James has been in the same line of work for 30 years, but he says he's still constantly reminded of how 'cool' his can be
James Hunter curated the exhibition A Graphic Tale of Shipwreck at the Australian National Maritime Museum. The exhibition tells the story of the barque South Australian with a combination of artefacts from the shipwreck site, comic book art, the ship's logbooks, and a virtual reality 'diving' experience Jane Barrett/Sydney Morning Herald
When Dr James Hunter was a young boy living in Florida, he nagged his parents to let him learn to dive.
His dad was a certified diver and right into the sport, and Hunter says he was "spellbound" by the concept of exploring what lay under the surface of the water.
By the time he was 10, he was certified to scuba dive.
But Hunter's passion was brought to a halt the next year, when he moved from the clear waters surrounding Florida to the murky shores of the UK.
His mum forbade him from diving because of how dark and deep the waters were, but he would go out on the boat with his dad and friends while they explored shipwrecks.
"They'd go diving and they'd come up with all the loot they pulled off of various shipwrecks," he tells nine.com.au.
"I was like, 'Wow, I want to go down there and see what they're seeing and experience this whole thing'."
By the time he and his family moved back to the US, diving was pushed to the back of his mind as he was focused on finishing high school, eventually enrolling at Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
Hunter was studying anthropology when he became interested in the sub-discipline of archaeology and soon started volunteering at the archaeology lab.
When he went back to Florida one summer to visit his parents, his dad told him about an archaeological dig nearby that he could volunteer at, and he ended up being there for around a month.
Hunter documenting the bow section of the American whaling ship Samuel Wright, which was lost near Bunbury, WA in 1840. Pat Baker/Western Australian Museum
"I apparently picked everything up very quickly because when I finished, they said, 'Hey, if you want a job when you finish undergraduate school, let us know'," he says.
"So that's what happened. When I finished my degree, I gave them a call, and they employed me. I worked there for two years, working as a land archaeologist, a terrestrial archaeologist."
It was those few years working as a land archaeologist that inspired Hunter to pursue his Master's degree, but it was what he learnt upon applying that changed the course of his career.
He decided on a program at the University of Florida run by a woman named Judy Bense, but he encountered a roadblock during his first meeting with her when she informed him that to join the course, he had to first complete a field methods course.
"That's her criteria to get into the Master's program ... She says, 'Okay, so we have a couple of options. First option is that you do six weeks on land, or you could do six weeks underwater, or you can do 12 weeks where you do six weeks on land, and then you do six weeks underwater'," Hunter recalls.
"My response to her, and I'm not kidding, I looked at her dead in the eye, and I said, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can do this underwater?' She looked at me like I was insane."
Hunter at the helm of Silentworld Foundation's survey vessel Maggie III during the March 2022 search for the wreck of the Dutch ship Koning Willem de Tweede, which was lost near Robe, SA in 1857. Heather Berry/Silentworld Foundation
Ultimately, he chose to do the 12-week course, completing the first six weeks on land on a 17th-century Spanish fortification site, before moving to a 16th-century Spanish galleon in Pensacola Bay.
"And suffice to say that was it. I did that [second] six weeks and said, 'This is what I'm doing, I'm not doing anything else'."
Today, Hunter lives and works in Australia as the manager of maritime archaeology at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
Next year, he'll have worked in the industry for 30 years, but he says his heart still "gets stuck in my throat" when he finds a rare artifact.
"Same with finding a shipwreck site, you know, it gets me every time, and I'm like, 'this is why I do this'," he says.
"Whenever it gets frustrating, that is the thing that brings me back. It's like, just remember this is actually really cool."
Working underwater presents unique challenges, such as water temperature, currents, surge waves, and, of course, low to zero visibility in deep water.
"We call it archaeology by braille," Hunter explains.
Recording timber measurements during the 2019 archaeological survey of South Australian, a British barque wrecked near Victor Harbor, SA in 1837. Silentworld Foundation
"I don't wear gloves normally when I dive ... because I have taught myself over time through experience how timber feels, how corroded metal feels, how uncorroded metal feels, how ceramic feels, how glass feels."
He says that most people jump straight to shipwrecks when they think of maritime archaeology, but the work encompasses everything under the umbrella of human interaction with the ocean, lakes and rivers – including sunken cities like Port Royal in Jamaica.
Often referred to as the 'wickedest city on earth', Hunter explains that Port Royal was a "17th-century British settlement in Jamaica".
"Basically, it's where all the pirates hung out," he says.
"And in the 1690s, there was a massive earthquake that hit Jamaica, and because Port Royal was basically sitting on a sandbar, the sand liquefied and the whole city sank under the water.
"It's amazing because they have excavated parts of Port Royal, and everything literally fell vertically intact.
"So you have entire houses you can see, the walls are gone now for the most part, but you can see their floors, like the brick floors stayed intact. You can see the rooms, you can see all the activity areas, it's pretty amazing."
Hunter and Mark Polzer (Principal Maritime Heritage Officer, SA Department for Environment and Water) inspect shipwreck artefacts at the Customs House Maritime Museum in Robe, SA in March 2025. Ruud Stelten/SA Department Environment and Water
Most of Hunter's work is done underwater, hardly ever removing artefacts because they will likely disintegrate over time if not conserved properly.
Artifacts are usually only removed if they are rarely intact or if they have diagnostic details, meaning a date or name that can help identify a site, like a shipwreck.
And while he's seen some pretty incredible things over the past three decades, he says one of his favourites came from his time investigating the H.L. Hunley, an American Civil War submarine from the 1860s.
"It's the beginning of submarine warfare worldwide because it is the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship," he explains.
"But then it disappeared for 136 years."
The submarine was discovered in 1995 and raised from the ocean floor to a conservation lab in 2000.
Hunter was part of the team that excavated the artifact inside the lab, finding inside the submarine the entire crew, their clothes, their shoes, their personal belongings, and even smoking pipes that Hunter thinks the crew planned on smoking when they arrived back at shore.
"Over time, a bunch of sediment, mud [and] silt had gotten into it, it had seeped into it and filled it completely from top to bottom," he explains.
"And mud and silt are incredibly preservative because it encases everything, and it cuts the oxygen off."
James Hunter with one of the anchors from the British ship Rodney, a former convict transport wrecked at Kenn Reefs (Australian Coral Sea Territory) in 1858 Julia Sumerling/Silentworld Foundation
He recalls finding a small white circle, around a centimetre in diameter, that almost appeared to look like a mint.
He thought it could have been a button, but as he kept excavating, the white dot turned into a white cylinder.
"It is a tallow candle," he says.
"And it was sitting in this very crudely whittled wooden holder ... And that little artifact is incredible because I don't know of any other instance where a candle like that has survived.
"And they would have used it to illuminate the inside of the submarine. That was their light source. Because when that wasn't lit, that submarine was pitch black.
"It also told them when the air was getting foul, and they needed to surface and open the hatches and get some fresh air back in."
Most people are interested in hearing about the coins, jewellery and treasures that Hunter has come across in his career, but in his opinion, these simple things are far more important.
In 2015 he conducted a shipwreck survey in Whangaroa Harbour, NZ. Nicole Miller/NZ Underwater Heritage Group
"It's the utilitarian things that connect us with those people. Because like us, they needed a source of light and in this case they needed to know whether their air was getting bad," he says.
"To me, that's way more important."
Produced in partnership with CareerOne.
