Deep Blue Marine

Just a quick update on Capt. Billy’s progress as he heads back down to Samana in his boat, the Lady Laura. He is now at the south end of the Bahamas chain near the Turks and Caicos Islands with the most dangerous part of the journey up next; the crossing over to the north shore of the Dominican Republic. He is currently holed up for 2-3 days waiting for a front to pass so the situation will be more ideal. Once he crosses the channel he can hug the coast all the way around to Samana where we will be waiting and planning a big celebration – for a number of reasons. Roberto and Domingo have been away from their homes for 2 months and their families are anxious to have them back so I am sure there will be quite a welcoming party when that boat rounds the bend into the harbor! Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they approach this dangerous part.

I arrived back in the States a couple of days ago and have been shivering ever since. Allan flew down to take over the construction at the museum. We overlapped a couple of days to bring him up to speed as well as have him attend some meetings with Alejandro and I in Santo Domingo. The construction is proceeding on schedule. The demolition and major rebuilding is completed, now the finish work starts. You can tell from the photos posted that we have painted the entire interior black and have begun nailing on the furring strips to attach the lumber to. The museum will look like you are in the hold of an old ship and when you go from area to area it will have the feel of being in different areas of an old ship. The conservatory is now the main focus of construction as we are enclosing it in, putting in the ventilation system and building the recovery tanks. That was the subject of one of our meetings in Santo Domingo. We are greatly pleased to be able to work with the government offices to provide some artifact conservation as their facilities are nearing maximum usage. Our conservatory is not large; it will have two tanks – one large enough for a great gun and a smaller one for other artifacts. There will be a work bench along the wall where the window to the museum is so museum patrons can watch recovery taking place.
The lumber arrived from Santo Domingo today for the interior walls and Allan is starting to frame them up. Check the photos section for progress. We also met with a law firm in Santo Domingo to establish a Dominican company for the purpose of taxes and workmen compensation plans. This was a necessary step to ensure we could do business in the DR not just for the museum, but future ventures as well.

Deep Blue is pleased to announce that we have commenced construction of an underwater archaeological museum in our home port of Samana in the Dominican Republic. We have been looking for a building for the last 6 months or so and have decided to lease this building for the next two years with a 5 year option. Our hopes are that perhaps we can build our own building right on the waterfront within the next 5 years. This is the main reason for building the museum at this time and is reflected in this photo I took yesterday across and just up the street from the new museum location: There are over 250,000 visitors to Samana every year and we have been talking with the former governor on how we can help this wonderful city. The idea of a museum has been in the works ever since we got here and it is great to see it happening. Stay tuned here over the next little while to see progress reports and photos. This is the view out of the front door of the museum.

I have been very busy this last week in Samana. More info on that coming. Internet access is extremely spotty and so I feel the need to get caught up on emails and such. I heard that there are the same old 4 happy campers on a blog somewhere who are entertaining each other, and themselves, with their ignorance as to what Deep Blue is doing. There will never be a day when posters on a board will ever have any impact on any decision made at Deep Blue. They will always have their theories and observations, but we will never seriously listen to any of them until they have spent time in our office and/or on the boat. I realize that there will always be a faction who will pursue that type of course and we are thankful for Freedom of Speech, but that doesn’t make them right.

The moon…….Mars…..oh yeah, the weather station.

Billy got the green light from the doctor so this morning the crew headed off to Florida, with a short layover in Denver. While recuperating from the surgery, they worked on building an exact duplicate of the cannon truck to match the other one we already have. Now we have two cannons to go on display.
Billy and the crew will spend the next few days getting the boat ready and then, with an eye to the sky and the computers, will make the trip back to Samana. As this boat is smaller than the Tracy, it will be safer to head over to the Bahamas and then work south, holing up at night. We will keep you apprised of their journey.

Lisa and Jed took the crew up to Woodland on Sunday to show them how to snowmobile. This has been another experience in the long list of firsts for these guys. And the hard snow ridge is much less forgiving than the crest of a wave. Click on “Pictures” and “Snowmobiling”.

Capt. Billy and the Dominican crew are still here in Salt Lake. It was anticipated that they would be here for a few days and then head to Florida where they would be working on a project for a couple of weeks and then head back to the DR. One of the reasons we brought Capt. Billy back to the States was a health concern that he felt more comfortable addressing here than in the DR. The day after they arrived he saw a doctor and then underwent some tests. We were hoping that the doc would prescribe a pill and it would be done, but things seem to never work out the way you want. He will need to be here a few more days and I will leave it up to him to discuss more details on the forum if he so chooses, but being the hard workers they are, they couldn’t just sit around so they are building the carriage for the second Scipion cannon in our shop. Not sure if Domingo and Roberto are getting used to the fog, ice, snow and cold though.

Shortly after the earthquake was reported a call was made to the crew in Samana. Although the quake was felt there, there appears to be no damage reported at this time. The immediate concern was the tsunami watch that was posted for Cuba, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic after the quake, but fortunately, due to the relatively shallow depth of the quake, those concerns never materialized. Our thoughts and prayers go to the people of Haiti.

We have been very busy showing the crew around some of the cool places here in Salt Lake City in between all of the very important meetings. We are very excited with the prospective projects that we will be announcing in the next couple of months. We firmly believe that this year will take Deep Blue Marine to a much higher level. Check out the rest of the pictures in the galleries by clicking on “Pictures” on the Home Page.