Know anything about the San Augustin wreck near drakes bay?

[Larsmed]

hello all

I am interested in finding anything I can about a Spanish galleon wreck called the san augustin that wrecked just south of san francisco, near drakes bay. It was recorded as not a total loss by NOAA. I t was siad the ship carried treasure by historians, however the federal gov reports it was not treasure, just supplies on the point reyes parks site.

To what I have seen it has not yet been found.

I would greatly appreciate any info on this long lost galleon if you can post it!!

thanks

larry

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

OHIO: Just a few possible corrections to aid. Drakes bay is to the north of the golden Gate - San Francisco - in Marin county.


I believe that timbers from it have been recovered in Drakes bay itself ??

For a few hrs of fun reading on this ship go to ------> Google ->Galleon San Agustin, wreched on California coast.

Luck

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Mackaydon]

Larry:

The first recorded shipwreck in California is that of the San Augustin, a Spanish Manila galleon, which was driven ashore in a gale in 1595 and was anchored in Drake’s Bay, northwest of San Francisco.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_history_of_California)

In 1594, the galleon San Augustin sailed from Manila with treasure. She had a secondary mission to scout good ports of refuge along the California coast. The ship arrived off the California coast near Trinidad Head, just south of the California-Oregon border. The ship continued down the coast to Drakes Bay, just north of San Francisco. While in the bay, the ship wrecked in a storm becoming the first known shipwreck in California. The sailors used one of the galleon's launches to return to civilization. Today, National Park Service archeologists search for the remains of San Augustin. http://www.mms.gov/omm/pacific/kids/manilagalleons.htm

Twenty years ago, I was involved with Bob Marx attempting to locate the San Augustin. At this site
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gf...ig=NGrYaZJ4Igls84eBe-OCAksoDEg&hl=en#PPA98,M1
and beginning on page 97 of Marx's book, Treasure Lost at Sea (2004), you can read an interesting history of the San Augustin, our (unsuccessful) attempts to locate her remains; and the government's ongoing attempts to work the site.
Don.....

 

[HAVE DETECTOR WILL TRAVEL]

I know that a fella might of been Marx was allowed to locate it but he couldn't disturb anything at the bottom, not even the silt. Yea ya got a love the people in charge in cali. They tried to make it a law that a truck driver couldn't smoke in his own rig because it was a work place. If you just read that and didn't laugh than you may like cali. but on a serious note i would of gone and excavated and had that place worked and on display a long #*% time ago. I think anyone who truly loves history would do the same, don't you?

 

[Mackaydon]

I don't equate breaking the law with the love of history, so my answer would be 'no'.
Don.....

 

[mariner]

I would be surprised if there is information about where the San Agustin was lying when it was wrecked. Cermeno's own account says that he had taken a party of his men on a small expedition inland and that when he came back he found that the ship had been wrecked. It was somewhere in the vicinity of what is now called Drake's Estero. Cermeno built a small boat out of the San Agustin's timbers and sailed it back to Mexico. Cermeno's account of the voyage is reproduced in HR Wagner's "Spanish Expeditions to the South West Coast".

Incidentally, Cornelius, who used to post her very often, claims that he had found the wreck of the San Agusin several years before Bob Marks claimed to have done so.

Mariner

 

[HAVE DETECTOR WILL TRAVEL]

Don, how you came to the conclusion of me wanting to break the law I'll never know. I know its a state park, and that's why you won't see me out there, ever. If the decision was left to me, i would have worked it along time ago for the public to enjoy. Sorry that has nothing to do with breaking the law.

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

I was wondering if you could specify what Marx was allowed to do around the site. Was he just allowed to detect down the mouth of Drake's Estero, and magnometer 200 feet along the shore of Limantinour Beach, just out of the bounds of the nature preserve shoreline? The discussions of his involvement swings from him being told he would be arrested if he ever entered the park, to being able to do a lot of work and find items including that gold pendant. Did you guys find any pottery or other indications anywhere else but at the estero mouth? Did you find any pottery and other indications along the front of Limantinour Beach running east from the estero mouth?

