Tales from the Logbook--The Treasure of the Atocha

 

On Sunday, July 21, 1985, I did two “fun” dives from Sea Ventures out of Port Hueneme at Santa Cruz Island.  We sandwiched the dives in between divemaster training sessions on the surface with Curt Wiessner, owner of Santa Barbara Aquatics.  I took a legal-sized pink abalone on the first dive.  Other divers returned to the boat with several “short” (less than legal size) abalones.  Curt gave these divers a very stern but enlightening lecture about taking game, the need to know how to identify the species and size and bag limits set by the California Department of Fish and Game.  The short abalone were taken back to the bottom and placed on rocks in hope they would survive. 

The other “big” underwater story that day, unfolding in a non-descript part of the Florida Keys halfway between Key West and the Dry Tortugas, began to circulate nationally.  On Saturday, divers working for Mel Fisher located a sunken treasure “mother lode”—piles of gold and silver and other valuable objects from the galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha’s sinking in 1622.  Each of the three national television network’s Sunday evening news broadcasts prominently featured the story.  Greater detail on the extent of the treasure, described as “40 tons of gold and silver… expected to be found” emerged in the following days and weeks.

Something about sunken treasures captures the public’s attention in general and a diver’s attention in particular.  It is a fascination from which few are immune.  I recall as a kid seeing stories of sunken treasure in magazines like Argosy that I thumbed through while waiting in the local barbershop for a haircut. They transported me to exotic locales. Today, sunken treasure stories still do.

Over the next few weeks, the story of the Atocha fascinated me.  My dive buddies and I spoke of it often in conversations that started “if I had found it…” Like all breaking news, the story eventually fades from the headlines and attention wanes only to be rekindled from time-to-time.  The other big underwater story of that summer was the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic by undersea explorer Robert Ballard in early September.  Shipwreck and treasure fever seemed to grip the public’s attention.

A paperback book rekindled my interest in the Atocha when I found, Treasure, by Robert Daley at the Front Page bookstore on Calle Real in Goleta shortly after its release in April 1986.  Originally published in 1977, the book tells the story of Mel Fisher’s long search for the wreck..  The cover of the 1986 paperback re-release screams “FOUND THE SHIPWRECK FORTUNE OF THE CENTURY.  The book essentially updates the 1977 edition with details of the find.  The story fascinated me.  I reread my copy until pages started to separate from the binding.

I consumed nearly all media related to the Atocha.  Several other books followed the discovery, most of which I purchased and read upon their publication.  My parents made a videotape recording of Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story, a made for television movie starring Cliff Robertson and Loretta Swit broadcast on November 15, 1986.  As much as I wanted to see the production, I was at UCSB that evening attending a lecture by Robert Ballard about the discovery of the Titanic.

Following the inventory and appraisal of the raised treasure, investors in Mel Fisher’s company, Treasure Salvors, received a share of the treasure proportional to their annual investment in the endeavor.  Many of the silver bars started appearing on television home shopping shows as the investors sought to monetize their treasure.  Some of the bars were melted down and struck into replica coins.  I purchased one of these coins through an advertisement in a scuba magazine in the early 1990s.  I still wear it to this day.

The fascination with sunken ships as historic sites kindled by the Atocha and Titanic led me to become a volunteer diver with Channel Islands National Park mapping shipwreck sites in 1989.  I spent hours underwater searching and mapping shipwreck sites.  I was hired by the Park as the maritime historian in 1992.  I recall reviewing Sunken Treasure by Gail Gibbons. The children’s book, which tells the story of the Atocha, was being considered for sale in the Park’s Visitor Center gift shop.  While I thought the author did a fine job, the book was not offered for sale because 1) it had no connection to Channel Islands National Park and 2) it cast treasure hunting in a positive light which is contrary to the NPS’s preservation orientation. 

On a scuba diving road trip with my brother in June 1986 from Key Largo to Key West in June 1996, we visited a couple of shipwreck and diving exhibits but did not see the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. We visited the Hemingway House but I seem to recall the Fisher Museum was not open.

Over the next 30 years I would be involved in various aspects of shipwreck detection, site assessment and preservation as an element in my job.  I never dreamed that an event like the finding of a treasure ship would have such a profound effect on my life.