TREASURE COAST BOATING
LIVING HISTORY
91
couple of years and found all kinds of artifacts including indigo
dye, ballast stones, gold bars, gold chains, navigational
equipment, artifices, flintwood rifles, swords, cannon and
musket balls.
TRAGEDY DARKENS FIND
Then in 1975, Dirk Fisher, Mel’s older son, found nine
bronze cannons. All directions seemed to be pointing to the
Atocha. But just as they were riding high the wave of good
fortune, little did they know they were about to crash. Brandon
recalls the last night he spent with Dirk and Angel Fisher
on the Northwind to celebrate their successful finds.
“We stayed on the boat until midnight or 1 — dreaming
of treasure, all the wealth, fame, and archaeology that was
going to happen — the history that we were going to make,”
he said. “We left to go back out on the Virgilona, and in the
middle of the night, the Northwind sinks. We lose Dirk, his
wife Angel and another diver, Rick Gage. I brought Dirk out
of the wreck. We were in tears. We were best friends. We partied,
had a good time, living the dream, out hunting treasure.
That was the worst part, but we kept going.”
Ten years later, Kane Fisher picked up the trail that his
older brother, Dirk, had left behind. He and his crew intensely
searched the area and eventually they found a ballast
stone. Then a little farther out, they found a piece of pottery
and other clues, as they continued on their path.
“Looking for a highly dispersed shipwreck in shallow
water, in a high-energy marine environment is very difficult,”
Brandon said. “People think of shipwrecks as going down in
a pile — they never do. They were sunk in hurricanes, and
when they hit the reefs, they’re done. They go to the bottom. >>
RICK CRARY
Brandon shows off some of the bright glimmering gold that he has found.
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