Drakes Bay seems to be kind of like a shallow bowl of sand constantly rocking back and forth. Metal and wood from many shipwrecks can be seen, especially near the middle of Limantinour. I think part or a majority of this shipwreck lies in the mouth of the estero, with items from it being thrown up on occasion as they are exposed through storm and tidal action. One idea put forward is that this is the strike area and debris field, and that there is another location where the rest of the ship finally lost its boyancy and went under. This may be a good explanation for why some pottery is worn down (because it is in a high energy area) and some of the pottery appearing almost new (low energy area.)

I can't fault the NPS on this shipwreck. A lot of the stuff on it has no other significance than that it came from this shipwreck. I think, as the smallest (200 tons) of the three Manilla Galleons sailing that year, and tasked with charting the coast, it was mainly full of spices, china in boxes, and bales of silks and textiles. The ceramics were supposed to be worth "their weight in gold" in Europe. So, there's not really going to be anything of interest to modern treasure seekers. The treasure is the ship's story and history.

Never take anything found on Limantinour Beach out of the park except shells. It's against the law, and the item immediately loses all its historical connection to the wreck. So, instead of knowing that an item worth practically nothing was historicly included on the ship, it just becomes something you could have gotten off of e-bay from a well documented wreck for under 30.00. I have turned in things found on the beach at the park visitor center and the ranger station on Bear Valley Road and they have never given me any problems over it.You also cannot use metal detectors in the park.

 

[Galleon Hunter]

Don: The San Augustin is NOT the earliest recorded shipwreck off the coast of California. The earliest one I came up with occurred more than 50 years earlier. Here is an excerpt from my book.

1540. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortez ordered three small caravels, under the command of Captain Francisco de Ulloa, to explore the coast of California. Before reaching the waters of California, one of the ships, the Santo Tomás, was scuttled and another, the Santa Agueda, sent back to Mexico. The remaining ship, the Trinidad, 35-tons, continued on alone and during the summer was in the vicinity of San Diego. By the end of August, the tiny caravel was moored off San Luis Rey and all of the men were placed ashore due to sickness. While the crew was ashore, a storm blew and the Trinidad disappeared (apparently the anchor cable parted and the vessel drifted to places unknown). In recent years there has been a great deal of publicity concerning persons claiming to have located this shipwreck as well as claims that a substantial amount of treasure has been recovered from the wreck. However, no evidence to substantiate the claim of the discovery and no proof of any treasure has turned up. Even if the wreck is discovered, there is little chance that the Trinidad carried any treasure at all, except for the few personal effects belonging to members of the crew. Various theories place the wreck site the near Santa Ana River, or somewhere off Point La Jolla. (Note: The first published account of the Ulloa expedition can be found in Francisco Lopez de Gomara’s book, the Conquista de Mexico, probably written shortly after 1542. A few years later, in 1556, an extended account of the expedition appears in G.B. Ramusio’s Navigationi et Viaggi, volume III, translated in Italian and purported to have been written by Francisco Preciado, who witnessed and recorded the events of the voyage in the form of a diary. That Preciado wrote in Spanish seems most likely, but if so the original has disappeared. In 1600, the Italian version was translated by English historian Richard Hakluyt and published in Principal Navigations, volume III. (1,4,11,12,40,60,101)

Galleon Hunter

 

[Mackaydon]

As part of Marx's group at Drake's Bay, I don't recall the specifics of what we were allowed to do around the site. Recall also, that our involvement there was about 20 years ago. I can, however, refer you to the records of the California State Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission who were involved in the decision to disallow us from "working in the sand" of Drake's Bay. I'd wager that within their archives files the answer to your inquiry can be found.

My sketchy recollection is we found pottary shards and did remote sensing to the point of being able to create an "X marks the spot" of highest probability--but we were never given permission to do "dig"--nor did we.
Don.....

