Sunken Treasure Lost Worlds

by Hep Aldridge

  I was the last one to leave that night and stood on the bar's back porch with my Scotch in hand, staring at the moonlight reflecting off the ripples in the water of the marina. What had I done? With nothing but a tantalizing prospect, I had enlisted a computer hacker, an ex-lawyer microbiologist ladies’ man, a real rocket scientist, a guy who could read and speak languages I had never even heard of, the creator of some kind of sonic death ray for the military, and a crazy Russian-American Cossack! As I tossed down the last of my Scotch and headed for the door, I thought, “What a great bunch of guys!”

  Risky Business is our name, and treasure hunting is our game!

  First order of business, we needed a boat, or I should say vessel. I’d had my eye on a 46 ft. single diesel engine trawler for sale for a couple of months now. She was older, wooden-hulled with a moderate-sized wheelhouse, good storage below decks, and a sturdy looking trawling net A-frame on her deck. I thought we could modify it to lift cannon and chests filled with gold fairly easily. Yes, I was dreaming already; reality had not yet reared its ugly head. I negotiated a good deal on her, and, by month’s end, the Lisa B was mine. I moved her to the canal behind Tony the IT genius’ house, and that became our initial base of operations. All the guys chipped in time, effort, and some money. A month and a half later, we had gone over her from stem to stern. New paint, refurbished the wheelhouse, new steering controls, gauges, and the six-cylinder Ford Lehman 120 diesel was purring like a kitten.

  It was time for another company meeting at the corporate bar. This time, we got access to a nice little private dining area off to the side of the main room. The order of business that evening: how do we go about finding all this treasure lying around on the ocean floor? We came up with our first list of necessary items: a good GPS unit, a high-end sonar/depth finder, VHF radio, a winch, lines, cable, and underwater metal detectors for starters. Not only that, but I had been doing a lot of research on the subject and determined that if we were serious, we also needed a Proton Magnetometer. This was a device towed behind the boat that measured slight variations in the magnetic field of the earth caused by ferrous metals on the bottom. These would be like cannons, anchors, cannon balls, and metal fastener’s and might show a wreck’s debris field. Unfortunately, it also registered any other modern ferrous metal junk down there. Expensive, but just something we would have to work through. All total, my cost estimate was around twelve to fifteen thousand dollars at discount prices! (This was the reality rearing its ugly head part!). Before everyone choked on their beers and headed for the door, I assured them I was confident we could get the equipment for less than that. We had to get creative, very creative. Thank goodness, Nils piped up about then, saying he had a decent GPS unit in stock. He knew where we could get a good sonar/depth finder fairly cheap. He also had a contact for line, a winch, and a source for cable. We decided we would get one handheld underwater metal detector and Dimitri volunteered to make that purchase on his own. Phew… that only left us with the VHF radio and mag to worry about. Nils said he would track down the radio, and I volunteered to bird-dog the mag. I asked all the divers in the group to go through their gear and make sure it was in good working order and ready to use. All agreed, and I was thrilled that nobody had bailed on me so far.

  Over the next couple of months, we gathered and installed our gear. I started a serious hunt for a magnetometer. During this time, we took the Lisa B out for a couple of shakedown cruises, which went well. We had Come up with the VHF radio we needed and other bits and pieces. Dimitri and Joe installed the gear while Tony set us up with an onboard Wi-Fi hotspot and other neat computer gadgets. Six months after our initial meeting, we had a working salvage vessel and crew, just no mag. Treasure hunting season didn’t really begin until the winter seas calmed down, beginning in March or April, so we still had time to get things ready. Doc Greene received an invitation to present a paper in November at Oxford University in England. It was on some of his esoteric language research, which he accepted. I never pretended to understand everything he studied, but on this trip, he had volunteered to make a side trip to the national maritime archives in Seville, Spain. He and some colleagues would research the 1715 fleet. We accepted his offer wholeheartedly, chipping in to cover costs for the side trip from our very limited resources.

