Hello Everyone,
The next meeting of the Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago Will be Wednesday, April 25th. As always, we will be meeting at the Chicago Maritime Museum, 1200 W 35th St, Chicago, IL. This is in the Bridgeport Art Center Building. Enter at the door under the awning that says North Entrance off the north parking lot and go downstairs. We will start the meeting at 7:00.
Again, local dive season is approaching and we will be starting up our survey dives soon. We will be discussing that as well as other activities for the year.
We will also have a special presentation by Dan Tapia that you won't want to miss.
Mars the Magnificent!
Mars was a 197' Swedish warship constructed in 1563, at the time it was the largest ship of its kind ever built. Mars sank the following year in battle ending in a violent explosion taking nearly 800 souls to its watery grave in more than 250' of bone chilling 38F water. We'll discuss life onboard Mars along with the maritime warfare technics in place at the time. Some of the highlight will include the 107 canons onboard which took a tremendous amount of resources including the smelting of confiscated Catholic Church bells. We'll also discuss the unique resting place in the Baltic Sea that has preserved this war grave for over 450 years.
Dan Tapia is a technical rebreather diver and award winning underwater photographer. Dan is currently a member of the research, education, and conservation group Global Underwater Explorers. He has been invited to help document many challenging sites around the world including the HMHS Britannic, Mars the Magnificent, and various other projects.
Hope to see you all there!
-Dean Nolan