Archaeologist pushing for ‘green light’ to dig up sunken Columbus ship to avoid looters 
 
 By Agence France-Presse 
 
 Wednesday, May 14, 2014 19:36 EDT 
 
 The U.S. marine archaeologist who believes he has found the famous flagship of Christopher Columbus said Wednesday that salvaging it was urgent to prevent looting. 
 
 “I think this is an emergency situation. I think the ship needs to be excavated as quickly as possible, conserved and displayed to the world,” underwater explorer Barry Clifford told The Explorers Club, referring to the fabled Santa Maria. 
 
 The flagship from the explorer’s first voyage to the Americas was found in the area where Columbus said the Santa Maria ran aground more than 500 years ago, Clifford said Tuesday. 
 
 The researcher said the expedition he led to find the wreck unearthed sufficient proof to establish its authenticity — 11 years after he first investigated it. 
 
 Clifford, 68, cited “overwhelming” proof that the ship was likely the Santa Maria. 
 
 “There is nobody watching the ship right now,” he fretted, adding that “somebody knows where we are.” 
 
 “I’m ready to leave next week if I get the green light,” he added, noting that discussions were under way with Haitian authorities. 
 
 He said he hoped that would cooperate on protecting the site, and voiced hope that Spain — which funded Columbus’ voyage — would cooperate as well. 
 
 - A beacon for Haiti? - 
 
 Clifford also said that he hopes Haiti — the poorest country in the Americas — can use the wreck’s recovery as a way to help it financially. He suggested worldwide proceeds from shows of the items when recovered, go to Haitian assistance. 
 
 Bitter disagreements between Haitian politicians have threatened already painfully slow reconstruction following a devastating earthquake in January 2010 that killed around a quarter of a million people in the Caribbean nation. 
 
 Four years on, hundreds of thousands are still living in makeshift camps. 
 
 Columbus set sail August 3, 1492 from Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain, with the Santa Maria, La Nina and La Pinta, searching for a shortcut to Asia. 
 
 On October 12 of that year, he is believed to have landed in Guanahani, which historians have identified as an island in the Bahamas, in what is popularly called the “Discovery of the Americas.” 
 
 Columbus stopped in Cuba, and then the island of Hispaniola — home to modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic — before his Santa Maria hit a reef and went down December 25, 1492. The Spaniards built a fort and then in January 1493 Columbus headed back to Spain to report to Queen Isabella on his trip. 
 
 Now, “the key of finding the Santa Maria is in this book, Colombus’ diario,” he said. So “dissecting this book and understanding the diario” will be critical to success. 
 
 Clifford is perhaps best known as the discoverer and excavator of the world’s first fully verified pirate shipwreck, the Whydah, in 1984. 
 
 He and his team first investigated the wreck off Haiti in 2003 and brought up a cannon from the depths. 
 
 Clifford told CNN that archaeologists “misdiagnosed” the cannon at the time. 
 
 So this year, he returned to the wreck with a team of experts in tow and took careful measurements and photographs of the ship. 
 
 [Image via Agence France-Presse] ||||| 1 of 2. A replica of Christopher Columbus' caravel Santa Maria is shown in this circa 1892 handout photo provided by the United States Library of Congress on May 13, 2014. 
 
 NEW YORK (Reuters) - An underwater explorer who claims to have found the wreckage of Christopher Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria, off the north coast of Haiti hopes to begin excavating the site as early as next week. 
 
 Barry Clifford, a Massachusetts marine investigator who recently led a reconnaissance expedition to the site, told a press conference at the Explorers Club in New York on Wednesday that the start of any excavation depends on approval from the Haitian government. 
 
 Clifford also said he needs to locate a facility to potentially house any of the remains. 
 
 He and a team of marine explorers say evidence "strongly suggests" the artifacts from the shipwreck off Haiti belong to the Santa Maria, which Columbus used on his maiden voyage to the New World in 1492. 
 
 Some experts and Haitian officials have reacted with scepticism to the possible discovery, saying they doubt that enough of the vessel remains to make a definite match. 
 
 "I think the evidence is overwhelming that the ship is most likely the Santa Maria," Clifford said, citing its location close to the spot where the ship is believed to have gone down, as well as the wooden remains of the keel seen at the site, along with a cannon. 
 
 Clifford, 68, said he has held talks with Haiti President Michel Martelly seeking approval to start excavating. He urged Haitian officials to take steps to protect the artifacts, and said some items, including the cannon, appeared to have been looted from the site. 
 
 The wreck was discovered in about 10 to 15 feet of water near a reef almost five miles offshore, Clifford said. On his next expedition he said he hoped to recover pieces of wood and other materials used to build the ship. 
 
 The Santa Maria was one of three vessels that left Spain to look for a shorter route to Asia. 
 
 The ship sank on Christmas Day in 1492 and had to be abandoned. Afterwards, Columbus left behind 39 men at La Navidad, a fortified camp, and sailed back to Spain. He returned a year later to find the fort destroyed and none of his crew alive. 
 
 Clifford said he based his conclusions on the wreck's proximity to La Navidad, and data from Columbus' diary. 
 
 The precise location of La Navidad is not known, though archaeologists from the University of Florida have excavated a possible site about 10 miles east of the city of Cap Haitien, on Haiti's north coast. 
 
 Clifford's team first discovered the wreck in 2003, but was unable to identify the ship. 
 
 Among artifacts found during a previous exploration of the site was a 15th-century cannon. The cannon and other key items have since been taken by the suspected looters, Clifford said. 
 
