- May 20, 2004
- 1,721
- 152
- Detector(s) used
- Minelab Excal 1000
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
By HENRY A. STEPHENS
[email protected]
October 3, 2006
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — An Orlando company hopes to add a shipwreck to the state's list of treasure sites and bring up booty from the waters off Indian River Shores next summer, if the state will permit its divers to kick up the sand near protected worm-rock reefs.
Historical Research & Development Inc., also known as HRD, hopes to get state clearance to look for a yet-undiscovered shipwreck from the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet and salvage Spanish Colonial coins and other artifacts, Fort Pierce treasure hunter James "Skip" Huffsmith says.
Huffsmith, a member of HRD's board of directors, filed an application for a water-quality waiver in early September with the state Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee.
Divers would use their boats' underwater blowers, which channel water from the propellers, to remove sand from any wreck site, but Huffsmith wrote he doesn't expect that to hurt the nearby reefs built by Sabellariid worms, a protected species.
"The bottom (of the exploration site) consists primarily of coarse shell material deposited in the heavy surf zone," Huffsmith wrote.
This material, he added, tends to drop out of the water, back to the bottom, within 5 to 10 minutes of being kicked up, rather than being suspended for great lengths of time and coating the worm reefs.
If sand kicked up by the treasure hunt does approach any worm rock colonies, however, he said, HRD will stop work and contact state officials.
DEP spokeswoman Sarah Williams said Friday her agency is looking over HRD's application to see if it is complete. If so, she said, DEP could grant a waiver after a 60-day period for public comments. If not, the state will ask the company for more information.
Huffsmith's application includes a 2005 research plan by project archeologist Robert Westrick, who pointed to new artifacts found in recent years in HRD's exploration area.
"Spanish Colonial coins and related artifacts have been found on the beach and beyond the dune line in the immediate vicinity," Westrick wrote.
And since 1992, he added, his company has found the same such material scattered in the area off Indian River Shores it leases from the state.
Now HRD leaders want to find the ship they believe may have held the coins in its hold back in the 18th century. If they do, he indicated, it could be a new find among the other six wrecks already identified, documented and salvaged along the Treasure Coast.
The company wants to identify several "magnetic anomalies" its divers detected in 1996 and 2001, Westrick wrote. These could indicate metal parts of a sailing ship, such as cannon or ballast, and thus point to an undiscovered wreck, he added.
All this is entirely possible, said Taffi Fisher-Abt, daughter of the late treasure salvor Mel Fisher and director of Sabastian's Mel Fisher Museum.
"This is a large ocean," Fisher-Abt said Friday. "Dad once told me there's a shipwreck every 100 yards from Havana, Cuba, to North Carolina. Some are not valuable, some are, some are historical."
She said HRD's site lies between two sites the Fisher organization has been exploring and salvaging for years off the Riomar and Wabasso Beach areas.
The Fishers have leases to 10 wrecks of the 1715 fleet, from Cape Canaveral south to the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. The Fishers and HRD, in fact, are two of nine separate companies seeking to salvage treasure from the Treasure Coast.
Huffsmith said HRD won't even be exploring until early next summer, when the waters offer better visibility, so there is time to work for the state waiver.
For much of the year, in fact, offshore visibility is too poor for the casual diver or snorkeler to spot Spanish treasure. So some arm themselves with metal detectors and "poach" on leased sites, Westrick wrote.
"HRD's presence, while conducting legal activity on the site, should deter at least some of this 'illegal' diving," he added.
HISTORICAL NOTES
• The 1715 Plate Fleet, so named for its cargo of silver ("plata" in Spanish), consisted of 11 galleons sailing from Havana in 1715 north along the Gulf Stream.
• Laden also with jewels and gold, all bound for the Spanish royal treasury to pay merchants' taxes, the ships ran into a hurricane along Florida's east coast and wrecked.
• And they spilled the booty that gave the Treasure Coast its name.
• Since the 1950s, treasure hunters have discovered four wrecks from the 1715 fleet off Indian River County, two off St. Lucie County and possibly one off Martin County.
