04x10 - Blackbeard's Shipwreck, and Night of the Mantas

[bunniefuu]

- [Narrator] Coming up next
on Jonathan Bird's Blue World,

a huge group of manta rays

that are attracted to divers' lights.

But first, Jonathan helps archeologists

excavate Blackbeard
the Pirate's shipwreck.

All of this today on
Jonathan Bird's Blue World.

Meet Jonathan Bird,

one of the world's top underwater
nature cinematographers.

Traveling the world on assignment

for all the major networks,

he is an Emmy award-winning authority

on the underwater world.

In freshwater or salt,
reefs, wrecks, or caves,

Jonathan documents the
world beneath the waves.

Welcome to the Blue World.

- I be Blackbird the Pirate
and welcome to me barge?

How I ended up a pirate on a
barge is an interesting story.

It all started back in

better known as Blackbeard the Pirate,

was roaming the Atlantic
from Africa to the Caribbean,

plundering ships as he went.

Although reported by his crew to be a fair

and decent man, Blackbeard
had a fierce reputation,

partly due to his clever
use of lit fuses in his hat

to intimidate his enemies.

Off the island of St. Vincent,

Blackbeard and his crew captured
a French merchant vessel

and quickly converted it to a pirate ship

with 40 cannons, renaming
her the Queen Anne's Revenge.

She was Blackbeard's
flagship in a growing armada

of captured ships.

But in 1718, Blackbeard ran
the Queen Anne's Revenge

a ground on a sandbar outside
Beaufort, North Carolina.

Experts believe the
grounding was intentional.

The pirate version of
corporate downsizing.

He stranded many of his crew
and fled in a smaller ship.

Later that year, Blackbeard
was k*lled in a battle

with British forces not far
away at Okracoke Island.

The Queen Anne's Revenge was
lost for hundreds of years

until being discovered in 1996.

The shipwreck is now an active
underwater archeological site

administered by the
North Carolina Department

of Cultural Resources,

and that's where I come into the story.

It's early morning in
Beaufort, North Carolina,

and I'm getting on a barge
with a team of archeologists,

but not just any archeologists.

These are underwater archeologists

who are excavating the wreck
of Queen Anne's Revenge.

My good friend, Rick Allen,

is in charge of all cinematography

that takes place on the site

and today, he'll be my
underwater cameraman.

Everyone sets up their gear

and it's time to shove off

for pirate adventures on the high seas.

As we head out under
drawbridges making our way

from the inlet to the open ocean,

Wendy Welsh, the project director,

prepares for the day's work.

It's going to be a long day
as the weather has been bad

and the team has lost a
lot of time this week.

So we have a lot of scuba tanks.

Wendy talks with nautical
archeologist, David Moore,

whose research originally helped pinpoint

the location of the wreck.

- If you can get it, Rick, take it up.

- [Jonathan] Soon, we
arrive at the wreck site

and the barge is anchored
directly above it.

- Alright, it's been a while
since we've been out here,

so we got some work to do today,

so I hope you guys are ready to go.

The way we left the site was
we have both of our big judges

that are laying on 70 stake

and which is what our double boobies are,

and then we have our frames
that are on the pile.

What I wanna do first
is get two divers in,

kind of do a site assessment,
see what's going on.

- The first team suits
up to check on the wreck

and the visibility.

The water is not known

for clarity here in
this shallow sandy area.

The archeological team
needs to be able to talk

to each other underwater so
they can get things done.

So they're all wearing
these full face masks,

which have communications gear in them.

You can talk by pushing this button

and you can hear what
other people are saying

through this little earpiece.

So I'm gonna be wearing one too

and I'll be able to talk to everybody

and hear what they're saying.

- We get in, go to the
bottom, get comfortable,

we'll follow the hoses down.

- Rick and I have a quick
discussion about our dive plan

and then it's time to see
this wreck for myself.

- You ready?

- Jonathan, Jonathan, this
is top side for a comm check.

- I hear you loud and clear.

- Copy that, thank you, Jonathan.

- The visibility on
the bottom is terrible.

I can barely see four feet.

It's hard to describe how difficult it is

to work in such bad conditions.

Eventually I find my way to
one of the only landmarks

on the wreck.

This is the north anchor,
the largest anchor

on Blackbeard's ship.

It's about 13 feet long,
that's as big as a car!

Soon, the crew fires up the pumps

on what is essentially a big
vacuum cleaner called a dredge.

Down on the bottom, this equipment
is used to clear sections

of the wreck by vacuuming up the sand

that continually accumulates.

I'm using the vacuum to clear
an area around an object,

but I have no idea what the object is.

What is this?

