In the mid 70's I got a phone call from Dennis Standefer. He was looking for investors for a project, but I didn't have any money to invest. I did suggest that he go to Dominica, and look for the 1567 fleet. He did go in the late 70's, and I never heard anything more. At the time I didn't know he was a scammer, and everybody that invested lost their money. He just disappeared into the sunset. In 2001, John Doering sent me an email and I found out he worked with Dennis in Dominica. I spoke to him on the phone, and he said they never found anything in Dominica. Here's an interesting email he sent me. I wonder if this could be the Golden Fleece wreck? I heard John passed away a few years ago.
Hi Jeff,
Here's a story I heard about Dominica back in 1979. This man (can't remember his name) contacted Dennis and wanted to tell him a story about a wreck off Dominica. He was in bad shape with heart trouble in a hospital in Miami. Dennis sent me up to see him and listen to his story. I got stopped when we heard that he took a turn for the worst. He went under the knife, cracking his chest to repair his heart. He was in bad shape when I finally did manage to talk to him. The story went like this: This man and a friend of his heard a story about a couple who were sailing around the Caribbean on vacation and anchored around a reef line near the South East coast of Dominica. While diving on the reef, this couple discovered a wreck, and managed to recover some artifacts. They then went to Barbados (I think) and thats where this man met this couple and heard the story.
This guy and his buddy went back to Dominica and found the wreck and proceeded to salvage, finding gold coins. Mind you, this was only a small operation. They didn't have a salvage contract and so were operating illegally. The two partners had some sort of argument and stopped their efforts. This fellow came to us because he heard we had the salvage contract for Dominica, and he wanted the wreck to get salvaged without his former partner.
When we got down to Dominica, we got very busy quickly, and never really got a chance to look for this wreck. Understand, we were looking for the 1567 fleet at the North Western end of the island and this wreck was at the South East. We never really went looking for this wreck. Looking back now, I wish we would have sent our smaller boat (60 footer) around to check out this story, but alas, we never did.
Well thats the story.
John
? Sounds like a big operation.
