I Story of finding Spanish Sunken Treasure
By Tim Sherman
I am just and old fart with a dream and by no way a scammer. If I was do you really think I would put a picture of myself up there to show you what I look like. I have been scammed a few times in my life and I know it doesn’t feel good. You could say that I got scammed back in the early 90’s by the group from Upstate New York . I was a new diver and had done 30 or forty dives and went diving with this operation at Lake George New York and we found a old Admiral T Anchor that the group leader said it should be turned in to the Historical Society, so be quite because we are not turning it in. I should had known right then and there what kind of people I was dealing with.
I decided to take a trip to the Florida Keys that they were sponsoring. We were all treasure hunting hopefuls and couldn’t wait to get down there. The group consisted of me, in my early 40”s, male in fairly good shape seeing I was in the National Guard at the time. The group Leader and dive shop owner who was a loosely diver and could hardly swim but had a girl friend who was a dive instructor and help run the dive shop back in Latham New York.
I flew to Florida with a lawyer, and rental cop. We were met in Florida by the Dive shop owner and girl friend, she had an itinerary planned for us. Wreck diving at 100 feet, National Park Dive, and a special treat with Jordan a old treasure hunter who had a prop wash boat and had found some of the Atocha Treasure but loss in a court battle and had to give it back to Mel Fisher .
Well the wreck did was fun and so was the National Park Dive. Oh we also did a night dive. But the real excitement came when were heard we were going to Coffins Patch off mile marker 52 in the Keys where one or more Spanish Galleons had sunk. So many divers had laded claim to this area that the Florida Courts open up this area to all Treasure Hunters and Jordan was going to show off and take us out there to look for some treasure. The group leader was giving us a briefing of what was going to happen and what to expect, and said if we did get a hit and find something to please keep it quite and not to let the Captain Jordan know or we would have to share it with him. I really didn’t think we would find any thing so I went along with the Idea.
His boat was about 40 feet and did have those prop wash tubes on it but we never saw it work. We were going to use the hookah system in about thirty feet of water. There were only two hookah systems so we took turns with the rental cop and Jordan taking the first dive. They were down about 30 to forty minutes and Captain Jordan came up with a piece of eight. That was exciting. Then it was our turn, the dive group had two under water metal detectors for us to share and the leaders were on scuba watching us etc.
I was searching about 15 minutes when I came across some ballast rocks and get I got a hit on the detector, I didn’t really know what to do so I waved over the group leader girl friend who immediately took the baseball size coral cover treasure that I had just found from me and gave the quite sign and then swam off to her boy friend the group leader who I remember was trying to paddle with his feet but wasn’t going any where because he really didn’t know how to kick his feet. This was the first time I had really seen him swim much and then I remember why he didn’t want to go on the 100 feet wreck dive, he would had never made it.
Well that was all the treasure we found that day, but I remember the group leader friend frantically taking land marks to be able to triangle late our location at a later date.
We got back to our hotel and the bells started to turn for the group leader to get a small battery charger a kitty litter plastic tub some wired alligator clips and silver spoon. At the time I didn’t know what they were doing but I figure it out spoon that they had made a electrolysis machine to clean off the coral.
I was never allow back in there room and when I ask about what we had found I was told it didn’t concern me and don’t ask again. What could I say I was sponsored by them they had all the equipment and I had paid them to come here. I figure why make a big deal out of it. I talked it over with the my lawyer room mate and he suggested I just let it go.
I found out later that my group leader and friend opened up a dive shop in the Keys in Marathon near the coffin patch area and in the dive shop in a glass show case they were showing off my find as if it was found by them.
Over thirty years have past and I never did get back to the Keys to see that piece, I still would like to see it and even wonder if that dive shop is even there. I moved to California and my love of finding Spanish Treasure has never dwindled. So the other day I was in my garage doing a search for something else and up can your web sight so my dream continues. I found the story that I posted on the web some time ago but saved it, I have heard about the other ships that went down off Catalina but the land is a State Par and you really can’t touch any thing if you found it. I t just a dream….but this story is real.
Linkback: You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login
http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,27260.msg193167.html#msg193167
|
|
Logged
|
|
