LIVING HISTORY
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TREASURE COAST BOATING
ish galleons just off the Treasure Coast. Brandon watched and
studied his unprecedented work, while relentlessly begging
him for a job.
His persistence eventually paid off when Fisher hired
Brandon when he was 17. He became Fisher’s youngest boat
captain at 19, a partner later on and worked for him until
Fisher died in 1998. From his vessel the M/V Endeavor, Brandon
retrieved treasure and artifacts worth millions of dollars.
It was the beginning of a journey that helped uncover some
of history’s most legendary shipwrecks.
If you read Treasure Island, it’s easy to romanticize treasure
hunters as adventurers sailing on the high seas, who find
a map that leads to a chest of jewels. But finding a treasure
trove is much more complex in real life. It’s a difficult, timeconsuming
and expensive venture — and only the few who
persevere eventually wind up with the loot.
“If it was easy, everyone would be doing it,” Brandon said.
“Most people don’t realize all the things that are involved.”
Treasure hunting is a lot like solving a detective story. You
need a team of historians, archaeologists, electronic experts,
divers and boat handlers to unlock the mystery of missing
shipwrecks. They look for all kinds of clues that were on the
ships — ballast stones, pottery shards, spikes, musket and
cannon balls, cannons — to solve how the ship broke up.
“What we try to do is to define a debris field and we look for
dispersal patterns within that debris field,” Brandon said.
“It’s more a study in chaos than in any kind of science. You
might find 10 silver coins here; 15 feet — 10 more; 20 feet —
10 more; and then maybe a half a mile before you find any
more. It’s just that random and hard to figure. You want luck
to be the least common denominator. You want to bring all >>
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JOHN BRANDON COLLECTION
Brandon became a skilled treasure diver early on, finding stores of gold
and silver off the Treasure Coast.
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