Almost any wreck accessible to divers, particularly to hard-core wreck divers who take along wrenches, hammers, and pry bars, is quickly denuded of artifacts. The divers' contention is that such objects would eventually be destroyed anyway by the sea if they were not pulled up. For these reasons, though, some governments around the world have made it illegal for recreational divers to visit historic wrecks. But in this region of Vermont, they take a different approach. In 1985, the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation established an underwater preserve of these historic wrecks for divers to visit. The idea was a simple one: the wrecks are public sites and, to the extent possible, should be made available to the public. Because these wrecks have all been fully documented, their most significant artifacts removed and conserved, the creation of the park faced no opposition. It was a counter-intuitive action, flying in the face of the preservation movement's conventional wisdom, but it worked.