"Uncle Liao, has someone already gone into the water?"
Bai Yu looked at the ropes on the deck and asked Uncle Liao, who was standing next to him.
"Yes, one batch has already gone down, and the second batch will be launched soon. This time, let's get everything done within two days, and then we can start our return voyage."
"Uncle Liao, is there anything we can do to help?"
"No, Mr. Bai, you can just stay on deck and watch. Once all the salvaged items are brought up, you can take a look and see if there's anything you like."
"Alright then, we'll just watch from the sidelines."
After talking with Uncle Liao, Bai Yu and his group went to one side of the deck. Basically, they stayed wherever they could get in the way.
If Bai Yu were to ask, he would really like to help Uncle Liao and the others, especially to personally put on a diving suit and go down to the seabed to check on the situation.
Unfortunately, this idea can only remain a thought; at least for now, Bai Yu and his group cannot go into the water.
After all, being a deep-sea diver is not a job that just anyone can do. Even with professional equipment, extensive training and learning are required before diving can commence.
This time, Uncle Liao and his team had a total of eight divers who were divided into two groups to carry out the underwater operation.
One team was responsible for securing and salvaging the last cabin, while the other team was responsible for cleaning up the remaining debris around the salvage vessel and carrying out the final cleanup.
Among these remnants, some may be fragments of the ship's hull, others may be shards of porcelain, broken boxes, scattered gold and silver ingots, and other items.
The work of clearing the debris is quite complicated. It requires divers to make multiple dives and then walk around the area, searching in a plowing-like manner.
This is also the main reason why Uncle Liao said the work would be completed within two days; after all, salvaging the last cabin is relatively easy.
Simply secure the crane chain to the top, start the crane, and wait for it to be lifted up.
Even if there are some cargoes in the hold that need to be sorted out at the end, it will only take a day to finish, not two days at all.
The reason for this is to allow some time for the cleanup work, so that the divers can search slowly.
Of course, during this period, Bai Yu and his group wouldn't be completely uninvolved.
Even though they found a place where they wouldn't get in the way, they still had something to do: watch the divers' salvage operation.
Bai Yu and Wang Hai had already witnessed this process before, and now, watching it again, they only had one feeling: the seabed was very dark, and the footage was not very clear.
But for Li Xue and Lu Sheng, this scene was very novel. They had only ever seen this kind of thing on TV or in movies before, and now it was happening right under their feet.
Not long after, the remaining four divers on deck also went into the water.
However, the area they entered the water was different from that of the first group of divers. The first group of divers, responsible for salvaging the ship's cabins, entered the water from the stern deck.
The second group of divers went into the water in the area of the bow deck. Although one is the bow and the other is the stern, the distance between them must be at least fifty meters.
The reason they are so far away is because there are multiple crane ropes hanging down during the salvage of the shipwreck.
The divers also use ropes for their descents. If the ropes from both sides get tangled together during the lifting process, it would be quite problematic.
After the first group of divers secured their ropes to the cabin, and before the crane was started, the first group of divers would surface from the seabed and board the ship.
However, the second group of crew members were different. They were going to search for nearby debris on the seabed, and they would not surface even when the salvage ship was lifting the cabin.
Therefore, they must maintain a certain distance from the ship's cabin so that the crane can lift the sunken ship and the divers can search for underwater artifacts, and everyone can refrain from interfering with each other.
As the second group of divers entered the water, Bai Yu and Wang Hai took another laptop, which also displayed a live feed.
This record shows real-time footage taken by the second group of divers, along with their real-time status.
Bai Yu and Wang Hai had already witnessed the salvage of the ship's hold, but the underwater beachcombing still captured their attention.
Indeed, in Bai Yu's view, the second group of divers' search for lost items was simply an underwater beachcombing trip.
Actually, Bai Yu's understanding doesn't seem to be wrong, since what divers do is indeed no different from beachcombing.
Both involve searching for something on a beach, except one is on a beach right by the sea, and the other is on a beach more than 200 meters deep underwater.
