And 7 years. I had no idea she had been on the beach that long. Still mostly intact, too. I remember the ship was littered with hatch covers, which at the time were bringing several hundred dollars refinished as tables. We knew a multi-engine pilot at the time and launched a half-baked plan to fly down, land on the beach, load up and come back to make our fortune. Of course it never happened.
A bit more about the gauge, which still shows a stamp of being recalibrated in Greece in 1961. As mentioned, I shined up the brass bezel and mounted it on a nice piece of wood and gave it to my father for Christmas one year. It even had a small engraved plaque reading 'Salvaged from the wreck of the Jupiter, November 1975, and the lat/lon.
Dad, being a more pragmatic sort, had a '65 Mustang at the time that had been converted to run on propane. But the fuel gauge no longer worked. So a month or so goes by and when I saw him and the car next - the steam gauge was mounted in the passenger well as his 'fuel' gauge! He'd rummaged through the parts bins and had found adaptors, then built a bracket for it and it was reading just fine. Kind of weird in that you had to sort of straddle it as a passenger. But it stayed in the car for years. He removed it when he sold the car. I found the gauge a few months ago while cleaning out his house after he passed. Only last week, I was going through boxes and came upon this nice wood plaque that looked familiar. I grabbed the gauge, held it up and the screw holes matched! Now the gauge is back on my wall - with a whole new story to tell.
Thank you so much again. I really appreciate it.
John Riise
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