• No one is sure where the rest of the fleet and its treasure rests.
http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5037497,00.html
[email protected]
October 3, 2006
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — An Orlando company hopes to add a shipwreck to the state's list of treasure sites and bring up booty from the waters off Indian River Shores next summer, if the state will permit its divers to kick up the sand near protected worm-rock reefs.
Historical Research & Development Inc., also known as HRD, hopes to get state clearance to look for a yet-undiscovered shipwreck from the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet and salvage Spanish Colonial coins and other artifacts, Fort Pierce treasure hunter James "Skip" Huffsmith says.
Huffsmith, a member of HRD's board of directors, filed an application for a water-quality waiver in early September with the state Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee.
Divers would use their boats' underwater blowers, which channel water from the propellers, to remove sand from any wreck site, but Huffsmith wrote he doesn't expect that to hurt the nearby reefs built by Sabellariid worms, a protected species.
"The bottom (of the exploration site) consists primarily of coarse shell material deposited in the heavy surf zone," Huffsmith wrote.
This material, he added, tends to drop out of the water, back to the bottom, within 5 to 10 minutes of being kicked up, rather than being suspended for great lengths of time and coating the worm reefs.
If sand kicked up by the treasure hunt does approach any worm rock colonies, however, he said, HRD will stop work and contact state officials.
DEP spokeswoman Sarah Williams said Friday her agency is looking over HRD's application to see if it is complete. If so, she said, DEP could grant a waiver after a 60-day period for public comments. If not, the state will ask the company for more information.
Huffsmith's application includes a 2005 research plan by project archeologist Robert Westrick, who pointed to new artifacts found in recent years in HRD's exploration area.
"Spanish Colonial coins and related artifacts have been found on the beach and beyond the dune line in the immediate vicinity," Westrick wrote.
And since 1992, he added, his company has found the same such material scattered in the area off Indian River Shores it leases from the state.
Now HRD leaders want to find the ship they believe may have held the coins in its hold back in the 18th century. If they do, he indicated, it could be a new find among the other six wrecks already identified, documented and salvaged along the Treasure Coast.
The company wants to identify several "magnetic anomalies" its divers detected in 1996 and 2001, Westrick wrote. These could indicate metal parts of a sailing ship, such as cannon or ballast, and thus point to an undiscovered wreck, he added.
All this is entirely possible, said Taffi Fisher-Abt, daughter of the late treasure salvor Mel Fisher and director of Sabastian's Mel Fisher Museum.
"This is a large ocean," Fisher-Abt said Friday. "Dad once told me there's a shipwreck every 100 yards from Havana, Cuba, to North Carolina. Some are not valuable, some are, some are historical."
She said HRD's site lies between two sites the Fisher organization has been exploring and salvaging for years off the Riomar and Wabasso Beach areas.
The Fishers have leases to 10 wrecks of the 1715 fleet, from Cape Canaveral south to the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. The Fishers and HRD, in fact, are two of nine separate companies seeking to salvage treasure from the Treasure Coast.
Huffsmith said HRD won't even be exploring until early next summer, when the waters offer better visibility, so there is time to work for the state waiver.
For much of the year, in fact, offshore visibility is too poor for the casual diver or snorkeler to spot Spanish treasure. So some arm themselves with metal detectors and "poach" on leased sites, Westrick wrote.
"HRD's presence, while conducting legal activity on the site, should deter at least some of this 'illegal' diving," he added.
HISTORICAL NOTES
• The 1715 Plate Fleet, so named for its cargo of silver ("plata" in Spanish), consisted of 11 galleons sailing from Havana in 1715 north along the Gulf Stream.
• Laden also with jewels and gold, all bound for the Spanish royal treasury to pay merchants' taxes, the ships ran into a hurricane along Florida's east coast and wrecked.
• And they spilled the booty that gave the Treasure Coast its name.
• Since the 1950s, treasure hunters have discovered four wrecks from the 1715 fleet off Indian River County, two off St. Lucie County and possibly one off Martin County.
• No one is sure where the rest of the fleet and its treasure rests.
http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5037497,00.html
![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