- I'm not sure, it might
be part of a cannon.

- To me, everything we
uncover looks like a rock,

but to an expert,

these concretions, as
they're called, are treasure.

While most of the wood on
a shipwreck is consumed

by the sea, metal, glass
and ceramics often survive,

but hundreds of years of
marine growth like barnacles

and oysters add layer after layer

of concretions on the artifacts.

It takes an expert eye

to identify artifacts in
these rocklike concretions.

Up on deck, the water
and sand from the dredge

go through a sluice where
larger objects are sieved out

and heavier particles settle out.

There's all kinds of good stuff in here

that we'll go through later.

Down on the bottom, I know
we're digging out something big.

What are we digging out
here, is this a cannon?

- This is an anchor.

There should be a cannon right next to it

little deeper buried down.

- Wendy has joined us in the water

and enlists my help to take
some electrical readings.

The cannons, which are made of iron,

produce a tiny electrical
current as they corrode.

Wendy wants to measure the
voltage they're producing

as a way of learning how fast
the corrosion is taking place

and which cannons should
be excavated first.

Our first step is to gently drill a hole

through the marine growth on
a cannon to reach the metal.

Then I apply an electrode.

- Jonathan is holding the
electron, it starts in two minutes

and let him go when it is complete.

- Copy that, Wendy,
starts two minutes now.

- Okay, start the reading
on the concretion for C7.

- I have to hold the probe
on the cannon for two minutes

to allow the reading to stabilize.

Then they record the
reading up on the barge.

After doing that for an hour,

I feel like a real archeologist.

I'm a regular underwater Indiana Jones,

but soon my tank is getting low

and it's time to go back to the surface.

- Wow, what'd you think of that?

- Man, normally I'm
not a fan of vacuuming,

but vacuuming a cannon out
of a shipwreck is really fun.

I got a lot of sand in my
gloves, that was great.

After a long day at sea, we finally turn

and head back to the dock,
but my work is far from done.

My next stop is the Queen
Anne's Revenge Field Lab

where archeologist Lisa Briggs
is panning for treasure.

- Hi Lisa.
- Hey Jonathan, welcome.

Come on in, this is our field lab.

This is where we're doing the
micro artifact extraction.

- At the field lab, Lisa's
looking through all that sand

and sediment we collected in
the sluice for micro artifacts.

- We find all sorts of
tiny little artifacts

that would be overlooked

if we were to look on site or underwater.

It's really difficult

to identify things perfectly underwater.

We've got low visibility,
we've got lots of currents,

lots of stuff going on when
we're actually underwater.

So we save all the sediment,
we bring it back here,

and then we process it to try

and find the tiny little
cool bits of treasure

that we missed

when we're actually
physically digging underwater.

- The most common micro artifact
on the wreck is lead shot,

tiny lead ba*ls that would've
been ammunition for muskets.

- Some of the shot that we
find was actually used in

handheld muskets and
smaller handheld firearms.

And then some other shot

that we're finding even
the very small pieces,

grape shot or seed shot,

would've been used in
bags inside of cannons,

and that was used mostly to try

to take out the rigging
of an enemy's ship.

- Lisa gives me a lesson
in panning through the sand

to separate the heavier lead

from the lighter sand and rocks.

It's a very similar technique
to panning for gold.

- If it doesn't work out as
an underwater archeologist,

I can go gold prospecting
after working on this site.

- We're gonna find you
in Alaska next year.

- Oh yeah, I actually pick
up the lid a little bit.

- I'm gonna starve if
I have to feed myself

with finding gold this way.

Finally, after I get the technique down,

I find something.

- Oh, I think I see something.

- There be lead in this
higher pan, look at that.

- We have found in total,

I think over 250,000 pieces of lead shot.

- Now, you might not think
of lead shot as treasure,

but for a pirate, ammunition is critical

and to an archeologist,
this stuff is like gold.

I spend hours sifting through
the sand for micro artifacts

and I've become pretty good
at panning for lead shot,

but now it's time for my next stop.

Let's get out of here before
she makes us do anymore.

Not far from the field lab,
tucked away in a warehouse

is the Queen Anne's
Revenge Restoration Lab.

I meet up with project director
Wendy Welsh for a tour.

- Hey Jonathan, welcome to the lab.

Hey, nice to have you.

- Inside are tons of artifacts

that have been rescued from the shipwreck,

all awaiting restoration so
they can be put on display.

- This is the North Carolina Department

of Cultural Resources Queen
Anne's Revenge Conservation Lab.

And what we do here is we
take in all the artifacts

that come in from the QAR
shipwreck, put them in storage,

we conserve them and make
them ready for public display

and everything in between.

