On 31 July and 1 August 1776, Loyalist forces under Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, burned a number of their own vessels near St. George’s Island where the St. Mary’s River joins the Potomac.
In March 2009 IMH hired Azulmar LLC to run a sidescan and mag survey in the area. Azulmar got several sidescan and mag hits, and sent us an initial group of 13 potential sites.
Dawn Cheshaek, Spike Meatyard, and I dived two of those sites on Saturday, 13 June. We found some weird, anomalous rocks ranging in size from melons to mattresses. They might be ballast. We need to map them carefully to determine if they lie in ship-sized clusters.
It is much too early to conclude they really are ballast — but if they are, we may have found an early Rev War site. Stay tuned. Better yet, come dive!