Treasure hunters in Martin County hope this piece of wood has ties to long-lost Spanish fleet
By Gabriel Margasak
Friday, September 21, 2007
STUART — Jim Sinclair counts a dive to the Titanic and helping legend Mel Fisher find sunken 1715 Spanish treasure off Sebastian among his archaeological achievements.
And local treasure hunter David Jordan is counting on the noted historian to help him identify one more ship from that same Spanish fleet a little farther south, off Stuart.
Rough seasonal surf has forced the team to pack up for the year, but it plans to return in February or March . In the meantime, they are awaiting state and private archeologists to identify a promising piece of wood encrusted with metal they found in the sand.
"The more I work around these shipwrecks, the more I'm sure they're always full of surprises," Sinclair said. "This could very well be a 1715-period shipwreck or it could be something totally different ... although it's sort of in the area if you know what I mean."
If indeed the wood the team located Sept. 2 off Tiger Shores Beach is part of the Spanish fleet, laden with gold and silver, Jordan hopes to find cannons that could confirm the find and continue the search.
"It was only our second or third hole we dug and we found a piece of the ship. So it was promising," Jordan, 44, said. "So it would be more promising if we could find the cannons."
Cannons sometimes have telltale markings that can help identify a ship.
That's what Jordan thought he saw 29 years ago while surfing just north of Stuart Beach.
That memory lead to a family-and-friends effort to find the wreck with veteran treasure hunting and salvage expert Doug Pope, president of Amelia Research and Recovery and captain of the Polly-L.
Pope's eye-catching vessel had been parked over a site — perched on three giant legs that lower into the water and raise the ship above the surf — which had been mapped with a device that suggested there was buried metal there.
"It's tricky," Jordan said. "You would think a cannon would throw off a big signal. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't."
The chances of finding any riches could be even tougher — Jordan is using his own money and Pope's company is financing the rest of the operation.
"People aren't finding large treasures," said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees finds of archaeological significance. "We have not issued a salvage contract in the last 15 years (in all of Florida.) It's very rare that the exploration contracts turn into a significant find."
The last such major discovery and contract in Florida waters was actually from the same 1715 fleet Jordan is searching for, Ivey said.
Explorers found wreckage from that fleet starting in the 1960s off the Sebastian coast. In the early 1980s, Mel Fisher and his team discovered gold and silver coins in the same area..
Any small items found by Jordan, such as utensils from a ship or the cannons, would automatically go to the state for preservation.
A new contract would have to be negotiated if Jordan's team finds real treasure.
"We are a long way away from Mr. Pope or Mr. Jordan striking it rich on this site Ivey said.
Even with that knowledge, Jordan had tried to turn the tide.
The team used a giant propeller-driven blower to dig in the sand.
The first thing they found was hardly that old — it was the steering column from a helicopter.
The wood came next.
"(The experts) said it was very old but they didn't want to keep it out of the water very long or it would degrade," Jordan said. "So we put it back in the hole and covered it over."
The team sent detailed pictures to state officials, who were working with Jordan's team to determine the significance.
Although the Polly-L and crew have left the scene, residents might see the ship in the Fort Pierce area for the rest of the year working on some projects for commercial customers.
But the team will be back.
"This is archeology. I don't think I'm ever going to get independently wealthy," Jordan said. "My excitement is just being able to see what I found 29 years ago."
The part-time treasure hunter did see to it that the wood he found so far remains as safe as possible.
"I did put my tag on it so that if 100 years in the future, someone finds it," he said, "they'll know I found it first."