LIVING HISTORY
90
TREASURE COAST BOATING
scripts, Fisher zeroed in on the Marquesas Keys to begin his
search.
In 1973, John Brandon was sent to follow the trail just
southeast of the galleon anchor found on the site. Using
buoys to mark the previous finds, they brought up numerous
artifacts including swords, muskets, daggers, potsherds,
silver coins and pieces of eight.
BIG ATOCHA DISCOVERY
Hot on the trail, they dug a hole in the ocean’s bottom, and
the sand suddenly turned black. The divers hit a jackpot.
They found almost 1,500 pieces of silver, which was named
the Bank of Spain.
“I was down there and there were silver coins everywhere,”
Brandon said. “This was our first big find of the Atocha.
I was the first guy who came up with a double handful
of coins. When you finally find a pile of treasure, it’s exciting,
unimaginable. It’s amazing to see it on the bottom — to know
that it was your goal and you went through all the hardships
and you were able to find it.”
Shortly after the Bank of Spain discovery, the salvors dug
up three heavy silver bars with particular markings. They
knew they had hit something big.
“It’s hard to prove the identity of a shipwreck — that is to
say, to find archaeological evidence that positively matches
the archival evidence,” Brandon said. “On the 1715 Fleet, we
still can’t say which wreck is which. On the Atocha, we had
silver bars that actually had monograms that matched the
manifest. So we could say this was from the Atocha, beyond a
shadow of a doubt.”
The diving crew continued to work on the wreck site a
DON KINCAID, PHOTO ON DISPLAY AT MEL FISHER MUSEUM
Eugene Lyons’s careful research of Spanish archival documents led Fisher to
>> focus on the Marquesas Keys to find the Atocha.
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