He Thinks He Found $55M in Gold. There's a Problem

[ARC]

Just did a search... seems my "rating" may be off on the Go pro,,,

"The HD HERO Original, HD HERO2, and HERO3 cameras come in a protective waterproof case that is capable of withstanding depths of up to 197 feet "

 

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[Jason in Enid]

still doesnt make any sense. WHY is a bottom trawling fisherman putting lights and cameras on his net? Makes no sense. They dont care what else is down there, just run the net, haul it and dump the fish in the tank, repeat until full or out of fuel.

 

[ARC]

here is a go pro at 350 ... seems no probs.

 

[Jason in Enid]

yeah but there no way to know what housing this was in. factory? industrial? homemade? plastic? steel, aluminum...

 

[Force_of_Iron]

you can't view anything without Subscribing to the website , I'm not doing that ..

I wont click on links either.

 

[SanMan]

I wont click on links either.

Baloney, I refuse to join a club, or sign up for anything.

All I did was go there and read the story, and look at the pictures.

You guys probably suffer through the ads on youtube, and pop ups, and all that other garbage.

I haven't seen "any" in years.

You want some pointers on how to get rid of all that stuff, no problem, I'll help you.

"But don't come off talking about me like I'm some kind of spammer laying traps for you guys."

You can kiss my shiny stainless steel butt

 

[lukdiver]

Dragging in California in 'sensitive' areas big-thing. In article it details why he went thru effort to perfect net that doesn't scrape bottom and destroy structure the Greenies are protecting. I've seen these guys(including 'Pioneer') unloading at Fishermans Wharf SF many times. Tough way to make a living. It's funny as the commercial crabbers I knew blank-blank them as they snag their crabpots. Wouldn't put it past someone 'stress-testing' a GoPro. My understanding was they wouldn't drag that deep i.e.: 1000'. We've gotten 'hang-charts' from other draggers in the past when we were tech-diving wrecks out the Golden Gate and they guard them like Crown-Jewels. Spent 2-days in the chamber at Travis AFB so our days of deep wrecks are gone and now concentrating on shallow au.

 

[Madmox]

Dragging in California in 'sensitive' areas big-thing. In article it details why he went thru effort to perfect net that doesn't scrape bottom and destroy structure the Greenies are protecting. I've seen these guys(including 'Pioneer') unloading at Fishermans Wharf SF many times. Tough way to make a living. It's funny as the commercial crabbers I knew blank-blank them as they snag their crabpots. Wouldn't put it past someone 'stress-testing' a GoPro. My understanding was they wouldn't drag that deep i.e.: 1000'. We've gotten 'hang-charts' from other draggers in the past when we were tech-diving wrecks out the Golden Gate and they guard them like Crown-Jewels. Spent 2-days in the chamber at Travis AFB so our days of deep wrecks are gone and now concentrating on shallow au.

I’m kind of surprised they sent you to Travis and not Wrigley. And 2 days in a chamber sounds like abject hell.

 

[Force_of_Iron]

Just did a search... seems my "rating" may be off on the Go pro,,,

"The HD HERO Original, HD HERO2, and HERO3 cameras come in a protective waterproof case that is capable of withstanding depths of up to 197 feet "

Yeah but everyone here has seen submarine movies where they go way below their rated depths so there's that.

Just curious if you encased the same camera into a thick crystal sphere. What depth could you take it to?

 

[Madmox]

Yeah but everyone here has seen submarine movies where they go way below their rated depths so there's that.

Just curious if you encased the same camera into a thick crystal sphere. What depth could you take it to?

That’s pretty nebulous. A think crystal sphere, thick sealed and seamless.... Bottom of Challenger Deep.

 

[lukdiver]

I’m kind of surprised they sent you to Travis and not Wrigley. And 2 days in a chamber sounds like abject hell.

Wife was sum-what upset and said she'd take me fishing on a 'short' pier if I was wheelchair bound. Decided to skip anymore trips to Alaska diving wrecks after she doubled my life-insurance. Never had the guts to tell her it was WAY beyond noaa 130' limit so not covered. I got off easy as twin brother continued trips and ended up with both shoulders totally replaced. Shallow wrecks much easier and perfect for old divers.

 

[Honest Samuel]

I wish Joe the best luck and hope that he is not paying the attorneys.

 

[Alexandre]

Quoting the article:

"Even now, Joe won’t reveal exactly how he decided to deploy the SeaViewers. But he built a custom contraption to hold them in place, relying on the same sort of skills and scrap materials that he and his daughter used to make the Fisheye, the hydrofoil that housed the GoPro cameras."

yeah but there no way to know what housing this was in. factory? industrial? homemade? plastic? steel, aluminum...

 

[NPerry]

Great story thanks for posting this.

I hope Joe some day gets to find out what it is that he saw down there, but I hate to say that I am not convinced he saw gold, or a cannon. I have stared at hundreds of hours of tow camera footage and seen many objects that jump out at you like that, but its usually just trash of some kind. I have also wasted a lot of time trying to backtrack and relocate objects that just turn out to be a piece of plastic that probably fell off a fishing boat, but I swore it was something else. But if I felt as strongly as Joe does in this story I would absolutely go back and try to get a positive ID on the thing, I mean you never know...

