In this photo taken June 16, 2013, divers inspect a hole being dug beside a wooden beam jutting from the floor of Lake Michigan that an exploration group believes may have been part of the 17th century ship the Griffin.FAIRPORT, Mich. – After nearly a week of searching the muddy Lake Michigan bottom, a research team has failed to find the wreckage of a 17th century ship – but leaders said Thursday they weren’t giving up.
The mission to locate the Griffin, which was commanded by the French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier de la Salle and disappeared in 1679, was buoyed earlier this week as French underwater archaeologists inspected a wooden beam protruding 10.5 feet from the lake bed. They said it appeared to be a bowsprit – a spur or pole that extends from a vessel’s stem – that was hundreds of years old.
But there was no ship below, only hard-packed claylike sediment extending to bedrock 20 feet down. The scientists and divers searched a wider area Thursday near Poverty Island, a few miles offshore of a remote section of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with equipment that probes beneath the lake bed for signs of buried objects.
Again, no Griffin. With their permit from the state Department of Natural Resources to excavate the lake bottom about to expire and rough weather forecast, they didn’t plan to return to the site Friday but said they might next week.
Ken Vrana, the project manager and one of four U.S. archaeologists participating in the expedition, said he expected the group would have no trouble getting a new or extended permit.