One search engine searches for various kinds of seafood, while the other searches for artifacts lost from a shipwreck; both are valuable items.
"It's a pity that the visibility underwater is still too low. Even though these divers have flashlights, the scene is still a bit hard to see."
Bai Yu looked at the diver who had reached the seabed. Following the light from the flashlight in the diver's hand, he saw a layer of grayish mud and sand.
Besides these, the rest are some sea fish, but these creatures swim quite fast, so it's hard to see what they look like.
"Brother Yu, those divers are over 200 meters deep in the ocean right now. Do you think we're diving in nearshore waters where the visibility is that high?"
"Who says otherwise? I saw a guy online doing underwater beachcombing before, I think he was from Beihai, Guangxi. He just wore a diving suit and went into the water."
The seabed is rich in resources—scallops, crabs, turbot, scallops, and conches—and in no time, a net can be filled with them.
"Brother Yu, I've seen the video you mentioned. It does look quite interesting, and it doesn't seem that difficult."
"Brother Fisherman, if we have time next time, how about we go to Beihai and try some underwater hunting?"
"Your idea is pretty good. Let's go next time we have the chance, and experience what it's like to go diving."
To be honest, Bai Yu has tried diving before. He had dived in Hawaii and caught some pretty good prey.
Diving is a lot of fun, but it also comes with certain dangers. If you're not careful, you could really end up in the ocean.
However, for people like Bai Yu, danger is not a reason to stop them. As long as the risks are within a controllable range, they are still willing to try new things.
Just as Bai Yu and Wang Hai said, if they have time later, they will definitely go to Beihai to experience the fun of underwater beachcombing.
As for why we had to go to Beihai?
That's because the blogger on the internet was beachcombing in his own sea field, which is a contracted area, so the resources were so abundant.
There are many such places in Beihai, some of which offer such recreational activities and can take tourists to experience the fun of diving.
Moreover, these experiential programs are mostly offered during the harvest season.
This model is like a farmer planting an acre of land, and when the crops are ripe, he posts a notice in the city, giving city dwellers a chance to experience harvesting crops.
And it's the kind of thing where they charge money, yes, they charge money, not give money.
There are diving programs like this in Beihai now. Tourists pay to experience underwater beachcombing, but the seafood they catch still has to be handed over to the authorities.
Finally, I'll open a few more oysters for you to try, so you can taste what fresh, live oysters taste like.
As for the harvesting model mentioned later, it is said that some people are doing it now, but it is mainly aimed at students, with parents taking their children to experience what it's like to do farm work.
"Brother Yu, look! Look at the diver in position number two! He seems to have found something. It looks like a sword or a knife, and it even has a scabbard!"
"Tsk, what a pity, it's still rusted inside. This guy tried to pull it out twice but couldn't."
At that moment, Wang Hai pointed to the computer screen and said...
His words also drew the attention of Bai Yu and the others, who also looked at the computer screen.
On the monitor in position two, the guy was indeed holding a long, narrow object that looked somewhat similar to the Song Dynasty sword they had salvaged earlier.
It's a pity that this object, which resembled a sword, also couldn't withstand the test of time. After hundreds of years, the weapon inside had long since merged with the scabbard.
To truly integrate the two parts, the divers tried several times but couldn't pull it out, so they had to put it into their carry-on net.
Besides the object that resembled a sword, the other divers also made some discoveries, but these were all things they had seen before and there was nothing new or interesting about them.
There are already a lot of porcelain shards on the salvage ship, but these things haven't been transported back for restoration yet.
Needless to say, gold and silver ingots are also a given. I just saw several baskets of them online yesterday. Bai Yu has already made arrangements for their future.
There were also some broken planks and other debris left, and the salvage ship had quite a few of them too.
However, there weren't many of these items. In addition to these, the four divers also picked up some other things, deep-sea specialties.
Those are deep-sea swimming crabs and sea snails. The deep-sea swimming crabs actually look similar to mud crabs, but they are much larger than the crabs we catch in coastal waters.
