Early Years

While working as Historian at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, Jim led the archaeological expedition of the 1856 medium clipper King Philip, which was wrecked on San Francisco's Ocean Beach in 1878. The vessel, laden with only her stone ballast, sank into the sand, leaving half of the hull intact. Winter storms in 1984-1985 uncovered the wreck.

Jim participated in the dives to identify the wreck of the famous U.S. Naval brig Somers, scene of the U.S. Navy's only mutiny on the high seas and the inspiration for Herman Melville's story, Billy Budd. The ship sank in 1846 during the conflict between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexican War. The wreck was discovered off Vera Cruz, Mexico by Jim's friend George Belcher in 1986, and the two worked to preserve the wreck and encourage the governments of the U.S. and Mexico to protect it. In 1991, Jim led the official U.S. government team to Mexico to help negotiate a treaty between the two governments and to work with Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia, represented by Mexico's chief underwater archaeologist, Dra. Pila Luna, to map the wreck aboard the Mexican Navy gunboat Margarita Maza de Juarez. Here, at mission's end in 1990, Jim poses at the Mexican War Memorial at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Ironically, the "Somers affair" was one of the reasons the Naval Academy was founded. Somers was working as a training ship for young officers when the mutiny occurred, and the resultant scandal forced the Navy to move its training ashore.

Jim smiles up at his wife Ann as he gets ready to dive on the wreck of the Hudson's Bay Company steamer Beaver at the First Narrows, or the Lions Gate in Vancouver Harbour, 1993.

Jim's love of archaeology finally led him to shipwrecks in 1980. In 1981, while a member of the National Park Service, he was sent to the nearby Presidio of San Francisco to learn how to dive with the U.S. army dive instructor Lawrence "Dutch" Bowen. Bowen taught Jim that there "are old divers and there are bold divers, but there are no old, bold divers.' Dutch's training has kept Jim alive in a number of tight spots over the years.

In his position as the head of the U.S. government's maritime preservation program, Jim presents a plaque designating the Drakes Bay Life Saving Station in Point Reyes National Seashore to representatives of the National Park Service and the U.S. Coast Guard in 1991.

Jim's official National Park Service Portrait, 1991. Photo credit: Michael Harris.

Jim as a young park ranger (with Jay Eikenhorst) prepares to rappel down the cliffs of Point Lobos (San Francisco) to investigate a century-old sealed cave, 1979.

Jim at the age of ten, when he decided he wanted to become an archaeologist.

Jim as the head of the U.S. National Maritime Initiative at the Washington Navy Yard, 1990.

Jim while in the National Park Service, visited Vicksburg National Military Park and the recovered remains of the ironclad USS Cairo, 1985.