John Downing -- Maritime Archaeology

 By Dan Kidder

Many retired folks fill their post-career days with golf, gardening, a healthy nap schedule, and a lot of time to stop and smell the roses.

Valley Center’s John Downing certainly enjoys a relaxing day as much as any other retiree, but instead of golf, he’s found a new passion to pursue—maritime archaeology.

“I’ve always been interested in archaeology,” Downing says. “Since high school, I’ve had a subscription to National Geographic, and I loved to read the stories about the lost temples and everything out there, waiting to be found again. One day a few years ago, I was reading Archaeology Magazine and they had an article about a group doing maritime archaeology, all done with volunteers. My wife and I love to go scuba diving, but after you go often enough, you’ve seen the fish enough times that you want to try something new. I like archaeology, so I put two and two together, and it’s been really fun and rewarding.”

Downing went where any of us go when we need some information—to the internet!—and quickly found a handful of organizations around the globe dedicated to maritime archaeology. One organization is based in Ukraine and dives in the Black Sea, another is based in Hawaii and there are more that dive in the Aegean Sea.

But the one Downing chose is called the Anglo-Danish Maritime Archaeological Team (ADMAT), a group based in the United Kingdom and led by president and excavation director Dr. Simon Q. Spooner.

Downing wrote to Dr. Spooner in the spring of 2008 to sign up for the group’s next session of diving school. Spooner wrote back the following day to ask for Downing’s phone number. When he called, Spooner said that he wasn’t sure that there were any openings in the next school session, but offered Downing the chance to accompany him to the Dominican Republic for a one-on-one field school the following month.

“In some ways, it’s kind of intimidating to be there, one-on-one, with a guy who has a PhD in Maritime Archaeology,” Downing says. “But the upside is that it’s a fantastic opportunity to train with a man who has that much experience. My wife said, ‘Go for it!’ so I spent two weeks in the Dominican Republic getting certifications as a Survey Diver and as a Search and Recovery Diver.”

Downing and Spooner worked on a shipwreck off the coast of Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic, that has since been called The Tile Wreck by the group, due to the ship’s cargo of square tiles and corresponding granite blocks. The details surrounding this particular shipwreck remain something of a mystery, and the ADMAT crew continues to work with the local government of the Dominican Republic to find out as much about the wreck as they can.

Downing’s responsibility on the job was to take a one meter square area within a grid laid over the entire wreck area and thoroughly catalog the contents of that square, which included taking measurements, making drawings, taking photos and finally removing the specimens for further study in a lab.

“My first square was full of rectangular blocks of granite, which were rather enigmatic,” he says. “It’s unusual cargo, and they were different sizes and shapes, but all made to a specific design. It was later determined that these blocks came from a specific quarry on an island near Nante, France. We were able to narrow down the time of the shipwreck to somewhere between 1720 and 1724 and we also found a pewter plate with the maker’s mark still intact, and this artisan’s shop was in Nante. Using this data gathered from what we call ‘diagnostic pieces,’ we believe that this ship’s name is La Famile de Nante.”

Since then, Downing has continued to work with ADMAT, where he is currently the Logistics Officer, on successive dives in the Caribbean, spending an accumulated total of three months in the area with the team. He has also joined with an American maritime archaeological team called Diving With a Purpose (DWP), a group founded by Ken Stewart, a retiree from Tennessee who also dives with the National Assn. of Black Scuba Divers (NABS).

Downing joined DWP for a one-week survey for the Biscayne National Park Service in South Florida to help establish a baseline of cultural heritage sites in the waters off the coast as part of a long-term cultural conservation effort.

“The park service just doesn’t have the resources to perform these kinds of tasks, so DWP volunteers,” Downing says. “We had twenty-eight divers complete the survey, which was totally non-intrusive. We were just there to map the wrecks and take lots of photos. We didn’t do any digging or dredging.”

One of the wrecks DWP has studied extensively on another one-week survey is a ship believed to be The Guererro, which was a pirate slave ship out of Havana that sank off the coast of Florida in the 1820s after it was chased down by a British anti-slavery patrol ship, the HMS Nimble. Exploring the wreck held special significance for the African-American divers with DWP, as they learned more about the history of slave trading in the Caribbean and the cultural history of displaced Africans living in Cuba and the surrounding islands.

Even in his Valley Center living room, thousands of miles away from these underwater museums, Downing speaks with passion and excitement about his role in the cataloging and preservation of history.

“When I was working with Doctor Spooner on the Tile Wreck, there was a day when I was doing some dredging, and as I was working away, I had this sudden epiphany,” he says. “I looked around and I realized, ‘I’m doing it!’ I was only ten days into my first archeological dive, and it was so intense because I was working so hard not to screw up. But I had that realization that I was there, doing something that I’d dreamed of doing for so long, and to be working as a layperson, without a single, formal class. It was really rewarding.”

Downing grew up in San Bernardino and his wife is originally from Solana Beach. After Downing graduated from high school, he enlisted in the navy and served for six years, including three tours in Vietnam, one of which was during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. He was a surface-to-air missile (SAM) technician in the navy, and served for four years on the USS John Paul Jones, spending over 20 months in Southeast Asia and earning National Defense, Vietnam Service, Vietnam Campaign, Good Conduct, and Combat Action awards.

When his service was over, he went to work for Carl’s Jr, installing and maintaining point-of-sale computers in the cash registers. He later left to form his own company, Downing Sound and Communications, which provided audio electronic systems to businesses, including the equipment used in the drive-through lanes at fast food restaurants. He also began flying sailplanes, a type of gliders, and has accumulated several state and one U.S. national record. He sold his company in 2002 and retired, looking for a place in San Diego County.

“Valley Center met our needs,” he says. “It’s rural, but not too far from town.”

“We landed in heaven,” Downing’s wife, Pat, chimes in.

“We had a place in Julian, but it’s so far away, you have to take a two-hour round-trip just to get to a full-size grocery store,” Downing continues. “Here, it’s still rural, and you get that peace and quiet, but you’re still only thirty minutes away from whatever you need.”

The Downings are involved in the community as well. John volunteers with the Valley Center Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and the Red Cross, while Pat is involved with the Friends of the Library.

As for the pursuit of his passion in his archaeological endeavors, Downing says that he hopes his experiences inspire others to go after the things they love.

“I find it so rewarding,” he says. “I’m a layperson contributing to science and I get to broaden my experiences. And as I continue to gain experience and gain new contacts, who knows?”

Anyone interested in pursuing maritime archaeology can contact John Downing by e-mail at johnd@downingsailplanes.com for further information.