The article mentions a few times about how you can not search these National Marine Sanctuaries on the west coast with divers or submersibles, that is just not true. There are no laws preventing anyone from diving and/or filming in any of our waters no matter what kind of sanctuary or MPA it is designated as. In an MPA you can not take fish, but you can dive and film all you want, all but a few even allow you to anchor in the MPA. In the National Marine Sanctuaries you may not collect objects from the bottom which are not allowed in the fishing regulations, but you are free to dive, film, and search all you want. Just don't disturb without permission. Not sure where they got that bit of bad info but Joe is free to go search for that thing all he wants. I search, dive, and film in this same string of National Marine Sanctuaries all the time.

Regarding GoPro camera housings that can tolerate depths of 1000+ feet, that is actually pretty easily done in a home shop (small lathe and mill), or they can be bought for around 600-800 bucks. I have built a number of them and use them on my drop cameras and tow sleds at depths well over 1000 feet. The difficult part is the lighting, which requires more underwater housings for the LED lights, and battery power.

 

[Bum Luck]

Baloney, I refuse to join a club, or sign up for anything.

All I did was go there and read the story, and look at the pictures.

You guys probably suffer through the ads on youtube, and pop ups, and all that other garbage.

I haven't seen "any" in years.

You want some pointers on how to get rid of all that stuff, no problem, I'll help you.

"But don't come off talking about me like I'm some kind of spammer laying traps for you guys."

You can kiss my shiny stainless steel butt

He probably just was browsing in private mode or something or with an ad blocker. Sites are finicky these days.

 

[SanMan]

He probably just was browsing in private mode or something or with an ad blocker. Sites are finicky these days.

I use an ad-blocker.
Sometimes two of them, so long as they don't conflict with each other.

 

[sirwilliam]

Joe Pennisi can't attempt to retrieve the possible treasure.

Around 2am one September night in 2014, Joe Pennisi started screaming in bed. His wife woke up, and he explained what had spurred the outburst: Video taken by GoPro cameras he had attached to the fishing net he used to trawl the seafloor off the California coast had captured a glinting, yellowish, rectangular object. Gold. Or so the fisherman thought—as many as 30 bars of it according to his review of his footage. The punchline of the story, reported in incredible depth by Tara Duggan and Jason Fagone for the San Francisco Chronicle, is that Pennisi doesn't have the gold today. Nor has he been able to even determine if it is gold. But between then and now he's mounted a mammoth effort to determine if he could do so. It has involved maritime lawyers, divers, NOAA staffers, and an expert who determined the haul could be worth $55 million. It's taken over his life at times. And there has been one tantalizing clue.

A major issue is that the gold he thinks he saw rests 1,000 feet deep in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary where he fishes. Federal law bars him from doing anything there but fish—including salvaging anything or using divers or robotic submersibles. The fines for doing so are staggering at up to $100,000 a day. But there was one potential way around it: He could file a federal suit known as an in rem action, in which Pennisi would present evidence of his find in court in a bid to gain title to the wreck. The problem is he needed much firmer evidence that something was down there. So he decided to swallow his fears of being caught by NOAA staff or sanctuary officials, go back to the scene, and look for that evidence. And then he found it—what looked like the cannon of the ship that would have theoretically been carrying the gold. But moments later, he "realized something awful."

Full Story,.....


https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2019/the-fishermans-secret/

*

That story is not true I know for a fact

 

[MiddenMonster]

That story is not true I know for a fact

Oh, come on man! You have to provide more information than that. "Joey Bag-a-donuts robbed the bank I know for a fact" wouldn't even be enough for the police to start an investigation, let alone make an arrest. How do you know for a fact?

 

[airborne1092]

Joe Pennisi can't attempt to retrieve the possible treasure.

Around 2am one September night in 2014, Joe Pennisi started screaming in bed. His wife woke up, and he explained what had spurred the outburst: Video taken by GoPro cameras he had attached to the fishing net he used to trawl the seafloor off the California coast had captured a glinting, yellowish, rectangular object. Gold. Or so the fisherman thought—as many as 30 bars of it according to his review of his footage. The punchline of the story, reported in incredible depth by Tara Duggan and Jason Fagone for the San Francisco Chronicle, is that Pennisi doesn't have the gold today. Nor has he been able to even determine if it is gold. But between then and now he's mounted a mammoth effort to determine if he could do so. It has involved maritime lawyers, divers, NOAA staffers, and an expert who determined the haul could be worth $55 million. It's taken over his life at times. And there has been one tantalizing clue.

A major issue is that the gold he thinks he saw rests 1,000 feet deep in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary where he fishes. Federal law bars him from doing anything there but fish—including salvaging anything or using divers or robotic submersibles. The fines for doing so are staggering at up to $100,000 a day. But there was one potential way around it: He could file a federal suit known as an in rem action, in which Pennisi would present evidence of his find in court in a bid to gain title to the wreck. The problem is he needed much firmer evidence that something was down there. So he decided to swallow his fears of being caught by NOAA staff or sanctuary officials, go back to the scene, and look for that evidence. And then he found it—what looked like the cannon of the ship that would have theoretically been carrying the gold. But moments later, he "realized something awful."

Full Story,.....


https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2019/the-fishermans-secret/

*

I just wanted to point out, that Pennisi is the one of the lead protagonist's name on a great comedy show by Broken Lizard (Supertroopers fame) called Tacoma FD.

 

[airborne1092]

i wanted to point something out too, after reading the entire story. Pennisi said the sea floor was several hundred feet down, not 1000'. the "1000 ft" is considering the length of his line. He's trawling, so his equipment will trail for a while before it's on bottom. Trigonometry, yo!