Second off-gas day in Limassol to see Kyrenia Liberty

Saturday 3.9.2016

Even though were given a small sleep extension because of the Mazotos evening, I woke up on Saturday the usual time at 5:30. I was curious to see, whether anything would be different in diving now that the fieldschool is over. It is weekend, and there were some cypriots' relatives visiting the site. So, we were pretty crowded in M/S Queen Zenobia. The weather was kind of rough, but going there with fully loaded RIBs was ok.

Once we all got onboard, the waves felt bigger and the smaller family members were starting to get seasick.  Diving would be OK, but other work onboard would be difficult. Stella posted dive roster, and I noticed my name missing. When I asked about it, Stella said that today was my off-gas day. Ray and Mark were similarly surprised, because no one had told them either. Ray had brought along his humongous camera kit box.

Then the weather turned even worse, and it was decided that all non-divers would be sent back to port right away, so that there would be as few people as possible to be shuffled once diving was done. In no time I was back in the RIB having a pretty nice roller-coaster ride on the way back to the port in Alaminos Beach. A nice touch was to see a big turtle on the surface quite close to the boat. Good that we did not run her over.

Once back to High View Gardens, we decided with Ray to try to get to Limassol to see the Kyrenia ship replica in the Old Port. The original Kyrenia ship was slightly smaller than the Mazotos ship, but it is very likely that they were otherwise very similar.

After long discussion with Irene and Andri (and lots of sweet talking) we got Andri to drive and Teresa to give directions, and they gave us a ride to Choirokotia bus stop, so that we could hop into the bus from Larnaca to Limassol. We had a nice prawn lunch there, and then located the Kyrenia replica in the port. I took lots of pictures, though of course many of the vessel details may be guesswork as only bottom planking was found of the original Kyrenia. I hope they have had other reliable sources for those details... Anyway, it was very interesting to see, what the Mazotos ship probably looked like before she sank.

Kyrenia Liberty, replica of the Kyrenia ship found in 1967

The remains of the original ship are on display in Kyrenia Castle in Northern part of Cyprus. They form just the bottom part of the hull, that was under seabed. In 1985 a life size "replica" of the whole ship was built as experimental archaeology, using only ancient ship building methods. That ship, Kyrenia II, sailed only a few years but probably longer than the original. It is now on display in Thalassa Museum in Agia Napa. Kyrenia Liberty is also a life size replica of Kyrenia, but it was built with modern techniques in 2004. It is still in use.

Kyrenia Liberty, bow. Could we locate any parts similar to this in the Mazotos wreck?

Kyrenia Liberty, stern. How did they turn the rudders?

Teemu and amphora replicas. They made replicas of all 404 amphorae found in Kyrenia, and then made experiments on how could fit them all in. It was not easy, even though the amphora shape is designed just for this. Trying to figure out, how amphorae is loaded into the ship, is one of the main goals of the Mazotos project.

Kyrenia Liberty, anchor-stock cores. Originally they were of lead, and cast directly in to the anchor-stock. These are the lead weights that we have located in the Mazotos bow. I do not know whether they are lead or iron in Kyrenia Liberty.

Kyrenia Liberty, anchor arm tip. Now that we have located both anchor-stock weights (of the 3rd anchor) found in Mazotos, we could try to locate also the arm tip (or tips). However, they are small and likely under some 20-30cm of hard clay. Robert has a metal detector that could be of use.

Then we located a dive shop, so that I could purchase a few more double-ended clips. They seem to be a disposable commodity here. You always clip this or that to your harness, and then that stuff has a tendency to go to some other group with your clip. We found the shop, but it was closed. Luckily I had Jouni to borrow a couple of his clips, as he left High View Gardens today.

Then we took the same bus back, called Irene, and Andri (and Teresa and Constantina) came to pick us up from Choirokotia. On the way back we stopped at a water machine in the Mazotos village. You pay 50c and you can fill a 20L tank with fresh drinking water. That is how the project gets all it drinking water. With just 2€, you get 80L of water that lasts a day. Good deal. As a tourist I am used to paying ten times that much for drinking water. It has never occurred to me to look for water machines in Larnaca. The project water is stored in the office, and everyone goes there and fills up their own water bottles from those canisters.

At the work site the weather had actually deteriorated further, and they had had to stop diving operations early. It looks like that the strong winds will continue tomorrow, and there is no archaeology work done. I will try to sleep late.