- Show me how you do that.

- All right, so we've been out to the site

and you've seen kind
of what it looks like.

You've seen a site map,

and so the way these things come up

are in large amorphous
lumps called concretions,

and what we do here immediately
is of course store them

in the storage.

- All of the artifacts are stored

in tanks filled with water.

They're being treated
with special chemicals

and an electric current

to drive the salt
molecules out of the metal.

Without this process,

these ancient artifacts
would crumble into dust

when they left the water.

Everything from the tiniest brass fitting

to the largest iron cannon

has to be slowly painstakingly
treated with this process,

and for a large object like a cannon,

the process can take years.

So let me ask you just outta curiosity,

if you took a cannon out of the water

and you didn't do anything,

you just were like, hey, check it out,

we found a cannon and you brought it out

and you maybe cleaned
off all the marine growth

and just put it in the
museum, what would happen?

- Well, it looked pretty cool
for like the first few days,

and then the first few days
after that, it'll start to rust.

And then those salts
that have been permeating

that iron for many, many years
is gonna start to crystallize

as it dries out.

And once that happens, it'll
start popping off surfaces

and then you pop off your surfaces

and you have no more nice
pretty cannon anymore.

So that's why we have to do
what our process that we do,

and it does take a a good while,

but it's actually a payoff in the end.

If you think about it,

our cannon were underneath
submerged for almost 300 years

to get into a conservation
lab for it to take five,

six years to be complete,
that's actually not a bad ratio.

- Next, Wendy shows me
the largest artifact

the team is restoring.

It's so big, they had to build
a huge custom tank for it.

- This one, I'll go on the other side

and you might wanna
just flip back that way.

- We pull off the cover
to reveal an anchor.

- This is the anchor that we recovered

from the site last May.

It's 12 feet long and about
eight feet, nine feet wide.

- After seeing some of the
artifacts being preserved,

Wendy shows me how they get
them out of the concretions.

It starts with an X-ray of the concretion

so the archeologist can see
exactly what is inside them

before they start doing any work.

This concretion has a
couple grenades in it

as well as a number of other items.

The X-ray clearly shows the location

of the smaller artifacts
buried within the concretion.

- So this is an air scribe

and I'll turn it on and
hopefully 100 years.

- Next using an air
scribe, Wendy demonstrates

how the marine growth is slowly
cut away from the artifacts

ever so carefully.

Using this technique, over time,

thousands of artifacts have come out

of concretions preserved and
ready to go into an exhibit.

In fact, right now,

there are more artifacts
than there is space

to display them.

- But this is what's to come

as far going into the museum next.

So hopefully you'll see

some of these on display soon enough.

- I head on over to the North
Carolina Maritime Museum

to check out the Queen
Anne's Revenge exhibit

where some of the coolest
finds are on display

for the public to see.

There, I meet up again

with nautical archeologist, David Moore,

to learn about the exhibit.

- And what we're seeing here
in just this small space

is literally the tip of the iceberg.

We've got some 300 unique
artifacts just in this one area

of the material that's been brought up,

which is approximately half the site.

We've only probably seen
maybe 10% of that material,

and of that 10%, maybe

We're looking at a fairly large volume

of some very fascinating material

that's gonna be coming to
light over the next decade

to two decades of work in the laboratory.

- These amazing artifacts now on display

have not only shed light on the life

of the world's most famous pirate,

but also on the day-to-day
happenings on a sailing ship

in the 1700s,

and they're here in a museum
for all to see and enjoy.

Through the dedicated work

of these archeologists,
underwater, on the water,

and in the labs,

Blackbeard's ship is being
slowly excavated, conserved,

studied, and displayed
for future generations.

Even though I have only seen
a small part of the process,

I've come to understand and
appreciate just how much work

and dedication this project has taken

Well, I spent me a day with
the Queen Anne's Revenge team.

I came out looking for treasure,

but what I discovered is
the treasure is the ship.

- [Narrator] Don't go away,

Jonathan investigates a
group of hungry manta rays

that follow divers.

- Manta rays are the world's
largest and most graceful rays.

They are completely harmless to people

and often even curious of divers.

I have filmed them at cleaning stations

in Yap Indonesia, feeding
in large aggregations

in the Maldives, eating
grouper eggs in Florida,

and hunting alongside the
whale sharks of Holbox, Mexico.

But here on the big island of Hawaii,

the manta rays do something amazing.

My adventure begins at
Big Island Divers in Kona.

Down at the marina,

I board the boat for a unique experience,

unlike anything else in the world.

We have a short boat
ride to the dive site.

We arrive at a small cove

where other dive boats are gathering,

waiting for the sun to set.

