Book Review -- Dragon Sea, Frank Pope

Dragon Sea is the story of an underwater archaeological dig that took place off the coast of Vietnam. For those of you not up on archaeology and its hierarchies, marine archaeology is typically held in low regard by its land-based brothers -- the provenance of adventurers and Indiana Jones-type wannabees, one step above treasure hunting.

Understanding this is crucial to understanding the main conflict of Dragon Sea. When the leader of Oxford's underwater archaeology department, Mensun Bound (you might remember him as the host of the old Discovery Channel show, Lost Ships), is approached by a known treasure hunter, Ong Soo Hin, and asked to to help him raise precious porcelain cargo from a sunken 15th Century junk to sell at auction, the obvious answer for him is to say no and avoid further castigation from colleagues. The problem is that the wreck lies in deep water, beyond the range of the volunteer scuba divers he typically uses. This wreck can only be worked by saturation divers, earning big bucks and with a world of expensive technology above them, all of which Ong is willing to pay for -- along with the promise that Bound will be allowed carry out his archaeological investigations at the same time.

Bound puts his reputation on the line and accepts Ong's offer, realizing there's no other way that this historically significant ship could ever be excavated. As much as Bound is reliant on Ong, though, so is Ong reliant to him -- unless Bound reports that he was allowed to carry out a full-scale investigation of the ship, the government of Vietnam won't allow Ong to remove the cargo for sale outside the country. The fortunes of the archaeologist and the treasure hunter are intertwined in the first such collaboration ever.

The potential problems are obvious from the start: the operation costs Ong tens of thousands of dollars a day  and he wants it completed as quickly as possible. Every day that Bound spends studying the wreck, is another day that the tab goes up. And, course, unexpected problems pop up all along the way.

It's a great story with a great premise. The author does have some annoying habits, such as ending each mini-chapter on some kind of cliff-hanging note, most of which turn out to be red herrings. He also has some strange ideas about diving, such as how the air in a scuba tank is compressed as the diver goes deeper. But these are relatively minor affairs. All in all, Dragon Sea is an excellent read.