Capt. M and Brad:
Capt. you are correct on most of your assessment, we had Columbian Marines attached to us when ever we put a diver over the side, there task was to monitor us from swallowing emeralds and such, my experience was they where more interested in spearing trash fish and would really be offended if you came up with more air in your tank then they did they had a serious problem with Machismo it got to the point that I would purge air just to keep from causing issues. We came under fire prior to making contact with the Marines.
Brad some stories follow:
The crew was horribly under prepared including myself the ex udt skipper was pretty sharp topside (but never got wet, ever... humnn) i believe he went by Terry, and there was an engineer from Cali - David who was pretty good but he left, Cohen the deep pockets brought in another guy from Cali that had his act together I remember thinking He might bring this around he had a bad leg and i dont recall his last name but he went by Mike S, I met him briefly but that was at the end of my trip.
I had the diving part down as well as the in water search (visual and electronic) but the rest was way beyond my scope of experience, I learned a tremendous amount about prime power plants, gennys and air steerage, I actually spent a good bit of time skippering and working as engineer as well as master diver. I undertook the trip primarily to get away from a women and thats pretty sad in itself
The period I was on board there was no Arch other then the infamous Capt Johnson who didn't really know much either but to be fair he did managed to get permits from the Colombians. I like Capt Johnson felt sorry for him as this was his dream and it was easy to see it was falling apart, the real Arch was due out within weeks I believe he was from S. Florida and semi famous in the comunity.At that point I didn't really care anymore about all the supposed things that where going to happen.
With help of Columbian Marines we made it ashore, on beacon key, I fixed there solar power system for the radio and after that was treated like a minor God they could actually listen to football matches! Out of habit I did a covert assessment of there facility and in my mind it was well set up good interlocking fields of fire, the weapons where clean (no easy task in that environment) but they had poor berthing facilities for the amount of troops and other factors that in my security mind make them open to easy targeting there morale was weak as well which as any team leader knows creates issues.
We worked near Beacon Key for several days and on one occasion I brought up broken pottery chard's and he (johnson) asked me what it was? We moved around less then 2ks in this area and on another dive I found a fairly large section of wood appearing to be a rudder that was held together with wooden dowels, located under about 1 meter sand I remember it clearly because two of the supposed experienced divers swam right over an exposed section. I spent a good bit of time on it moving sand with a paddle and when they noticed i wsnt there all came back including the marines they attacked it with visions of chests of gold underneath! I knew at that time I was packing my sea bag and lifting off.
I had several other issues including the SOW or contract (for lack of better term) said we would uncover any items in an archaeological sound matter this was one of the reasons (besides bailing on the chick) for my decision to go in the first place, I have always wanted to work on a project in that manner. However as soon as we found the wood it was bring the vessel over set up the pumps and start sucking, I didn't agree with that and voiced my opinion, most especially to the Colombians LT on board we set sail shortly after that back to San Andres (SA).
The second issue I had was cohen kept wanting to work the deep side from previous intel that he had (thats my assessment) but he continually pushed Johnson on working the deep side, my reply was it wasn't safe or effective as we had some POS magnetometer that wouldn't calibrate and a couple of pulse 8X(s), the major method for search was sled drags which i knew was pretty ineffectual, most especially with the support vessel a sea ark with a weak 4 banger diesel and a Cayuga that some idiot decided to buy once on station in SA, the thing was a pig, totally waterlogged and was not the means to reach the end, I wanted some RIBS or a Whaler or at least an IFBS. In my inexperienced mind the way the trades blew, and seas pushed anything that made contact and would get pushed over the barely submerged reef most especially after loosing some ballast and keel, still not sure if this theory is correct but its my story and i am sticking to it. I remember finding ballast stones in the same area as the rudder but as I recall it was further north along the ridge.
We left after a couple of days for several reason Number one was the Pot water tank seal failed and the water tank fouled with sea water, the RO unit was FUBARED and I used it as an anchor. We had several injury's due to inexperienced hands and we decided to head back to SA to regroup, I had several confidential conversations with the Columbian LT and I think he pushed it.
Once ashore I was asked to a private meeting by the Military and asked to take over the project
I would have considered it but they wouldn't remove any of the upper tier folks including the Dr. from L.A. I remember thinking when we initially hove into port at SA I was stunned by the amount of cash being handed out as bribes I thought humm i could roll these folks and make off pretty well. Once a pirate always a pirate
Would I go back? jeez I am a glutton for punishment I have done alot of stupid things just to do them.
the only issue now is I am married with one kid of my own and several mouths that need fed. Where as at that time I only had a dog and a psycho cocoa beach gal. It was easy to cut loose, but probably would do something again especially with the bank from working here
I feel there is lots to find there it all adds up the length of sail from Cartagna (SP) put those galleons in poor favor with the reefs that go wet at high tide, poor charts and poor nav make it highly probable that something foundered what fleet it is and all the other speculation is beyond my pay level...
Wow thats the most I havewriiten in non work related report hope it answers questions and fires up the imagination
Seagreen12
out
From what I read, the Costa Rican government wasn't permitting anyone to go on any expeditions to the island? If you did happen to take an expedition there, I would be VERY interested in hearing all about it... if you don't mind. 
