Wrecks most heavily hit?

[ou8acracker2]

Out of the vero beach/ft pierce wreck sites.

Which ones have been the most heavily salvaged, which ones have produced the most artifacts, and which wrecks have hardly been explored..

and then why for each one? Im all sorts of curious and dont want to do homework at the moment.

 

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[GOHO]

The most excavations have been conducted on the Douglas Beach and Cabin wreck sites.

Douglass Beach has produced more Gold coins than all the other wreck sites combined. Cabin has produced the most silver.

Why they are the most salvaged?

Because they are the closest to each inlet...

the least explored site is Sandy Point...

 

[ou8acracker2]

What about the Rio Mar wreck? The manifest on this one is pretty heavy. Why hasnt that been salvaged to to end? Other than location from an inlet

 

[aquanut]

What about the Rio Mar wreck? The manifest on this one is pretty heavy. Why hasnt that been salvaged to to end? Other than location from an inlet

The Rio Mar wreck wasn't carrying treasure on it's manifest.
Aquanut

 

[ou8acracker2]

Really? I would assume you have better access to manifests than I, but ive read on more than one occasion it was. Small amounts, but treasure none the less..not to mention contraband.

 

[GOHO]

Riomar I believe was Echeveres's Capitana and had lots of treasure listed...

There has been lots of gold recovered from this wreck back in the early days of salvage... In 1997 Kane Fisher recovered 48 Bogata two's from this site. I have recovered several gold coins and a small jewelry pices with an emerald from this site too.


Riomar has GREAT potential for GOLD!!!!

 

[ou8acracker2]

Well whats the catch...other than it being further from inlets (11 miles total from google earth I quickly looked at) and not millions on pesos and other such treasure..all the manifests Ive seen on it are relatively the same but arent huge..great if it hasnt been salvaged alot but not huge.

Ive heard something that the low tide reef sticks up about the waterline...is this the reason no one does it since they cant get their twin screw 30 foot diesels in here or?

 

[aquanut]

I don't pretend to be anywhere near the treasure hunter you are Greg, I'm one of your biggest fans! I know you are better informed than I on all the workings of the 1715 fleet. But just to pass this on...My information stems from what was known of the manifests according to the Fisher's when I worked the fleet in the mid nineties. I was told that whatever treasure Echeveres's Capitana was carrying, it was not on the manifest, Ubilla's fleet was carrying the treasure. Therefore, anything on any of Echeveres's fleet would be contraband or personal items. I also understand there was an enthusiastic treasure hunter that literally moved that huge pile of ballast stones, one by one, without finding much of anything. Not a wreck I'm interested in.
Good luck to anyone who decides to carry on with this one.
Aquanut

 

[itmaiden]

The Rio Mar was very heavily salvaged by the Spanish as it was easy to get to and not very deep. There may be more lying under that golf course

The theory that the Rio Mar and Sandy Point Wreck may have been part of the same was worth considering. But I have had serious thought on that , and I am just not convinced. The number of Cannons from the Sandy Point + Cannons from the Rio Mar ? If you do an underwater search around the Rio Mar, there just isn't a lot of evidence of anything else except for a couple of small debris locations. For other wrecks, sand can hide much. The Hurricane blew a lot of sand around too. So my choice would be to go 15 to 24 feet down within the sand at more difficult wreck sites. And salvagers have been making blow holes for quite some time. Thing is...you got to get in the right spot ! Happy Hunting maties !

itmaiden

What about the Rio Mar wreck? The manifest on this one is pretty heavy. Why hasnt that been salvaged to to end? Other than location from an inlet

 

[GOHO]

Pertaining to Riomar and Sandypoint.....




(Santa Fe 430) - 19 June 1718 - King writes governor of Cartagena. "I understand that concerning the goods carried on the ships of Echeverz which wrecked that many frauds were committed, and I want you to verify the following. According to Don Antonio Echeverz and his son Pedro, the amounts given to them from the treasury in Cartagena to be carried to Spain in 1714 were as follows:

46,095 pesos 6 reales 10 maravedis in doubloons.
309 castellanos 7 tomines 6 granos in gold dust.
Two barretoncillos (Small Bars) of gold of 646 castellanos.
All belonging to myself (the King) or my Royal Treasury.

 

[ou8acracker2]

So there was treasure..most of which was salvaged Id assume due to wreck proximaty to shore and ease of access?

 

[GOHO]

with the amount of GOLD that Mel found and others, i would say they missed a lot!!!!


There is a small area that i still want to go back too that has lots of gold dust. One day i'm gonna set up a sluice box and pick it all up....

 

[ou8acracker2]

Im a geologist..your welcome to borrow my sluice box anytime youd like haha
Ill have a fine gold dust recovery system here soon as well

(own land in virginia in the pyrite gold belt haha)

 

[GOHO]

I have a 4' sluice box that i got years ago just for that purpose but i never got a chance to use it offshore. I still tell myself one day i'm gonna do it but havent yet...

Maybe if someone here wants to work the 1715 fleet, has a boat and wants to make a deal?........

 

[ou8acracker2]

Dont look at me..broke college student haha

 

[Au_Dreamers]

I think it's perfectly clear that modern salvage has disproved how "fully salvaged" these wrecks were by the Spanish.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Yeah Au - "Fully Salvaged" is a farce. They told us the Jupiter Inlet wreck was all worked out....we found 28 silver coins in our first weekend out. Last year we brought up over 130 silvers, 3 golds, and 3 rare and valuable Star of Lima coins. There is no such thing as a truly "worked out" wreck...everyone misses stuff and there is always more down there.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the cannon and anchor sites....they have barely been touched and according to the records some REALLY nice stuff came from there. I know people could have lied about where they found things, but are these two areas really not deserving of a mention in this thread?

 

[ou8acracker2]

I honestly havent even looked into those two sights..they really arent that mainstream. Im going to do some digging and see what I can find..in records that is

 

[ScubaFinder]

I don't know the whole story, but the artifact database that the Fisher's (and Bill Moore) mantain had some really nice religious stuff listed as coming from those "wrecks". I emphasize wrecks because I don't believe enough material has come off of either to warrant an actualy wreck, most likely sections of another boat that broke apart and drifted there. Which known vessel would have two mising parts? ;-) I don't know, I've also heard that the stuff actually came from another area and the salvors made up bogus coordinates on thier Daily Field Activity Log sheets. You never know what to believe, but if I had a fleet of ten boats, I think I'd have one of them there proving or disproving the theory. The area always interested me a lot, but you never see a boat working there.

 

[ScubaFinder]

I just remembered how i came across that data. When I worked in the artifact lab with Bill, I was in that database all day long adding pictures and measurements of every artifact that came in. One day I did a query to list the artifacts by point value from highest point value to lowest. Like 6 out of the top 10 point value artifacts were listed as having come from one of the two sites. The best thing to do would be to question Bill Moore, I did but he was a little vague, like he knew the numbers may have been fudged, but wasn't ruling out that some of the stuff came from there. If you had found one of the top point value artifacts from the 1715 fleet, would you ut down the actual coordinates? I would, but I know many that wouldn't. In my opinion, the more important fact is to have accurate data on everything.