My guides to this dive
will be Danielle Woolen

and Jonathan Davis who
have each done this dive

thousands of times.

Soon it becomes clear
how popular this dive is,

nearly 20 boats have shown
up as darkness falls.

As much as I'm tempted to
jump in, I must be patient.

The action here begins after dark.

Finally, the sun sets and
people start suiting up.

As snorkelers go into the water,

their flashlights create an alien glow.

It's time for me to enter the water

and see what's going
on beneath the surface.

I swim over towards the commotion

and soon I see a manta ray.

Then another, they are
feeding in the lights

of the snorkelers at the surface.

As I sink down below, I
can see groups of divers

holding their dive lights
pointed towards the surface.

The mantas are feeding in the
light of their lights too.

Just as a light attracts
insects at night above water,

light attracts plankton
at night underwater.

So after a while, bright lights
attract a lot of plankton

and the manta rays come in
to feed on the plankton.

The whole ocean is lit up,

so a lot of plankton swarms into the bay.

While mantas have huge mouths wide open

as they pass the divers,
nobody's in any danger.

These massive animals which
can reach 18 feet across

the size of a car eat only plankton.

They catch plankton with
strainers in their huge gills.

Water goes in through the open mouth

and back out through the gills
at the back of the throat,

but plankton gets stuck in
strainers called gill rakers

in the gills.

Every once in a while,
the manta closes its mouth

and swallows the plankton.

On each side of its mouth is
a fin called a cephalic lobe.

Mantas used to be called devil rays

because these fins look
like demonic horns.

As it turns out, they're
actually used for feeding

by helping to funnel more
water into the mantas' mouth

as it swims.

So how did the mantas learn to
feed in the light of divers?

It all started back in the late 1970s

at a nearby oceanfront hotel.

The hotel has lights to illuminate
the ocean for the guests

with lights shining on
the water for many years

and plankton accumulating
under them every night.

Eventually, manta rays discovered

this nightly hotspot for feeding.

Soon, people realized that
mantas regularly visited the site

and scuba divers started
going out to see them.

The first manta ray to
be documented at the site

was a female with a
damaged left cephalic lobe.

She may have been attracted to the light

because her damaged fin
makes it harder for her

to catch food on her own.

She was affectionately
named Lefty by the divers.

Now over 30 years later,

there are over 200 individual mantas known

to frequent the site,

and guess who comes over to
pay me a visit, Lefty herself.

She does a close pass over
my bright video lights

and then comes around again.

This goes on for the entire dive.

Nobody is quite sure how long mantas live,

but Lefty has to be at least 34 years old

since she was first seen in 1979.

I'm starting to feel a little bad

about hogging all the mantas
because my video lights

are so much brighter than
a plain old flashlight.

I have a huge amount of plankton
swarming around my head,

and the mantas can't get enough.

Divers are asked not to touch the mantas

because being petted and
touched night after night

is bad for their skin

and the thin layer of
mucus that protects it.

Yet many of the mantas have pink,

irritated skin on their
cephalic lobes and chins

caused by rubbing against
the dive lights every night

as they attempt to scoop as
much plankton as possible.

There isn't much I can do about
the mantas bumping my lights

and camera except to try
to pull it back a bit

as they swim over.

Most of the time it works, but not always.

As the night goes on

and the other divers
slowly start to leave,

more and more mantas
come to my video lights.

Soon, cameraman Todd and I
have them all to ourselves.

It seems like the mantas

would probably stay here
all night if we did.

Unfortunately, just like the other divers,

we soon get low on air

and need to think about
heading back to the boat.

Reluctantly, I leave the bottom,

keeping my video lights on so
the mantas can see where I am.

I don't want a dozen mantas
crashing into me as I ascend.

By swimming slowly, the clouds of plankton

are able to follow my
lights and so do the mantas,

trailing behind me like hungry puppies.

Up in the water column near the surface,

the mantas start taking
turns doing barrel rolls

in my lights, which keeps their mouths

right in the highest
concentration of plankton.

All too soon, however, I
reach the stern of the boat

and need to get out of the water,

leaving my hungry, new
friends in the darkness.

Soon the plankton will dissipate

and the mantas will have to go back

to their normal nighttime routine.

Honestly, there's really no better way

to describe that dive then.

Pretty much the most amazing thing

I've ever seen in my life.

I mean, we're talking about dozens

of manta rays all feeding
within inches of my head.

It's just incredible to see,

something I'm never gonna forget.

In fact, they're right back
at the back of the boat.

As we head back to the dock in darkness,

and I think about the
spectacular dive I just did,

I realize one thing for certain,

I know what I'm doing tomorrow night.

[bright music]