This week on The Curse of Oak Island, the team has started their final preparations for the big dig that’s coming their way in the next couple of weeks.
And it’s all hands on deck as the guys turn 100 percent of their focus on the Money Pit.
Oak Island is just two weeks away from receiving delivery of at least four massive 10-feet wide steel caissons. These gigantic pieces of equipment will be drilled into the ground in the Money Pit area as part of what might be the most extensive excavation ever conducted on the island.
And it seems as though the Lagina brothers will be throwing all their eggs into one basket with this dig as last night they began calling a halt to other operations on the island. This will include ceasing work at the swamp.
A few weeks ago, a huge digger, with an 80-foot reach, arrived on the island to much fanfare and great excitement, all in the hope of digging up an ancient ship, which the guys believe lies hidden in the swamp. Since then, Billy Gerhardt and the rest of the team have unearthed a plethora of wood artifacts, many of which have a nautical origin. But unfortunately, they’ve not found the ship.
On last night’s episode, Marty Lagina, rather dramatically, informed Billy, Gary Drayton, and a few of the others that they were to wrap up things at the swamp. Gary was both shocked and a little frustrated, but Marty explained that they needed the swamp’s freshwater.
Oak Island team needs fresh water to sort through Money Pit debris
Basically, the big dig at the Money Pit is going to pull up an awful lot of dirt and debris, which the guys will need to sort through and examine for artifacts. They will feed the debris into a wash plant, where it will be cleaned, making examination easier.
Unfortunately, they can only use fresh water for this, so they need to take it from the swamp. And they need to stop digging in the marshy land to allow the water level to rise again.
The guys are throwing all they can at this dig, so they’ll also need as many guys as possible to help out with sorting the debris at the Money Pit. So, shutting down the swamp is also a way to free up valuable human resources.
Viewers can expect this to be a temporary measure; the swamp will return. The guys have been full of praise for the swamp over the last year because every time they look there, they find something, from mysterious stone roadways to a ship’s wharf and a ship’s railings.
Marty Lagina believes they’ve hit a flood tunnel at the Money Pit
In the meantime, Marty thinks the team has found a flood tunnel at the Money Pit. In the last couple of weeks, the drill team has twice hit a cavity, and this week, they hit a large quantity of water a mere two feet away from that cavity.
Marty reckons that the cavity is unfortunately not an offset chamber as previously suspected, but a little pocket of air in a flood tunnel. The discovery of eelgrass last week bolsters his theory as it’s known that the grass was used alongside coconut fibers to act as a filter on flood tunnels at Smith’s Cove.
If they have found a flood tunnel, the guys will need to find a way to block it off; otherwise, all their work for the big dig could be completely ruined.
The Curse of Oak Island airs at 9/8c on History.