  It was early January, windy and cool. I had just poured myself a steaming cup of coffee and sat down at my computer to perform the ritual I had been performing for the last three months. As I started my search, I had no expectation I would get anything other than my usual “no matches found” message. So, you can imagine my surprise when I received, “one match found.” Looking further, there was a mag for sale, new, in Georgia for $3000. I almost spilled my coffee reaching for the phone. My call was answered on the second ring. The gentleman on the other end said yes, the mag was still available; he had just posted it last night. It was brand new, never been in the water. He had moved to Georgia from Daytona Beach and was prospecting for gold in a stream that ran through his property there. Another treasure hunter, I thought. Great! He had bought the mag to do exactly what we were planning on doing but wound up moving to Georgia before he could get it wet and now had no use for it. After some skillful negotiations, I got him down to $2,000 and made the purchase. Within seven days, I had the unit in my possession, and Risky Business was now ready for business!

  The mag we purchased was an entry level unit. To purchase it from a dealer would have cost $6,000. The reviews I had read about it gave it high marks in almost every category: durability, sensitivity, reliability, ease of use, and great value for the price.

  By the end of March, Doc Greene had returned from his trip, bearing reams of papers copied from the archives. The end of March now became a time of intensive research for the Risky Business team. Lawrence Goodson was totally immersed in the underwater lease process and other legal maritime documents pertaining to treasure hunting off the coast of Florida. He had spent three weeks in Tallahassee doing some of his research. When we next met as a group, we all noticed he came in with a rather long face and a folder full of papers; he was not happy. Oh, boy, I thought, he must be the bearer of ill tidings, so we started our discussion with him. His report was rather disheartening. Most of the eastern coastline waters had already been leased to one or two individual’s years ago. Okay, so what did that mean for us? Well, everything from Melbourne, Florida to the Ft. Pierce/ Stuart area, from the low tide mark out to the three-mile limit was under lease.

  This was the exact area where the ships from the 1715 fleet would have sunk. If we wanted to work any of the area, we had to receive approval from the lease owners, and a percentage of everything found would go to them. Talk about getting your hackles up; I thought Dimitri would go through the ceiling.

  “Why the hell should we have to pay someone who is not even working an area a percentage of anything we find?” he shouted, “When all the costs for salvage are incurred by us!” Time, personnel, equipment, fuel, research… No freaking way was he going to give away a portion of anything he found just because a guy had a piece of paper saying he owned what was on the sea floor. "How the hell could you own that anyway?" he fumed after a series of what I can only guess were Russian expletives.

  Lawrence let out a long sigh and said, "Money and politics." The state would get the first choice of anything found up to 20%; the lease holder and salvors would split what was left 50/50. So, for the people who had done all the work, we would wind up with 40% of what we found, while those other guys sat on their fat asses in Tallahassee or wherever and did nothing but hold their hands out!

  And that’s how it began. I could see by the look on Tony’s face he was siding with Dimitri, as was Joe. Hell, I was even siding with the crazy Russian. In our minds, this was tantamount to highway robbery! Doc Ryan had his poker face on, Nil’s was just shaking his head, and Lawrence was trying to explain the legal ramifications of not playing by the rules to everyone. Nobody was listening! I knew we needed to get things
back under control and stood up. It was time for “the voice of reason!”

  “What I think we need to do,” I said, “Is take some time here, put our options on the table, and think them through.” Most all agreed, and much of the fuming and bitching quieted down as Lawrence pulled out a blank sheet of paper and started writing. After 45 minutes of heated discussion, we had our options laid out. Either play by the rules and go to work, giving away over 50% of what we find; don’t play by the rules and go to work, taking our chances of being arrested, fined, losing the boat and all of our equipment and going to jail; or, hang it all up dissolve Risky Business, liquidate our few assets, divvy up our investment money, call it a day and all go our separate ways. I felt like someone had just kicked me in the gut.