 

[Galleon Hunter]

Here is the excerpt from my book on the San Augustin. I spent a lot of time talking to Marx. I also have a bunch of stuff from the NPS, and need to update the section with the things that have occured since Marx.

1599. A large Manila galleon, the San Agustin, 200-tons, Captain Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno (or Cermeho or Camenon), on a voyage from the Philippines to Acapulco, wrecked off Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco Bay, and the vast majority of the persons aboard perished. Although several books on sunken treasure indicate that the galleon carried an immense fortune in gold and silver, research conducted by Robert Marx, indicates this to be false. According to Marx, her man cargo was silks, spices, and porcelain, with only a small amount of gold and silver ornaments and jewelry. Marx believes he has located the remains of San Agustin buried under the sands of Drake’s Bay and within the boundaries of the Point Reyes National Seashore Park. He sought permission from the National Park Service to excavate the site using propwash deflection. When the NPS denied permission, citing the high significance of the wreck, its location with a marine sanctuary and the ethical objections of funding the expedition through the sale off recovered artifacts, Marx filed a suit in admiralty court and sought permission from the State of California. In 1982, following a lengthy legal battle, the state approved Marx’s plan, but the National Park Service successfully blocked excavation. Marx is still awaiting permission to begin excavation work on the site.
(1,4,11,25,44,60,85,86,90,103,120,124,150,187,433,458,500) some sources say 1594?

Hope this helps,

Galleon Hunter

 

[mariner]

Galleon Hunter,

Please post details of your book. I would like to read it.

I think that a lot of nonsense has been written over the years about the Trinidad being wrecked. I think there is some evidence that Ulloa managed to get her back to Mexico. Read HR Wagner's ideas on the subject.

Mariner

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

Well, that's kind of specific, and non-specific I guess.

From what I have read from other sources, only 2 to 5 sailors drowned in the surf when the San Augustin broke up. The rest of the crew either swam ashore, or were off with a main group scouting the inside of the estero in a large canoe-type boat they had brought over from the Phillipines. I think the date I have read is late 1595.

Here are a few pics from the area:

Looking across the mouth of the estero at high tide:



A better picture. The cliff at right is a canidate as where Drake brought up his ship and repaired it before sailing across the Pacific.




Stuff I found:

Steel hull plating from a gold rush era shipwreck and a small sliver from a very old copper or brass coin. Might be a large US cent, but is probably a maravedis or peseta, and they have a picture of one at the Drake's Bay center.



Atypical china bowl shard with little sea wear found on the beach, brought in by the tide.



A bottle top I stepped on in the surf. Don't know how old it is, but it had marks around the base of the neck from where an iron rod was used to shape the top. Next to it is a very old teak board that I'm pretty sure was a cargo container box or a piece of the ship.



I think I have gotten tired of looking for stuff from it at this point. The rest of the park is very beautiful and unique. They have a beach clean up day and a sandcastle competition coming up soon.

It would be interesting to find the cannons from this ship. The guncaster employed by the Spanish in the Phillipines had a lot of Arab influence, and the guns may have designs on them typical of period Indian or Arab manufacture. The ship was named for a saint, and a church was dedicated to him at Manilla.

 

[mariner]

CS,

Thanks for the pics. I do not know if the San Agustin was armed with cannons. Most of the Spanish ships in the Pacific in the 16th century did not feel the need to be armed, even after the incursion of Drake in1579. They chose to load more cargo, believing that they were safe on the "Spanish Lake" I think the San Agustin wreck was right around the time that they were reconsidering this policy following Cavendish's capture of the Santa Ana in 1587.

Mariner

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

That's a good point, and more than I know about their policy at the time. The small size of the ship and how they were designed to carry trade goods would make a gun deck seem improbable. It was in a group of three ships, and it was not uncommon later to have one ship in a group go armed and the others stow their guns away. It's another great question about this ship.

