Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A ship that mysteriously disappeared due to a storm that occurred 130 years ago suddenly reappears. Interestingly, the ship is still almost intact even though it is buried at the bottom of the lake.
Quoting British media Mirrorsthe mysterious ship was first discovered by two filmmakers while they were shooting a documentary about the quagga mussel, an invasive species that covers the wrecks of ships and crashed planes at the bottom of North America’s Great Lakes. The clam’s huge appetite has left historians in despair as they fear future research at the site would be at risk if the clam wrecked the ship.
In the process of making the documentary, Yvonne Drebert and Zach Melnick discovered the wreck of a ship called the Africa, a steamship that transported coal from Ohio to Ontario. The ship disappeared in the waters of Lake Huron during a snowstorm in October 1895.
According to reports, bad weather conditions and fog obscured the view. Then ship ywhich was built in 1873, along with 11 crew members, disappeared and have never been found to date.
Drebert said he was filming with Melnick when the weather was bad because the winds were so strong that he had to stop early. But the pair felt the underwater drone they were using detected more than just a pile of rocks in a particular spot, so they sent a robotic camera to the bottom of the water to investigate.
“So we saw a lot of shells, and that’s what we usually see down there. But then we started seeing these shadows in the distance, and we thought, what is that?,” Drebery told FOX Weather.
As they got closer to the bottom of the lake, Drebert and Melnick were stunned. They had discovered a majestic shipwreck that was in good condition, although covered in quagga shells.
“As we got closer, and all of a sudden, we could see, ‘Wow! This is a steamboat, a wooden steamboat,” Melnick said.
He continued, they managed to find the wreck at the bottom of the lake without additional light thanks to quaggas shells.
To identify the ship, they enlisted the help of historian Patrick Folkers and marine archaeologist Scarlett Janunas. One clue that it might be the Africa Ship is its size. The wreck is 45.4 meters long, 7.9 meters wide and 3.8 meters high.
In their documentary entitled All Too Clearto be released in early 2024, Drebert and Melnick explore the impact of invasive mussel species on the world’s largest freshwater system.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
(hsy/hsy)