Florida divers find new treasure from famed wreck

A large emerald ring is pictured in the hand of Sean Fisher, in this photograph

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Divers in the Florida Keys have recovered a large emerald ring and two silver spoons believed to come from Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a shipwrecked Spanish galleon that has already yielded one of the greatest treasures ever recovered from the sea.

Employees of Mel Fisher's Treasure, the salvage company that has worked the shipwreck site since 1969, believe the latest haul signals they are close to finding the sterncastle, a key missing portion of the ship.

"The sterncastle is where the clergy and elite were with their personal items," said Sean Fisher, spokesman for the family business and grandson of its late founder, Mel Fisher.

The Atocha was headed back to Spain with a load of gold and silver from the New World when it sank and broke up in a hurricane not far from Key West in September 1622.

After a 16-year-search, Mel Fisher and his crew found the "mother lode" of the shipwreck in September 1985. They hauled up more than 40 tonnes of gold and silver, including more than 100,000 Spanish silver coins known as "Pieces of Eight," along with Colombian emeralds and other artifacts. The company estimated its worth at nearly $500 million.

Since then, Sean Fisher said the crew has made many other discoveries within a ten-mile (16-km) spread of the original site, and in a straight line.

"This tells us we are moving in the right direction," he said. "We have virgin territory around our search area and will be in there next."

After the original wreck, currents and additional hurricanes moved the broken parts around. "It broke in two and then banged around for hundreds of years and that is why what we are finding is scattered," Fisher said.

RING VALUED INITIALLY AT $500,000

He was on the company's salvage ship JB Magruder on June 23 when diver Tim Meade came up with the large square emerald mounted in a gold ring, whose worth the company estimates at $500,000.

Divers also came up with two silver spoons and other artifacts that will have to be treated at the Fisher labs in Key West before being exposed to fresh air. Unlike the gold ring, the other items are encrusted and a value can't be placed on them at this time.

"I think one item is a hinge and another is a lid, so it's possibly pieces from a jewelry box," Fisher said.

He has a copy of the Atocha's manifest and going by it, he expects to find at least 100,000 coins, 400 silver bars and personal jewelry at the sterncastle location.

"We have already found more gold than is on the manifest," he said with a smile. "There was a lot of smuggling so the clergy and nobility wouldn't have to pay the king's tax. We expect there will be many items around the sterncastle that are not on the manifest."

Fisher described the thrill of seeing and touching the treasure, and being the first person to do so in almost 400 years. "I was 15 when I found my first silver," Fisher said. "I was 17 when I first found gold. Silver is great, but gold shines, even after more than 300 years in the water."

The dive for treasure is a group effort, Fisher said. Two divers search the selected area at a time, while other crew members stay on deck. The whole crew participates and when the value of the search is determined, bonuses are given out.

Fisher said 90 percent of treasure hunting involved finding out where the treasure isn't.

"Technology has helped us above the water," he said. "Below the water our search hasn't changed much over the years."

The company uses "mailboxes," large round tubes on the stern of the salvage ship that force air below the waterline to blow away the top layer of debris and sand on the bottom.

The Magruder pulled into its slip at Safe Harbor Marina, outside Key West, last Thursday after discovering the ring and other artifacts about 35 miles away.

Fisher popped open a champagne bottle to celebrate even as the company's other 100-foot (30-meter) salvage ship, Dare, prepared to go out to continue the treasure hunt.

Each ship has a crew of six or eight and stays out about 10 days at a time, weather permitting.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

Ship lost for more than 150 years is recovered

TORONTO – Canadian archeologists have found a ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage and which was lost in the search for the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin, the head of the team said Wednesday.

Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic.

"The ship is standing upright in very good condition. It's standing in about 11 meters (36 feet) of water," he said. "This is definitely of the utmost importance. This is the ship that sailed the last leg of the Northwest Passage."

The Investigator was one of many American and British ships sent out to search for the HMS Erebus and the Terror, vessels commanded by Franklin in his ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage in 1845.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the British government has been notified that one of their naval shipwrecks has been discovered, as well as the bodies of three sailors.

Captained by Robert McClure, the Investigator sailed in 1850. That year, McClure sailed the Investigator into the strait that now bears his name and realized that he was in the final leg of the Northwest Passage, the sea route across North America.

Click image to see more photos on anthropology and archeaology

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But before he could sail into the Beaufort Sea, the ship was blocked by pack ice and forced to winter-over in Prince of Wales Strait along the east coast of Banks Island.

The following summer, McClure tried again to sail to the end of the Passage, but was again blocked by ice. He steered the ship and crew into a large bay on the island's north coast he called the Bay of Mercy.

There they were to remain until 1853, when they were rescued by the crew of the HMS Resolute. The Investigator was abandoned.

"This is actually a human history," said Bernier. "Not only a history of the Passage, but the history of a crew of 60 men who had to overwinter three times in the Arctic not knowing if they were going to survive."

The Parks Canada team arrived at Mercy Bay on July 22. Three days later, the ice on the bay cleared enough that researchers were able to deploy side-scanning sonar from a small inflatable boat over the site where they believed the wooden ship had eventually sunk. Within 15 minutes, the Investigator was found.

"The ship had not moved too much from where it was abandoned," said Bernier.

The masts and rigging have long been sheared off by ice and weather. But the icy waters of the McClure Strait has preserved the vessel in remarkably good condition.

"It's incredible," said Prentice from Mercy Bay. "You're actually able to peer down into the water and see not only the outline of the ship but actually the individual timbers.

Archaeologists have also uncovered artifacts on land left behind by the stranded sailors, who unloaded everything before abandoning the Investigator.

The graves of three sailors thought to have died of scurvy have been marked off and will be left undisturbed, said Bernier.

Bernier said the next step will be to send down a remote controlled video camera to get actual pictures of the wreck. There are no plans to bring it to the surface and all legal steps will be taken to ensure the site remains protected.

Bernier also said the team will use similar technology to find the Erebus and Terror.

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