 

[mariner]

CZ,

I am pretty sure that the San Agustin was traveling alone, not as part of a fleet of three. Don't get mixed up with the Ulloa expedition which was mentioned during this thread and which did have thre ships, including the TRinidad.

The San Agustin was commanded by Sebastian Rodrigues Cermeno, and a facimile of his diary is reproduced in Henry Wagner's "Spanish Voyages to the Southwest Coast of America", and no doubt elsewhere. Cermeno's main mission was to find a suitable port on the coast of Northern California where the Manila Galleons could put in, get water and other supplies, and allow their crews and passengers to rest. Cermeno was allowed to bring some goods from the Philippines to help pay for his voyage, but the San Agustin was not one of the annual Manila Galleons, as some people have suggested. I think that Cermeno was Portuguese, but working for the Spanish.

Mariner

 

[mariner]

Incidentally, I think that Cermeno was probably also the owner of the San Agustin, and as the San Agustin was a Spanish ship, or sailing under the Spanish flag, the 1902 Treaty of Friendship between the United States and Spain means that it is not abandoned, therefore does not come under the 1987 Abandoned Ships Act, and so does not belong to the United States or California. Even though Cermeno left the wreck behind when he headed back to Mexico in the ship's boat, he might have intended to recover some of the cargo on a future visit, so this action alone would not constitute "abandonment". He would have had to specifically say that he was abandoning the wreck. The wreck and its contents belong to the legal successors of Cermeno, and anybody interested in trying to examine and recover the wreck and its contents should track down the current heir of Cermeno and get his/her agreement to do so. This might not be as difficult as it may first seem. I have located the current successor of several 16th century figures.

Mind you, be prepared for a lot of grief from the California and Federal Authorities, and first of all ask yourself whether it is worth the effort. I doubt that it would be, which is why I have never bothered to try it.

Mariner

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

One source says that the San Agustin set sail in July of 1595 in the company of two larger galleons, the Margarita and the San Felipe. All three ships carried the usual cargo bound for Mexico. They must have split up when they hit the coast of California. None of these ships may have had any cannons.

From another source, Cermeno sailed his own ship the San Pedro to Manila. It was a harrowing trip and Cermeno, a skilled navigator and excellent leader, determined the San Pedro would not be up to the challenge of crossing the Pacific Ocean. He proceeded to make arrangements for leasing another ship called the San Agustin and securing the finest crew he could assemble to chart the new lands of upper California.

Supposedly, the ship leaked by the time they got to the coast, causing them to have to man the pumps 24/7. Some of the crew argued that he should just head for Mexico. He decided to stay several weeks at the bay, and the ship was wrecked. This may have been the reason several of the men chose to walk back to Mexico instead of travel down the coast with him in the boat they had brought from the Phillipines. They had lost their confidence in him.

There was an attempt at salvage several years later, I think in 1603. I think ownership is a moot thing at this point. It is sitting in the path of a major seal sea egress, partly in a national shoreline preserve. I think it's a good day trip for tourist who think they will find a gold coin on the beach.

 

[mariner]

CS,

Your post shows the importance of going back to original sources, instead of relying on second hand interpretations.

The same Henry Wagner book that I quoted for the facsimile reproduction of Cermeno's account of his voyage also contains a facsimile account of the log/diary of Rodrigues Sebastian Vizcaino, who set off from Mexico to explore the Pacific coast in 1602 and anchored briefly in Drake's Bay. Some of his crew had been with Cermeno, and testified that this was the same bay where Cermeno had wrecked. Off the top of my head, I am pretty certain that Vizcaino did not try to salvage anything from the San Agustin, and did not even find any evidence of the wreck. As I say, you can read the facsimile reproductions of the commanders of these two expeditions, and Wagner, who was a very capable historian (if California-centric) provides an English translation of both.

ps Vizcaino was on the Santa Ana when it was captured by Cavendish, and wrote a letter to his father describing the experience.

Best wishes,

Mariner

 

[cuzcosquirrel]

That Henry Wagner book sounds like a great book.