SPANISH
TREASURE BONANZA...THE 1997 RECOVERY
“John how’s your heart?” John
Curiale had just come up from the bottom and was hanging over the stern of
the 23-foot salvage boat Discovery. Handing
up his metal detector and pushing the mask back on his forehead, he gave
his smiling salvage partner kneeling over the stern a quizzical look.
“I guess it’s OK, why?”
Steve Hancock helped lift John’s diving gear aboard, then helped
pull his partner out of the water. He
hadn’t done that before, so John knew something unusual was up.
As soon as he was in the boat he understood, and even with a wet
suit on...a shiver went up and down his spine.
Spread out on Steve’s
wet suit was an assortment of gold rings--three of them with a large
emerald--several gold chains, one with a large medallion hanging on the
end, a cold cup, two gold toothpicks...he couldn’t believe his eyes!
He started shouting, and I guess Steve did a bit of shouting
himself! They were a hundred
yards offshore from a deserted beach, so no one heard them or they would
have thought these two treasure salvagers had flipped their lids.
IN fact, they shouted all the way back to Sembler’s Marina in
Sebastian where they docked their boat.
On the phone they tried to relay the news as calmly as possible to
their investor, but Scott Nierling caught the fever and was on his way to
Sebastian to help celebrate. It
was the greatest Spanish shipwreck treasure discovery of 1997.
Along the Florida east coast, all salvors working the various 1715 Spanish treasure galleons between Ft. Pierce and Sebastian are constantly aware of the “scatter pattern” of the various wreck sites. To date, six of the eleven sites of the wrecked galleons have been located, and their ballast piles have produced some fantastic recoveries over the past 37 years. Each salvor realizes that the passengers’ baggage contained great treasure, not so much in coins like the ship’s manifest, but in worked gold and silver artifacts and jewelry. Passengers’ baggage was carried by the current and waves northward from the wreck sites for miles, tumbling along the bottom or washing in and out from the beach until finally hanging up on a reef, where it came apart. As the treasure in the baggage settled to the bottom it found a convenient hole, crevice, or reef ledge to settle in.
Lucky boat! Steve Hancock's Discoveries, A 23-FOOT
TUNNELDRIVE CRAFT, sure has lived up to its name. Shown here at its berth
at Sembler's Marina in Sebastian.
Photo by: Steve Hancock.
That happened 282 years ago, and in most cases, ships’ artifacts, such
as iron, have long been covered with coral encrustation and become a part
of the local scenery. But
gold...gold is forever. It
remains as glittering yellow as the day the galleon sank in 1715.
It’s breathtaking when you first find gold on the bottom of the
ocean, even more breathtaking when there are gorgeous deep-green emeralds
set in some of the gold. Finding
gold is the end of the rainbow, and the rainbow often takes several years
to show up. Frustration,
perseverance, and some basic treasure hunting instinct are involved.
So the 1997 treasure recovery for Steve Hancock began quite a few
years ago.
Steve first began his
treasure hunt along the beaches opposite the 1715 Spanish wreck sites. It was the beginning of a dream for sunken treasure, swing a
metal detector at the edge of the water of back behind the sand dune line
after a nor’easter, when the beach sand had been stripped away.
He knew where the 1715 wreck sites were located, and he covered
these areas daily, trudging through loose sand under a hot sun for hours
at a time. Pretty soon
you’ve paid your dues. Steve
found treasure—more than most—including gold and silver coins, an
assortment of silver buckles, and a few gold rings, one with a large
emerald.
Along the way he got to know the various salvage divers working
offshore.
He
saw the results when the salvors turned in their recoveries, and it fueled
the desire in Steve to become his “own” salvor.
Most of the salvors knew Steve, or knew that he had been recovering
beach treasure. It was the
summer of 1992 when one of the salvors, Stephen Shouppe, invited Hancock
to join his diving team.
Diving season on
the 1715 fleet begins in late May, or early June, due to underwater
visibility—or easterly winds that roll some good size waves across the
inshore reefs. Shouppe had a large salvage boat Tequesta, a Caribbean blue
in color and as slow as molasses in January.
As the other salvage boats docket at Sembler’s Marina in
Sebastian headed out to the treasure sites, Tequesta remained tied to the
dock. Shouppe had a video
promotional commitment that had taken longer than he had anticipated, and
as the days passed his diving team—including Steve Hancock—was getting
antsy. Finally, on July 30,
the video was completed and Tequesta headed out to the wreck sites.
It was Steve
Hancock’s first year for salvaging “on site”, and it was a major
lead ahead in his dream of sunken treasure.
As the Tequesta crawled southward, Shouppe explained that he would
not be working the “Cannon Pile Wreck”.
He had been working this particular site for the past three years
and hadn’t found a great amount of artifacts; an ax head, lead musket
balls, cannon balls and a bar shot. There
were seven six-foot cannons lying on the ballast pile or around it.
