and divers work underwater, but we ran out of time. Sam said there is a short video clip on the web site that explains it, so I can’t wait to see it! I won't have time to add all this information to my blog, so if you want to know mopre about this fascinating project, you can follow the link below as well.

http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/missions/battleoftheatlantic2/log_082009.html

Bye for now, Ed

Ed's Dive in the News

Hi all

You may remember when I dived in the museum tank to try out my new underwatre housing a chap from the local newspaper took some pictures. Well, here is the artilce they printed.

I hope that the monitor sanctaury benefit from people reading about the work they do and hopefully more people will follow my adventures on my blog as well.

Bye for now, Ed

Ed Dives in the Sanctuary Museum

Hi all

I had a very exciting day today at the sanctuary museum. Today we got the chance to try out my new underwater housing that will allow me to explore some of the sanctuaries underwater without getting wet! I really felt like an explorer.

Outside the tank

The housing was built especially for me by Ed (the human) Williams who works for a company called IRobot. I wasn’t keen to travel down in the housing in the ocean, just incase it leaked. However, I didn’t want them to try it out without me inside it either. So Shannon suggested that we try the housing out in one of the museum tanks. This meant that I would get to examine part of the monitor wreck up close as well.

So early this morning everything was set up for my dive. Sam wished me luck and said he would watch from the side, ready to dive in the water if I needed help.

You may not know this but sea lions are excellent swimmers. Once I was inside I felt like an astronaut but instead of going into outer space I would be diving into the murky depths.

When I was safely inside, the housing was attached to a winch so I could be slowly lowered into the tank. There was a chap from the local newspaper too, taking pictures to record my first dive.

It was very cool. Suddenly there was a whir of motors and a jolt as I was lifted up, swung out and gently

lowered down to the water. Very soon the water was lapping around me and slowly the water closed in above me and I’m diving down into the tank.

Wow! It was so amazing to go into the big tank with the Monitor’s turret! No bear, or member of the public has been down into the turret tank before. I looked out the dome and I could see the metal gun turret in front of me. It looked like there was some brown stuff growing on the metal. Very soon I was heading back up into the light and was lifted back onto the side of the tank. It was brilliant. I can’t wait to try it out in one of the other sanctuaries.

When I was back on dry land, Sam asked me about the dive. I said it was absolutely amazing. You may remember I noticed some stuff on the metal and so I asked Sam if he knew what it was. Sam told me that when the turret was brought up from the ocean floor it was covered in the stuff and it is called concretion! I asked if he meant concrete. He said it is sort of like concrete. It was made up of minerals that are dissolved in the ocean water (remember when I found out what sea water was made of). The concretions are also caused by oxidation of the metal (we call it rust) and even marine animals create a type of “cement” that attaches to the shipwreck.

As you know, the Monitor was an iron clad and metal rusts when it comes in contact with water, so the turret was pretty rusty. Sam said that in the ocean concretion can actually help to protect the Monitor because it adds a layer between the metal and the water, thus keeping the water from rusting the metal even faster. But here in the conservation lab, they remove the concretion and stabilize the metal. He showed me these pictures of pieces before the concretion was removed for conservation…pretty cool.

The picture below shows the propelor after it had been cleaned up and preserved.

If you want to find out more about how metal things rust, try the following. You will need two glass jars, one

filled with sea water and one filled with normal tap water. You will also need two hardware nails. Put one nail in each jar. Which nail do you think will go rusty first?

Oh yes, you can also watch me dive into the museum tank on YouTube, follow the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t53aY8DwhIY

 "Ed the Bear in Monitor Turret"

Bye for now, Ed

Ship wrecks make artifical reefs

Hi all

The pieces of the wreck in the museum are being preserved. The revolving gun turret tank I dived in is filled with freshwater. This will get rid of all the salt which would make the metal rust very quickly. It has to stay in the tank for 15 years! The turret was raised from the seabed in 2002 that means it will need to stay in this freshwater tank until 2016 years. The museum has a replica of the gun turret (below) so people can see what it could have looked like.

This equipment (below) is called the spider. This is what NOAA used to raise the turret from 230 feet (70.104 m) beneath the ocean.

This is the preserved propellor from the monitor. There is also a picture of John Ericsson, the Swedish man who designed the Monitor.

Sam told me that when man-made objects like ships sink to the bottom of the ocean, they create a habitat for a lot of marine animals. They make an artificial reef! Sam said that most of the Monitor is still on the bottom of the ocean.

