Saving sunken treasures

IU just might have its own Indiana Jones.\nExcept when this archaeological adventurer climbs out of his university office window, he trades in the trusty bull whip and fedora for his Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. And while Dr. Jones risks life, limb and snake-bite infections to return home safely with priceless artifacts, this man and the office he directs, work instead to keep such treasures resting on the ocean floor.\nHis name is Charles Beeker, and he is the director of the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation's Underwater Science office, one of the world's few and most prominent organizations working toward underwater park building and resource protection, Beeker said. \nHis office is also the only college program of its kind in the nation that offers Underwater Resource Management Certification as a program at the undergraduate level. \nBeeker and four students from the program will be part of a History Channel documentary Tuesday at 8 p.m. for their work in trying to protect a California shipwreck by making it into an underwater park site or "underwater museum."\n"When I started, we were very consumptive," Beeker said. "I've seen many different sites destroyed, and we're trying to fix that. We absolutely want to protect the resources; that's why we call it underwater resource management. We want to make sure that we're making an impact for the preservation of those underwater resources."\n"The preservation of those underwater resources" includes sinking ships in the Florida Keys in order to create artificial reefs. Some of his other work involves collecting, cataloguing and returning 18th century cannons to shipwrecks under the waves near the Dominican Republic. \nIn one recent expedition, Beeker and an IU team from the Underwater Science program worked at the shipwreck of an 1850s clipper called the Frolic off the coast of California originally entangled in the opium trade. IU team members joined researchers from East Carolina University and archaelogists from around the country to make up the 12-member expedition team.\nThe early-August excavation will be featured in a second-season episode of the History Channel's series "Deep Sea Detectives." The show will follow the entire team's progress in working toward the goal of recording and mapping the Frolic's entire hull. Keeping with the series' title and running theme, the documentary will follow a dark, mysterious path through the expedition, almost like a "filmnoir" mystery movie, according to an interview with documentary producer Dan Walworth on the expedition's official Web site.\nBut Beeker said this motif is not completely appropriate for the work he did as the expedition team's underwater parks specialist and consultant to California State Parks. For him, one goal of this project was to start the ship on its way to becoming an actual underwater park, a legally protected archeological museum.\nIn the summer of 2002, Beeker helped create the world's first underwater shipwreck museum at the site of the ship Guadalupe off Dominican Republic shores. He said he hopes one day the Frolic will be protected as a park like the Guadalupe. \nFour IU students accompanied Beeker to Frolic and might appear on the documentary. Graduate student Adam Gutwein, who double-majored in underwater archaeology and anthropology, joined the team as a project diver. So did seasoned diver and undergraduate in the Underwater Science program Mikel Esher, who has participated in over 300 dives in his lifetime. \nFifth-year senior and general studies major Jaime Brown was the youngest diver in the expedition team. Having also worked in both the Florida Keys and the Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe of California, the Frolic became her second out of three projects through the IU Underwater Science office so far. This was the first expedition of any kind for junior informatics major Sean Bradley, who provided the team's technical support.\n"It was as much an educational experience as it was an entertaining and adventurous experience," Bradley said. "I learned more about a shipwreck in the course of two weeks than I would have learned in a semester in school."\nThe Underwater Science program can easily pull in students of other majors or career fields through its low-level scuba instruction courses, Beeker said. Brown, for example, said she never considered studying with the program until her junior year, when her roommate recruited her as a scuba partner. Brown then continued working toward her Underwater Resource Management Certification.\n"It was actually kind of a fluke," Brown said. "I just loved it. I'm actually the one who stuck with it. It was one of the best decisions I've made."\nBradley, on the other hand, never went scuba diving on the trip. He got involved in the Frolic through his part-time job doing network administration and computer support at HPER. He said one day he was working in Beeker's office, began "shooting the breeze" with him and found himself getting the chance to use his technical skills and acquire real practical experience. On the expedition, he monitored equipment, catalogued artifacts and archived and edited digital video and still photography. He also set up the project's Web site.\nWhile the low-level scuba classes are for students looking for a new kind of extreme sport, Beeker said he only wants those who are serious to pursue the upper-level courses in the Underwater Science program. \n"Scuba should be fun, but it also should be serious," Beeker said. "Anyone can get involved, but if you're not serious, we're not interested. If you want to be a research diver, you've got to be serious."\nBeeker started scuba diving with IU's first scuba program in 1963 at 11 years old. He has been a scuba instructor since 1974.\nBradley said Beeker's serious pursuit of underwater research and general scuba safety was something he did not try to hide at the Frolic.\n"When I worked with (Beeker) at the University, he was kind of casual, joking around," Bradley said. "But when he's on the job, he's a drill sergeant. He also has a lighter side, and it's just a great combination because he can be really serious when he gets down to the work, but he has a casual side, too, that you can talk to."\nNow, more than a month after the end of the expedition to the Frolic, the IU portion of the team is working on compiling information into research reports. Such reports benefit the University, the funding organizations of the project and the general public.\nBrown is currently enrolled in a research presentation class in the Underwater Science office. This class is specifically designed to help students share findings from projects like the Frolic.\n"I find it very fascinating to go back over the research and think about it another way," Brown said. "It really helps out furthering other projects. It helps show our funders that we're trying to work towards something, not just spending their money. They can actually see what we're doing."\n-- Contact staff writer Sean Abbott at seaabbot@indiana.edu.