Hobbies And Interests
Nuestra Señora de Atocha
On Sept. 4, 1622, the Nuestra Señora de Atocha set sail from Havana bound for Spain. The ship was laden with riches plundered from the conquered empires of the Americas. According to the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, the Atocha's cargo included 24 tons of silver bullion, 18,000 pesos of silver coins, 582 copper ingots, 125 gold bars and discs and 1,200 lbs. of worked silverware. The ship sank, taking its treasure and all but five of its crew to the ocean floor. Mel Fisher and his crew began the search for the treasure in 1969. On July 20, 1985, Mel Fisher's son Kane finally found the main pile of the ship's cargo.
Spanish Plate Fleet
In 1715, a fleet was bound for Spain carrying riches plundered from the New World. When the fleet was caught in a hurricane off the Florida coast, 10 of the 11 ships were sunk. The loss of the 1715 plate fleet was probably the largest loss of treasure at sea in all of maritime history, says the Detecting.org.uk website. Kip Wagner, a beachcomber living on the Florida coast, discovered the location of the sunken treasure after finding a number of coins dated 1714 washed up on the shore.
Nuestra Señora de la Pura y Limpia Concepción
In 1641, this Spanish galleon struck a reef off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The ship sank, spilling its cargo across the reef. According to "National Geographic," the ship carried between 1 million and 4 million silver pesos, weighing as much as 140 tons in total, and an assortment of jewelry, pearls, emeralds and gold dust. A seafarer named William Phips discovered the treasure in 1687, salvaging a fortune in gold and silver. The location of the ship was then lost, only to be rediscovered almost 300 years later by an American salvager named Burt Webber. He relocated the wreck in 1978 and recovered much of the remaining wealth.
SS Central America
During the 1850s, this steamship ran passengers and cargo between the eastern coast of the United States and Central America. In 1857, the steamer sank in a hurricane, taking her passengers and cargo to the ocean floor. The cargo included gold bars and coins worth an estimated $400 million, reports a Wiley Informs document entitled "Columbus-America Discovery Group and the SS Central America." The Columbus-America Discovery Group, a salvage operation assembled to locate the wreck, found the SS Central America in September 1987, recovering vast quantities of gold worth, at the time, at least $100 million.