Editors note: Deni Mac is a rarely seen club member. He proudly claims his linage in a direct line to a brief encounter between Blackbeard and Anne Bonney. Perhaps this accounts for his tendency to say 'argh' a lot and the Jolly Roger that flys from his dive boat.
The Treasure Chronicles is the true accounts of my underwater treasure hunting in the Northeast over the last three decades. The reason for my writing down my underwater exploits is simple. It is something to do while I enjoy my retirement.
Of course I will not divulge any exact locations as they may; get me into trouble, still be a hotspot of artifacts. Nor will I use my real name in these articles.
With that said, let me tell you about the time I was doing a solo dive in the narrows of Lake George.
I quickly learned after getting certified that I really did not like to dive with a big group. I did not like to just look at rocks and take pictures of fish. I liked to find things. The less people that were around me when I found things the more I liked it.
In those early days not a lot of people were too concerned about preserving every single cannon ball and old whiskey bottle on the bottom of the lakes and rivers. Besides without the recreational scuba diver a lot of these things would never be found.
Back to Lake George, I was in my boat getting ready to roll of the side. I was anchored near the wreck of an old steamboat. This vessel was intentionally left to rot along the shore line. It was no longer useful as a steamboat.
I rolled off the side of the boat. I swam around to the back of the boat to grab my underwater metal detector off of the swim platform.
Down I went into the clear waters of the lake. In a few minutes I came upon the wreck. I started in the engine room. As I looked around I notice a round brass circle. It had a number on it and some writing that I could not read. I grabbed my knife and pried the circle off the side of the boiler and dropped it into my goody bag.
During the dive I found some coins and some china with the steamboat company.s logo on it. I was low on air so I went back to the boat.
Back into the boat I examined my treasure. The brass circle really intrigued me. Some research was called for. You see finding the stuff is only half the fun. The other half of the fun comes from researching the artifacts. Finding out where they were made, how they were made and how they came to this spot is very exciting.
The coins I found were all from the early 1800's. The brass circle turned out to be an identification mark for the steamboat engines or boilers. Doing some research on the steamboat and her engines, I discovered that there are a total of 15 such brass circles on this wreck. I now have one. I will try to get the other 14.
If I don't get arrested because of this article, I'll try to get another one out for next month.
