MARAVILLA

[mad4wrecks]

Does anyone know the years that Herbo Humphries excavated on the Maravilla?

Know of any links to websites dealing with his expeditions or the Maravilla shipwreck in general?

Gracias, Tom

 

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[abacopirate]

hurbo as working it in 1991 i think, and 92.

 

[FISHEYE]

tom,

Someone was working it recently.call me an ill tell you the details.

 

[Klaus33]

I was in Miami in August 1995 and I remember that the ship of HH was entering to the port (I believe from Bahamas) for a hurricane warning.

 

[mad4wrecks]

Thanks everyone for your replies. (Cornelius, I have that book-an awesome read!)

I have a good number of Maravilla artifacts from the Herbo expeditions and I was just trying to establish a timeline that they may have been recovered.

Tom

 

[FISHEYE]

Whoever was working this area brought up around 900 artifacts in the past several weeks.5 chests of gold coins,10 bronze cannons,silver plates and platters,30 muskets spanish an english as well as pistols and sabers.and 1 solid silver 3 foot tall statue of the virgin mary.

 

[Salvor6]

Hey Fisheye, you said "in the past several weeks." I thought the Bahamas was still closed to treasure hunting. Do you know who is working this area?

 

[FISHEYE]

A female friend i know from china was working as a free diver on the ship that was working this area.The crew was spanish or cuban.The ship is aprox 100 foot.painted the color of the ocean.the ships crew changed the name of the ship every 3 days useing 5 diff names.the ship has 3 cranes on deck.2 on the stern 1 on the bow.miami is thier base but the ship never comes within the 3 mile limit,they have a ship to shore boat on the stern.the ship is heavyly armed.50mm deck guns,rocket launchers.which they remove when they pick up on radar incomming boats and ships within 10 miles from them.all russian made.the ship has a double hull.the owner of the ship hired 5 scuba divers out of miami that had no clue about treasure wrecks.none were ever paid for thier 2 weeks of work. they worked this wreck in 75-80 feet of water somewhere 40-50 miles off miami,i assume the bimini area.there was a small island nearby that had nothing on it.they were pretty stealthy about working this wreck.i know more about this but i wont post it here,if anyone has any info about this ship.mail me.

 

[Peg Leg]

Who said there were no Big Time pirates around
Peg Leg

 

[abacopirate]

if they were working 50 miles off miami, it wasn't the maravilla. sorry ,but caps not working on my computer.

 

[stevemc]

A friend of mine Chuck Boyd, was one of the main divers with HH on that expedition. He has lots of pictures that werent in the book. Tom, I will have to get you 2 together, he is a wealth of knowledge. He also tells the real story about how shoddy it all was run, since all he wanted to do was write a book about it, and HHs mother cut him off, and they pulled out of the Bahamas right in the middle of the salvage. Almost as warped as the story of the discovery of the Atocha motherload, when told by the divers and what they where really doing when they stumbled on to it.

 

[guzz1]

I KNOW CHUCK BOYED AS WELL ,,I'V SEEN THE PICTURES , ITS ALL TRUE <<GUZZ1

 

[tac512ltd]

They certainly had a strange security ops plan. All that firepower on deck, then remove it when someone approached. Wonder what the point was? Just curious.

 

[signumops]

Tom:
Tippin and Humphreys produced a book about the digs on the Maravilla which covers most of their original discoveries with Art Hartman during the 87 - 88 seasons. Its called "In Search Of The Golden Madonna" and it went to press in 89. Softback... I picked up a used copy for about four bucks. Lots of photos.