Monday, December 16, 2013

'Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea' by Gary Kinder

Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, Gary Kinder (4)

This true story of a shipwreck, discovery and recovery is quite amazing. The first third of the book tells the harrowing story of a ship in the 1850’s struggling to carry it’s California gold rush gold back to New York City. Mr. Kinder has you holding your breath as a terrible Atlantic storm hits the ship and the passengers struggle to survive. The second third is far less hair-raising as it jumps back to modern day (the 1980’s) as a describes the person and processes used to possibly one day discover and recover the wreckage of the ship. This section lagged a bit for me. The descriptions of equipment and discoveries were interesting, but rather long-winded. The last third of the book picked up again with the rush to find and hold onto the shipwreck before someone else gets there. While the story of the discovery of one of the most famous and profitable (over 20 tons of gold!) shipwrecks was amazing, unfortunately the not yet published epilogue is disturbing. Apparently Tommy Thompson, the creative genius who came up with the inventive equipment and processes for finding the wreck is now a federal fugitive believed to have escaped with much of the gold!

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