Photo: Rob Schoenbaum/The Guardian.
A Swedish coastguard diver exits the water after inspecting a wreck.
So many different kinds of work in the world! Today’s article, from the Guardian, describes an unusual job in Sweden. It involves going underwater to protect old shipwrecks from looters.
Miranda Bryant writes, “Among the rocky shores and wooden summerhouses of Dalarö, an exclusive Swedish summer retreat, there was little to indicate anything other than a typical summertime scene on the Stockholm archipelago.
“It was only as the coastguard boat reached a discreet yellow buoy that there was any suggestion of the 17th-century shipwreck lying, preserved, 30 metres beneath it. ‘STOP,’ read a sign. ‘Marine cultural reserve.’
“Bodekull, built by the English shipbuilder Thomas Day, is believed to have run aground in 1678 and sunk while transporting flour to the Swedish naval fleet in Kalmar, down the coast in south-east Sweden.
“Thanks to the Baltic’s brackish water protecting the wreck from shipworms, the 20-metre-long ship remains on the seabed, upright and largely intact, full of relics that are still being discovered. Two of its three masts poke up towards the sky in their original position.
“But now Bodekull faces a human threat to its existence. Authorities say that it is among thousands of historic wrecks across the Nordics that are at risk from plundering.
“On a monitoring operation last week, experts shared photographs with the Guardian that show that objects are vanishing from shipwrecks.
“Those responsible are believed to be a diverse array of offenders, from light-fingered sport divers in search of souvenirs to criminal gangs looking for high-value objects to sell. Such is the scale of the problem that the coastguard is now regularly sending divers down to monitor at-risk sites.
“ ‘The plundering problem isn’t just a Swedish problem, it’s a Baltic Sea problem,’ said Jim Hansson, a marine archaeologist at Vrak, the museum of wrecks, citing the sea’s low salinity and comparatively shallow average depth of 55 metres.
“These unique conditions, as well as the existence of an estimated 100,000 shipwrecks, make the Baltic a ‘mecca for marine archaeologists,’ he said. But it’s also increasingly attracting looters. Around Stockholm alone, Hansson knows of six wrecks that have been looted by international and Swedish divers. …
“ ‘Sweden has one of Europe’s longest coasts so it’s a lot of water to guard and it isn’t easy,’ said Hansson. …
” Coastguard divers normally work on environmental disasters, inspect ships for drugs and weapons and help police looking for murder weapons. ‘It is very unique for us to be part of this,’ [Patrick Dahlberg, a coastguard commander] said. …
“[On August 1] Coastguard diver Patrik Ågren said he didn’t see any evidence of tampering as he emerged from recording the contents of a tool drawer on the ship containing planes, sledgehammers, a basket and carpentry equipment. … Video footage he recorded during the dive will be compared with previous footage to check for changes.
“But on a later dive they discovered that a wheel on a cannon had been removed, a deck beam collapsed and a wine bottle moved since they last visited in January. While some of the changes may have been caused by nature, Hansson said it was difficult to see how the wheel and wine bottle could have been moved without human intervention. …
“Hansson said removing relics from wrecks prevented them from building a full picture of the type of ship, where it was going and what it was doing.
“ ‘We collect all the puzzle pieces just like a police or coastguard investigation,’ he said. ‘That’s why it is super important that objects are not moved because it is like ripping the pages from a book. In the end all you will have left is an empty shell.’
“Amid heightened tensions with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, allegations of spying and Sweden’s hopes of imminently joining Nato, it is a critical time for the Baltic.
“But Hansson said that cultural monuments could also be used in war. ‘What happened with Nord Stream [gas pipeline bombings] could similarly happen with national cultural heritage monuments like shipwrecks. The first thing that happens with big conflicts is that you erase a nation’s integrity and history.’ ”
More at the Guardian, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
That is an unusual job.
Welcome back, Laurie. Missed you.
Thanks so much! I have missed everyone, too.
I agree that removing things from the wrecked ships is like ripping pages out of a book. Sad that some people can’t see it that way.
That’s a lot of shipwrecks to protect! Glad they’re keeping track of them.
Like most big goals, it requires a lot of ordinary people to understand the reasons why. Broad education on this topic seems like the best protection.