The Underwater Archaeologist

Forbes ^ | 02.11.09 | Mark Lewis

[nickcarraway]

02.11.09

Naval history buffs would find much to interest them in Guam, but unless they are divers, they rarely make the trip. Getting there requires a 6,000-mile flight from San Francisco, and most of the attractions are resting on the bottom of Apra Harbor.

But if, like Wayne Abrahamson, you once served on a Navy supply ship berthed at Apra, then you too might have had an underwater epiphany like the one he had there in the early 1980s, when he entered the harbor a mere diver and emerged a future maritime archeologist.

Abrahamson grew up in tiny Elroy, Wis., which is about as far from the ocean as an American can get. "I joined the Navy straight out of high school in 1978, pretty much to get out of Wisconsin and see the world," he says.

That included the parts of the world that are underwater. While serving in the Pacific, Abrahamson qualified as master diver and visited many wreck sites. But it was in Apra Harbor that he came across the wreck that really fired his imagination. Actually it was two wrecks, the Cormoran II and the Tokai Maru, which share the same watery grave.

The Cormoran was a German warship scuttled during World War I; the Tokai Maru was a Japanese freighter torpedoed during World War II. Reputedly, this is the only dive site in the world where wrecks from both those wars lie side by side. (Click here for the full story of the Cormoran and the Tokai Maru.)

Abrahamson found it fascinating. That Apra dive kindled an interest in nautical history, which he continued to nurture throughout his naval career.

[Travis McGee]

I dived on them!

[nickcarraway]

Ping

[SunkenCiv]

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[wildbill]

Isn’t there a famous wreck of a Spanish galleon from the Manila fleet in a Guam harbor.