 The artifacts were found underneath a large mound of ballast rock Clifford said that can be matched to a quarry near the port of Columbus' departure in southwestern Spain. 
 
 But experts on Columbus' voyages say similar rocks were also used in other ships at the time, some of which traversed the Caribbean. 
 
 The Spanish government has not been in touch with Clifford, said a spokeswoman for Spain's Ministry of Culture, who asked not to be named. 
 
 "The two governments (Spanish and Haitian) are in touch and both agree that there are doubts over whether it is the Santa Maria and that we need more information," the spokeswoman said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel in Madrid; Writing by Kevin Gray and Laila Kearney; Editing by Andre Grenon and Gunna Dickson) ||||| (CNN) -- An underwater explorer who says he's confident he's discovered the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus' flagship, said Wednesday that there's evidence that the ship has been looted. 
 
 During a news conference, 68-year-old Barry Clifford said that the remains of the possible ship off the coast of Haiti probably hold "a great deal of cultural material" but that he and his team of divers can tell that thieves have disrupted the wreck and taken things. 
 
 When asked when the ship might have been looted, Clifford said he didn't know. "Something might have been done several months ago, maybe a couple years ago, I'm not sure," he said. 
 
 Clifford says he wants the Haitian government to act as soon as possible to help preserve the what he says is the ship's remains. 
 
 He also wants the Haitian government to give him permission to continue to study the wreckage. "I'm not looking for money," Clifford said. "I'm looking for the government (of Haiti) to protect this." 
 
 He said that whatever his team does next must be coordinated through the Haitian government. 
 
 A CNN team was in Haiti on Wednesday and asked the senior adviser to the country's prime minister about Clifford's claims. 
 
 Adviser Damian Merlo said in an e-mail that officials did not know whether the wreck was indeed the Santa Maria. 
 
 Merlo said Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said that if Clifford's claims are correct, "it would be of great importance, not only for Haiti, but for world history." 
 
 "We need to ensure the site is handled properly to protect any archeological findings," Lamothe said, according to Merlo. 
 
 Clue from another wreck 
 
 Clifford is an experienced explorer, according to the History Channel website, which described him as "one of the world's premiere underwater archaeologists." 
 
 His assertion that he's probably found the Santa Maria is tied to a shipwreck he and his team investigated in 2003. A cannon was found as part of the first wreck. But, Clifford told CNN, archaeologists at the time "misdiagnosed" the cannon. 
 
 Two years ago, after having researched the type of cannon used in Columbus' time, "I woke up in the middle of the night and said, 'Oh, my God,' " Clifford said. He realized the 2003 find might have been the one. 
 
 A couple of weeks ago, he returned to the wreck with a group of experts. The team measured and photographed the ship. But some items, including the cannon, had been looted from the ship in the intervening years, Clifford said. 
 
 The ship "still has attributes that warrant an excavation to determine the site's identity," archaeologist Charles Beeker of Indiana University said Tuesday. "Barry may have finally discovered the 1492 Santa Maria." 
 
 The evidence, Beeker said, is "very compelling." 
 
 The ship was found in the exact area where Columbus said the Santa Maria ran aground more than 500 years ago, Clifford said. The wreck is stuck on a reef off Haiti's northern coast, 10 to 15 feet beneath the water's surface. 
 
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 Wrecked in 1492 
 
 The Santa Maria was the flagship of Columbus' small fleet that set sail from Spain in August 1492 under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. 
 
 The voyage aimed to find a westward route to China, India and the gold and spice islands of the East. But the land the sailors set eyes on in October 1492 was an island in the Caribbean. 
 
 Among the islands on which Columbus set foot was Hispaniola, which is divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Columbus established a fort in Haiti. 
 
 That December, the Santa Maria accidentally ran aground off the island's coast. Some planks and provisions from the wrecked ship, which was about 117 feet (36 meters) long, were used by the garrison at the fort, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 Columbus set off back to Spain with the two remaining ships, the Nina and the Pinta, in January 1493. 
 
 The Nina and Pinta were put back into service after their voyages and were not preserved, said historian Laurence Bergreen, author of "Columbus: The Four Voyages." 
 
 There have been reproductions of those ships, but they are based on vague assumptions. "We don't have very accurate records of what they looked like," he said. 
 
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 CNN's Danielle Dellorto, Ronni Berke and Miguel Marquez contributed to this report.
– Underwater archaeologist Barry Clifford yesterday alerted the world to what he sees as the danger of looting at the site of what could be Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria. "There is nobody watching the ship right now," he said at the Explorers Club in New York, and "somebody knows where we are." CNN adds that he believes the ship has already been looted. "Something might have been done several months ago, maybe a couple years ago, I'm not sure." Clifford says a key piece of evidence for his identification—a cannon—is among items that appear to have been taken from the site. Eleven years after initially investigating it, Clifford claims his identification of the wreck is provable and he is ready to begin salvage work as soon as next week, the AFP reports. But he needs an OK from the Haitian government first. Clifford says he has spoken to Haitian President Michel Martelly seeking such permission, and also hopes for support from Spain, Columbus' launching point. An unidentified spokeswoman for the Spanish Ministry of Culture tells Reuters that her government has not been in contact with Clifford, but says the Spanish and Haitian governments are in touch and have doubts about the identity of the ship. Among them: whether there's enough of the ship left after so many centuries to conclusively ID it. (Read about the possible fates of Columbus' other two famed ships.)