He said that animals like sponges, coral, lobster, and a lot of fish live on or around the Monitor shipwreck because it is now an artificial reef too!

Sam said this movie link has some great pictures of articfical reefs. http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/missions/battleoftheatlantic2/reefs.html

There are a lot of shipwrecks off the Sussex coast where I live back in England. I wonder if they have become artificial reefs too and what marine animals live on them. I will try and find out when I am back in England next.

Invasive species
One fish that Sam was telling me about was called the Lionfish. These fish are beautiful, but he said they are an invasive species.

An invasive species is a animal or plant that is found in an area outside of its natural habitat and has a damaging effects on its new environment. Sam told me that lionfish usually live in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but now also live in the Atlantic Ocean and are living on the Monitor! I said to Sam that the lionfish must have swum a long distance to reach the monitor in the Atlantic Ocean. Sam told me that some people keep lionfish as pets and scientists think that the lionfish in the Atlantic Ocean were released from these home aquaria. Sam says that the Lionfish are not good to have at the Monitor because they can be very aggressive and can cause the amount of other fish to decline.

I told Sam that we also have a problem with invasive species on the nature reserve back home in England. The nature reserve is home to rare vegeated shingle plants which grow in the pebbles. Garden rubbish thrown onto the beach from nearby houses has encouraged "weeds" and garden plants to grow on the beach and now parts of the reserve are being swamped by these invasive plants which are damaging the habitat.

Bye for now, Ed

Ed discovers why Chesapeake Bay is polluted.

Hi all

Today, I asked Sanctuary Sam to tell me more about the pollution problems in Chesapeake Bay. You may remember from my last message that Chesapeake Bay is where the USS Monitor fought its famous battle. There was a picture of it in my last message, where Sam and I were standing by the sign; there were lots of ships in the pictures too.

Chesapeake Bay

Sam was telling about all the wonderful sea creatures that live in the bay such as oysters, blue crabs, and different kinds of fish. Sam said sometimes it is hard for them to breathe in the water. Breathe?! Did you know that underwater animals breathe? Well, they all need oxygen to survive just like us, but they have gills instead of lungs. I remembered that the aquarium tank at Spokane Community College had pumps and filters to circulate the water and keep it healthy.

Blue Crab

As you know, I have helped with a lot of beach litter clean up but Sam told me that a lot of the pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is stuff that you can’t see. So, even though sometimes you can see stuff floating on top of the water, it is the invisible pollutants that run off the land and into the water that have made the bay so sick.

I asked Sam what are pollutants and he said that they are chemicals and substances (often poisonous) that can come from a lot of different sources. These sources could be fertilizers from farms and our yards (this is what we call gardens in England) or chemicals from industrial plants. Methea told me about this when I was helping out at the Community College in Spokane. We watched the snow melt and run into the river, which would flow down to the ocean. Methea said that chemicals from the land can also get washed into rivers and down to the sea where they could be very harmful. Sam said this is what can happen when the chemical pollutants find their way down into the ocean.

Sam told me that some of these pollutants actually make a lot of algae grow in the water. When the algae dies and sinks to the bottom of the bay, it uses up a lot of oxygen as it decomposes. The more algae that dies, the less oxygen there is in the water for the other animals. This creates something called a ‘Dead Zone’ which is an area where almost none of the underwater animals can live! I wonder if there are any dead zones in the water around England.

Sam did tell me that there is good news for the Chesapeake Bay! There are many organizations that are trying to make the bay healthy again by reducing pollution. Also, President Obama announced that the Chesapeake Bay is so important that it is the United States Government’s job to help clean it up! The bay is slowly getting cleaner and I hope that the next time I come back the water in the Bay will be much healthier.

Bye for now, Ed

Ed finds out more about the USS Monitor

Hi all

I am having a lot of fun here at the Monitor! Sam is keeping me busy and telling me loads of interesting stuff. Yesterday we went on a tour of the area, and I learned more about the Monitor and the US Civil War. Did you know that the Monitor fought against another ironclad ship named CSS Virginia? It must have been a titanic battle as both ships would have been equally matched.

The battle was called the Battle of Hampton Roads. Both ships thought they won, but really neither won the battle. They both turned around and each thought the other ship was running away. Therefore, they both claimed the victory.

We went to a place in Newport News called Monitor Overlook. If I had been standing there during the battle, I would have had a perfect view of the battle, but it would have been a little too close for me with all those cannon balls flying through the air!