Cannons are numerous along the Treasure Coast, as well as huge
galleon anchors, and unless a salvor is prepared to spend several years in
preserving them, they are left on the site.
They make good site markers. Previous
research had indicated that this wreck might have been English and had
come ashore in the early 1800s.
Lucky Divers! (L.- R.) Steve Hancock,
Investor - Diver Scott Nierling, And John Curiale had a treasure-diving
season to remember in 1997. Here they show off their "goodies"
aboard Discoveries.
At the end of the rainbow, Steve Hancock found
this "Pothole of Gold"! Gold and Emerald Rings, Gold Chains, a
Gold Medallion, Gold Toothpicks, Gold Wedding Bands, were among the
rewards for his years of perseverance.
Photo by: Scott Nierling.
The next day found Tequesta anchored over the site much earlier than the
day before. There were more
eager divers aboard that day, including Shouppe’s son and father. The day before, Steve Hancock hadn’t recovered gold, only
silver, but on this day he would come up with six large eight-escudos and
a Lima two-escudo. Everyone
was picking up silver coins, and before the scatter pattern of treasure
ended, they had recovered 400 silver four– and eight-reales.
It was a week that made treasure headlines in the local newspapers
and on television. Before the
year was up Shouppe raised three of the cannons.
The remaining four are still there, along with the ballast pile,
just inside the first reef and less than 100 yards from shore near the
development known as Golden Sands.
Steve Hancock felt
there was a similarity of this site to the other 1715 wreck sites, each
scattering their baggage to the north.
And passengers’ baggage always gives up some great treasures.
There was a distinct possibility that this wreck was one of the
missing 1715 fleet ships, regardless of the previous research.
It was 1994, and Stephen Shouppe was going to spend the summer in
the Philippines. Steve
Hancock and Davey Groves asked Shouppe if they could use the Tequesta
anchor boat, a small thirteen foot Boston whaler with a blower attached to
the engine, and continue searching northward from the ballast pile.
They would share a percentage with Shouppe of anything that they
recovered. Shouppe agreed and
gave them some expense money to boot.
That summer Steve and
Dave worked the reefs tot he north and soon began recovering silver
artifacts that presumably belonged to the priest on board the shipwrecked
vessel. They recovered an
intact silver vase, a gilded silver cup, parts of a large silver serving
tray, a silver knife handle, silver fork, and other broken silver parts.
Shouppe was pleasantly surprised when he returned from the
Philippines.
Then it was the
summer of 1997. The treasure
salvage season got off to an early start.
Thanks to El Nino the weather was exceptionally good, and
underwater visibility was excellent.
On the site of Nuestra Senora de las Nieves, just south of the Ft.
Pierce inlet, the treasure salvage boats were picking up quite a few
silver coins, and a few gold jewelry items as well.
Kane Fisher had
managed to locate a small hole filled with 48 gold one– and two-escudo
Bogata’ coins on the “Rio Mar Wreck” site of Echeverz’ 1715
Capitana. But Steve Hancock
and John Curiale, Hancock’s new diving partner were coming up with
“zip”.
Scottt Nierling had
become their silent partner, financing the diver operation that season
with a 23 foot open fisherman type of salvage boat and food and fuel
money. By the end of August
the ballast pile was quite a distance to the south, and the two divers
felt the scatter pattern had “given out”.
“Let’s jump to a new
spot.” Both agreed that the
trail they were on hadn’t produced anything.
They searched a bit more to the north and found another reef
system. Dropping anchor they
began “bird-dogging” roaming along
the edge of the reef. After
about thirty minutes Steve settled in behind the backside of a reef which
had a small sand pocket. Almost
immediately he got a hit on his metal detector and fanned about six inches
of sand away to hard bottom. Suddenly,
here was a treasure, a low-carat gold wedding band, obviously old Spanish.
As he did a circle search around the area he hot another hit.
It was a gold flower chain six feet long!
Then there was
another wedding band, then an emerald ring with three large square-cut
emeralds. Now there was gold everywhere!
Two gold toothpicks, another fold flower chain, ten more gold
rings, both high-carat and low-carat, including two more rings with large
square-cut emeralds were found. A
gold cup, badly crushed, materialized out of the sand, as well as a small
dinner bell. Suddenly Hancock
looked down at his hands...they were shaking!
He thought to himself, :That never happened to me before!” He looked for John and found him fanning away the bottom; he
had just recovered a gilded snuff box lid.
Upon closer examination later, they could make out the engraving of
two horsemen entering a city...possibly ancient Florence, Italy.
He gathered up what he
had recovered, swam back to the boat, and laid them out on his wet suit. It was about that time that John came up for air and Steve
asked about his heart. It was
the treasure discovery of the year. Scott
Nierling helped them finish up the salvage season, and the three of them
had cause for celebration, the kind of excitement that helps make the
Treasure Coast come alive again. The
trip to the end of the rainbow was a long one, but well worth the effort.
FROGFOOT
Bob Weller is not here at our toll free number. Please email Bob at: frogfoot@adelphia.net
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