  None of the options were sitting well with any of us. We had two large charts spread out on the table, showing the coast from Stuart/Ft. Pierce to Cape Canaveral. We had marked the approximate locations of the known wrecks or areas where treasure and cannons had been found with a red grease pencil. Through this whole discussion, I had noticed Doc Greene had been staring at the charts intently, more so than anyone else. Now, he spoke, “You know Gentlemen, we may have another option to consider.”

  Chapter Three

  Doc Greene stood and pushed back his chair, leaning over the maps on the table. With his finger, he drew an oval around the marked wreck sites. “So, these are the wrecks that have been identified and are being worked.”

  I said, "Yes.”

  He paused and then said, “There were 11 ships in the fleet, and only one survived?”

  Again, I said, "Yes."

  He continued, "There have been six or seven ships identified, so that leaves either three or four ships unaccounted for." There was not a sound in the room; where was he going with this?

  Lawrence spoke up, “Yes, but the area where they are suspected to have sunk, is all under lease as I pointed out earlier."

  Doc Greene paused and, looking at us sitting around the table like a professor about to announce final grades, said, “What about the twelfth ship?”

  You could have heard a pin drop as we gawked at him in astonishment.

  “The what?” I blurted out. What the hell was he talking about? When I gathered my wits about me, I said, “What do you mean the twelfth ship? There were only eleven in the fleet; we have copies of the records documenting that.” That’s when the Cheshire cat grin spread across his face.

  "That’s what your records say, but that’s NOT what my records say."

  Again, stunned silence… after a few moments, Dimitri spoke, "Please, Doc, do go on!”

  Still smiling, he said, "As you wish, but we’ll need much more to drink for this story."

  Mitch, our server and bar manager, who was also the daughter of the owners, delivered a new round of beverages as we all pondered Doc’s revelation in brooding silence. Doc returned to his seat, settled back with a cold beer in his hand, and said, "I do believe my visit to Seville will prove to be worth its weight in gold if you’ll pardon the pun." We were all still so stunned nobody caught his joke, so he continued. "I reviewed the volumes of documents concerning the 1715 fleet, and they confirmed what we already knew. However, going over them again, I found an obscure log entry from the commandant of the fort at St. Augustine. It was about a sailor on the last ship in the fleet. It was a page that had gotten folded over and a notation in the official commandant’s log, almost as an afterthought. Hardly legible, however, I scrutinized it closely and came up with this bit of information. He stated a black ship had passed them on their starboard side heading north-northeast at dusk the evening before the hurricane hit. It had a rather strange sail configuration and was traveling much faster than his vessel.” He paused. “That would have been the twelfth ship. I looked back over the documents thoroughly, and there was no mention of this vessel anywhere in the official 1715 fleet records."

  We were engrossed in Doc’s story now, leaning forward in our chairs, eyes glued on him with our drinks practically untouched. He continued, "I reviewed the records from the Port of Havana to see if I could find any reference to this mystery ship. After more digging, there it was: a notation of a special vessel sailing under direct orders from King Philip V himself, that had docked in the harbor. It was loaded with an unspecified cargo and had no passengers other than guards. A portion of the cargo, however, had Come from South America. No more information was given. There was a side notation that additional cargo from the mint in Mexico City was included. Her departure date was listed as the same date as the Plate Fleet, but it was not registered as part of it.”

  Breaking our spellbound silence, Mitch stuck her head in the room and said that "the bar was closing in ten minutes," and she needed to cash us out. She saw the consternation on everybody’s face and hesitated. We pulled money from our pockets and began putting it on the table. She must have sensed the level of tension in the room; she took our money and said, “I’ve got a couple of hours of book work to do in the office, so if you guys aren’t done and want to hang around a little longer, I’ll lock the outside door. Just let me know when you’re ready to leave." A huge sigh of relief was expelled by one and all. As she was leaving the room, she turned back and said, "You know where the taps are. Don’t get thirsty just because we're closed,” smiled and left.

