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Sunken Treasures: Determined Hunts, Overwhelming Finds
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14253 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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7 / 1988 |
2,545 Words |
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Harvey Hagman
Harvey Hagman often writes on adventure and treasure hunting. |
Dense fog shrouded the Bahamas as a severe winter storm smashed into the island on January 4, 1656. The weather proved fateful for the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de Maravilla.
The big gelleon, displacing almost one thousand tons, was struck by another ship and sank in minutes, taking 650 people to the bottom. Fifty crewmen survived. In its holds were thirty to forty tons of gold and silver from Peru and Mexico, emeralds from Colombia, and porcelain from China. That treasure is estimated to be worth $1.6 billion today.
Renowned archaeologist Daniel Koski-Karell says, "The Spanish found [the wreckage], made several attempts to salvage it, but its location is subject to high winds and strong currents. As a wooden ship, it started breaking up shortly after the wreck occurred. Part of its was found in 1972, but because of the water depth and the depth of the sand, very little of its total cargo could be recovered."
Early Spanish salvagers recovered an estimated 1.5 million of the 5 million pesos. In the 1970s a few million dollars more were recovered.
Enter entrepreneur Herbert Humphreys, Jr., forty, who lives on Grand Cayman Island, the British West Indies, and owns the local Holiday Inn, a commuter airline, and widespread real estate holdings. A self-made businessman originally from Memphis, he spends about 75 percent of his time "treasure finding."
"Herbo," as his friends call him, has been searching the Caribbean for seventeen years for treasure. His firm, Marine Archaeological Research Limited (MAR), an undersea exploration and preservation operation, was founded seven years ago.
Koski-Karell worked with Humphreys' team in the southern Bahamas near Hogsty Reef, where they found twelve wrecks. Humphreys obtained a salvage contract under which 25 percent of the findings go to the Bahamian government. He commenced his search for the Maravilla in April 1986.
The team scoured the Little Bahama banks, where they thought the wreck might rest. Then, Mike Daniels of Riviera Beach, Florida, who had been involved in the Maravilla's initial discovery in '72, joined the search. He boarded Humphreys' 120-foot, $2.5 million salvage ship Beacon, and guided it to the vicinity of the
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