If you notice in the pictures there are lots of ships in the background. The area where the battle took place is near the mouth of the James River (named after England’s King James I) where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. The Hampton Roads area has lots of ships because this area is home to one of the largest US Navy bases and it is also a huge port city. I wondered though with all those ships coming and going if a lot of pollution gets in the water. Sam says unfortunately some pollution does end up in the water.

The harbour port next to the beach back home in England is very busy too and also has lots of boats coming and going. Shoreham Port is a major UK port for transporting aggregates, sawn timber, steel, oil, locally grown cereals and scrap metal. Shoreham

Sam says that the Chesapeake Bay has been in trouble for a long time, but with lots of people helping, the bay is getting cleaner. I definitely want to learn more about that before I leave!

During the battle the Virginia gunners concentrated their fire on Monitor 's pilothouse, a small iron blockhouse near her bow. A shell hit there blinded Lieutenant John L. Worden , the Union ship's Commanding Officer. He is pictured here with Lt. Dana Greene (Monitor's Executive Officer) who took over the Monitor when Lt. Worden was injured.

I have made two new friends, Shannon and Lauren, who have also been looking after me since I arrived. They are great fun. They have been arranging my visit at Monitor and also my travel plans, accommodation and stop over’s for the rest of my trip here in the US.

Bye for now, Ed

Ed Arrives at Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

Hi all

I'm back in the USA and I finally arrived at my next destination the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary (MNMS) 

It was a nice trip, but it sure is a lot colder in Newport News, Virginia than I thought it would be. The high temperature for the day is about 30º F (-1º C). Luckily, my fur coat has kept me warm!

When I arrived, I was met by Sanctuary Sam and the Monitor staff.

This is me with sanctuary Sam, signing my name in the visitors book.

Sam is the mascot for the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and he is really nice and seems very excitable. Sam has been very helpful in answering a lot of my questions.

WHAT IS A SANCTUARY?
My first question to Sam was what is a sanctuary? Sam explained that a sanctuary is a marine protected area and that NOAA is in charge of 14 marine protected areas in US waters. So a “Sanctuary” is a bit like our “Nature Reserve” back home, only bigger.

WHO IS NOAH?
So I asked Sam when I would meet NOAH. Sam made a laughing bark kind of sound. He explained that it was not NOAH, but was actually called NOAA. Sam went on to explain that NOAA is a government agency, and the initials stand for the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” I did feel a bit silly as I thought Noah was a person I was going to meet. I said to Sam I would call them NOAA if that was alright. The long version is a bit difficult for a bear like me to pronounce.

Sam said that NOAA does all kinds of things, such as predict the weather, track hurricanes, analyze data from satellites, map the coasts, monitor fishing, and protect the ocean. I am sure I will find out a lot more about the things NOAA does over the next few months but if you want to know more about what they do now you can check out their website http://noaa.gov

Sam told me that in 1975 the Monitor NMS was the very first sanctuary created in the United States. I asked Sam why it is named the Monitor, and he explained that it is because this sanctuary is actually protecting a famous US shipwreck—the USS Monitor. The ship was one of the early ironclad ships built during the US Civil War in 1862.

I asked Sam what an ironclad was as it sounded very strange. Sam told me that an ironclad is a steam-powered warship, built in the later part of the 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. The ironclad was built because wooden warships could be easily damaged or sunk if attacked with explosive shells.

This is a picture so you can see what the Monitor would have originally looked like.

Picture credit (c) NOAA

This is a life sized replica of the USS Monitor, at the museum.

Picture credit (c) NOAA
Photo from the deck of the Monitor in 1862

The Monitor fought in a famous battle right here in the area, but while being towed, it sank just off the coast of North Carolina on New Year’s Eve in 1862.

This is a picture of the Monitor before it sank in a storm

No one ever found it again until 1974. At that time they decided that it was a national treasure, and it should be protected from people who might want to take things from the shipwreck. So it became America’s first National Marine Sanctuary.

As you may already know I am very interested in maritime history, Shoreham where I live is also famous for its maritime history, ship building and its harbour which originally dates back to 11th century. You can find out more about my interest in Shoreham maritime history in my earlier blog entry 17th September 2009 "Maritime History".

Well, I wonder what I will find out next. I can’t wait to start learning more about the sanctuaries, shipwrecks and the ocean! Keep following my blog and I will let you know more about what I am learning!

Bye for now, Ed