What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
The NSW Heritage Office implements the State Underwater Cultural Heritage Program. The work is extremely varied from implementing aspects of the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Program, the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 (as it applies to underwater Historic Shipwreck sites), and the NSW Heritage Act 1977 as it applies to Historic Shipwrecks and the range of archaeological deposits and sites underwater in NSW. Much of our work is aimed at fostering best practice interaction with this heritage, and in promoting public involvement in site identification, documentation, interpretation and protection. The Heritage Office maintains the NSW Historic Shipwrecks Database - a powerful resource tool, develops publications, runs introductory courses in Maritime Archaeology (under AIMA/NAS UK), and works closely with all client groups such as government, local councils, the dive industry, museums, historical societies and the public. Staff of the Underwater Heritage Program also conduct their own fieldwork and publish the results widely.

Current projects include historical research into shipwreck events; the proposed investigation of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia (1) (1910-1924) scuttled off Sydney Heads; the documentation of historic WW2 aircraft crashed at sea; and the ongoing inspection of colonial era timber and iron shipwrecks along the coastline. The Heritage Office is also liaising closely with several recreational diver-based surveys of newly located deep water shipwrecks in NSW, including the tss Cumberland (1917) near Eden, the tss Bega (1908) near Tathra, and the American WW2 liberty ship William Dawes (1942) nearby.

External to the Heritage Office, I am also Co-Director of the Australian expedition that has documented the historic Australian submarine AE2, lost near Gallipoli, Turkey, on 30 April 1915. 2006 will hopefully J see our team undertake the first systematic remote and diver based survey of the waters offshore at ANZAC Cove, and key battlefield sites around the Dardanelles peninsula.

Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
In 2000 I led a search for a WW2 era Dutch (*ex-RAN) submarine, K-IX (1919-1945), on a beach south of Seal Rocks. The 70-metre vessel had washed ashore and became buried under mobile coastal beach sands. The site was detected using a magnetometer and is illustrative of the varied range of maritime archaeological site types in NSW.

Tell us about a funny/disastrous/amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology.
When working on the Sydney University ancient harbour excavations at Torone in Northern Greece, I was confronted, upon reaching the surface, by a Greek naval gun boat! The 50-calibre machine gun was trained on me and I had to swim out to the vessel. Apparently there was some local confusion over the validity of the Australian excavation permit, which was dutifully settled!

What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
I think the real pleasure is being able to meet so many interesting people – from professionals in the area undertaking like work, to the range of interest groups such as the Defence industry, Water Police, government agency staff, researchers, and the many community members who have such a passion for history and heritage sites. It is a pleasure to be able to assist people in the documentation of their heritage and to relive the amazing stories associated with sites.

Follow up reading:
Smith, T., 2004 ‘Plane Sailing: The archaeology of aircraft losses over water in New South Wales, Australia’, Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology. 28 2004.

Maritime Heritage Online web site www.heritage.nsw.gov.au