Intro day

Saturday 20.8.2016

We all got situated at the Mazotos High View Gardens today. It certainly does not look your normal university project housing, though the apartments are packed full with many extra beds at use. Our lessons are in Mazotos village 1 km away in facilities provided for us by the town.

The intro was very informative and interesting. It was nice to see that also Mark (B-E) was quite excited to be able to dive here, and it is not just us students who feel privileged. Mark introduced the whole team and gave the layout of basic logistics for the fieldschool. For example, they do not let us start using the airlift dredging device on an important archaeology site without us first practicing using it. So, we will go to some other, not so important, site that has loads of sand to be removed from top of the wreck. Hopefully that is also in shallower water, so that our bottom times would be longer.

We were briefed on diving practices, and it came with some surprises. First of all, we all dive with just bottom timers, and not using our dive computers at all. That makes sense, because the site is so clear, and this way you do not need to keep track on individual dive plans. Everyone has the same dive plan every dive.

First you work the site (using air) for 20 minutes, descent time included. That is not much diving work done in one day! We were emphasized to keep that schedule tight. We will be monitored with a ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle), and very much yelled at for even one minute relapses. We do not carry buddy-phones, so I guess howlers are delivered afterwards. All decompression is done with gases provided from surface hoses, with fixed regulators. First you decompress with 80% O2 at 9m for some time, and then with pure O2 at 4-6m for the rest of the time. Use of decompression gases is monitored continuously from topside. Feels straightforward, simple and safe.

Our first dive is tomorrow, and it is a checkup dive on us students. It is only 10 minutes bottom time at the wreck site with no decompression needed on ascent. They want to check our diving, and at the same time familiarize us to the dive logistics and the site. You do not want to spend 5 minutes going down to 44m, and have only 5 minutes to look around. However, if drop down in 1 minute, you might be in steep nitrogen narcosis once you get to the wreck, and then not remember anything you see there for the next 5 minutes. Moderation is good also in descent speed. Two minutes descent time would be perfect.

We dive early. We leave the hotel in three groups, first group starting at 6:00. And they call this a vacation! The weather is usually calm in the morning and then we have plenty of time for other work and studies.

Stella (D) introduced us to the site, its importance, and the previous work done there so far. The importance is important, because you need to have good justification to work on any archaeological site instead of just leaving it alone. They have so far raised 126 amphoras, and there are maybe some 670 left. We might raise some of them in our excavations.

We will dig one trench in the middle of the wreck. That part of the wreck has not been studied much so far. The other trench will be reopening the bow trench done earlier, and redo the photogrammetry work there, with new better methods. At the same, we can monitor how well the covered trench has survived for a few years, and thus evaluate the in situ site protection method used. Initially they were thinking of doing three trenches, but I guess that was deemed too challenging. It is likely that we can not even complete these two trenches this year, and there will be work left for many years to come.

Stella was clearly a little bit worried, that our fieldschool will hamper her archaeological dig objectives. In her point of view, it would better for us just do the archaeological work, and more of it instead of getting an education at the same time. I can understand that. Either way, this fieldschool is kind of an experiment to see, whether this type of project with both archaeological and educational objectives will work out. In aspite of her worrying, Stella is clearly in on educating us very well during the fieldschool!

Afterwards we ate a real nice dinner in local tavern. We had one long table for over 30 people. The food was simple, very tasty, and there was plenty of it. It will be nice to have one good meal every day. Of course, the meal would have tasted even better with some local vine, but you can not have everything. Water is just fine...

Overall, the fieldschool had a very good start. All the people are very friendly, and there is neat positive feeling all around. This should be fun. We will get some interesting and important work done, and get an education at the same time.