  It’s good to be a regular! We were like kids at a Saturday adventure matinee and immediately turned back to Doc and said, "Go on, man; go on!”

  He took another swallow of his beer and began again. “As I read through every document I could find, there was nothing about this ship and not a word about it reaching Spain. I reviewed the documents from the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, where a number of the survivors of the 1715 fleet’s shipwrecks made their way afterward. There, I found an entry concerning a sailor that was brought to the garrison. He told the following story. Let me read it so you can get an accurate feel for what was said; we will really need to discuss this later!”

  “It was reported that on August 9, 1715, a sailor was brought into the garrison at St. Augustine nearly dead. He was dehydrated, sunburned, and delirious. After two days in the infirmary, he could finally recount his story. He had been on a vessel under orders from the king himself when it got caught in a tremendous storm, the hurricane. As the captain realized his ship was lost, he sent this sailor and nine others out in a longboat with ten crates. He told them they had to get to St. Augustine and then to Spain and deliver the crates directly to the king. They pushed away from the ship and turned landward. Only a short distance from the ship, looking back as lightning lit the night sky, they saw the mighty galleon rise and then get inundated by a huge wave.

  “To their horror, she never returned to the surface. Fearing for their own lives, they manned the four sets of oars and pulled with all their might toward what they hoped was shore. After what seemed like hours, they found themselves in breaking waves. At first, they thought they had made it to the shore break; too late, they realized it was a shoal. The waves tossed their boat into the air and then smashed it upon the jagged coral just below the surface. As their boat was broken to pieces, the impact threw the sailor through the air and into the frothing cauldron, never to see his comrades again.

  He found a piece of floating debris and clung to it for dear life. He must have passed out, for when he regained consciousness, he was lying face down on a sandy beach. The sun was shining, and his crewmates were nowhere in sight.” Doc paused and finished what was left of his beer as he surveyed the rapt faces staring at him across the table.

  I rocked back in my chair, staring into space, trying to process the bombshell that had just been dropped by our dear friend, Doc Greene.

  "Holy shit!” I exclaimed under my breath, "Doc, do you know what this means?”

  As he looked at me, he grinned and said, “Colt, of course, I know what this means. It means there is indeed a treasure ship out there to be found, and very probably in a place no one else has thought to look!
”

  The enormity of his revelation started to sink in as everyone began to speak at once. “What was the ship’s location? What did she carry? What was in the crates loaded on the longboat?”

  "Hold on, guys," he said. "There’s more,” and he began again. “The story about the sailor ends here. He was in such bad shape he died that same day without revealing the approximate location of the ship or small boat’s sinking. I dug further and looked into the Seville archives and found a reference to the Nuestra Senora de Conception, a personal ship of the king, leaving the port bound for Havana on September 10, 1714. That would have put her in Havana by around the middle of February 1715. That could easily accommodate a departure from Havana in July 1715, the same time as the treasure fleet. Also in the Seville records, it noted that half of her 126 cannon, cannon, balls, and powder had been left behind. I thought that highly unusual for a galleon heading into an area notorious for pirates with only half its normal armament.”

  By now, we had burned up our two-hour window provided by Mitch and decided we had best adjourn for the night. Getting everyone to leave and agree to wait for the rest of Doc’s story till later was like pulling teeth from an alligator. It could be done but would be damn difficult! Eventually, all agreed, and after leaving another pile of money on the table, decided that we would continue the discussion the next evening on the Lisa B.

  By the time we left, it was almost two a.m., and I don’t even remember my drive home. My head was literally a whirling maelstrom of information, questions, suppositions, and excitement. I had gone from the pits of despair at the thought of all our work being for naught earlier in the evening to the unbelievable heights of Doc’s revelation; it was almost too much to comprehend. The Z monster was kept at bay that night as sleep eluded me.