Anyway, according to Bai Yu and his team's visual estimation, none of the deep-sea swimming crabs that these four divers collected weighed less than two pounds; each one was huge.
The conches were all pretty much the same, and much bigger than the ones you'd find while beachcombing. There was even a coconut conch that looked almost the size of a human head.
As the catch was collected in the net, Bai Yu and his three companions gathered together to watch the divers' daily routine of beachcombing.
This thing is like watching a live stream, the only difference is that you can't hear the streamer's voice and the picture isn't very clear.
But this kind of scene also has a unique feel to it, and it's quite attractive.
After an unknown amount of time, Bai Yu, who was focused on watching the video, suddenly heard a commotion. He looked up and saw that the number of crew members on the salvage ship had increased.
Seeing this, Bai Yu understood one thing: the last remaining cabin was about to be salvaged, and the salvage operation was nearing its end.
Sure enough, less than a minute after he had this idea, a wooden cabin appeared on the sea.
Bai Yu was very familiar with this cabin. He remembered that just last month, Bai Yu and Wang Hai had gone to this kind of cabin to search for treasure.
The first intact piece of porcelain they brought back was the one Bai Yu and Wang Hai took out of the cabin.
Now that another cabin has been salvaged, Bai Yu's heart stirred slightly, and he became somewhat interested in it.
The reason he only made a slight movement was because he had some knowledge of the supplies inside the ship's hold; it only contained some cloth and silk.
Moreover, it's a product that has been soaked in seawater for hundreds of years, so it's basically equivalent to garbage.
Under these circumstances, Bai Yu naturally wouldn't get too excited; she could just go and take a look later.
Indeed, just as Uncle Liao had predicted, the cargo in this hold was essentially ruined, having been submerged in seawater for hundreds of years. Even if some of the materials hadn't completely decomposed,
However, these things were all firmly stuck together, and their original colors had long since disappeared. All the colors had mixed together, forming a brownish-black color.
Furthermore, these things also emitted a fishy and foul odor, which was really unpleasant to smell.
Anyway, while the crew was cleaning up the clutter in the cabin, Bai Yu stood far away and watched, showing no intention of going forward.
It wasn't until the crew dismantled the pile of unidentified items that several silver ingots and gold bars suddenly fell out, attracting the attention of Bai Yu and the others.
They had seen gold, silver, and white fish before; in fact, there was quite a lot of gold and silver on the salvage ship they were on now.
However, these newly discovered gold and silver items are different. They seem to have not been corroded by seawater, especially the gold bars. Each one is golden and shiny, without any pits or rust. You can tell at a glance that this stuff is of very high purity.
The same was true for those silver ingots; apart from being a bit dull in color, they were otherwise without any major flaws.
These two differences alone are enough to show that these silver ingots and gold bars are not the same as the previous gold and silver ingots.
The former has a very high purity, and can be considered as 999 pure gold and 999 pure silver. But what are those gold and silver ingots? They're just stuff used by unscrupulous merchants.
"Oh~ there's an unexpected surprise here. Is this the shipwreck owner's personal stash of money? It's all hidden in the middle of the cloth, quite well concealed."
Bai Yu was also very surprised by the unexpected joy, and then all that was left was delight.
After all, there were quite a few silver ingots and gold bars. There were twenty silver ingots, each weighing about a pound. I wonder how many taels these things would be worth in ancient times.
As for the gold bars, there are also twenty of them, but these gold bars are relatively light, each weighing about half a pound, so twenty of them would weigh ten pounds.
Based on the current gold price, it would be worth about three to four million (gold price in October 2024).
What was originally considered a pile of worthless rags suddenly yielded three or four million in profit. How could Bai Yu and his companions not be overjoyed?
To ensure that no valuable items were left behind, Bai Yu told Uncle Liao to pack up all the piles of rags and search them carefully once they returned to shore.
And from the moment they came ashore from this cabin, their salvage operation of the sunken ship can basically be considered over.
Next, the divers will search the seabed around the wreck, and then they can return to port.
...
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