I feel a little funny about picking stuff up, but I'm not sure anyone else would do it. I partially agree with you about it. The stuff I picked up had come in with the tide. Some of it is in pretty good shape. If it is not picked up, it either rusts out and deteriorates or floats back out on the next tide. I'm sure a lot of people know it is there and go along and pick up stuff and just take it home. There is a lot of potential sitting there and I think, man, this is kind of a waste. You have to realize I picked up some stuff that had probably been there for a few years, and no one had picked it up because they didn't care or know what it was.
Manila galleons are pretty cool in my book. They are the final link to Asia for the Spanish, and were one of the hardest navigation routes from the east to west. There are a couple of these wrecked on the pacific coast. There is the one at Nehalem and one at Ensenada, and one wrecked off the Catalina Islands. These boats never managed to directly carry all the spices like the Spanish wanted, but did manage to freight a lot of silk and textiles to Mexico, and a lot of cermaic plates and bowls.
One of the things I took away from reading Robert Heizer's 1941 report is that Heizer dug through about half a dozen Indian middens just to find a few ship nails and plate fragments. He was pretty wasteful of any other information the sites could have provided. Why didn't he just go down to the beach and look for stuff like I did? He does have a great narrative of it:
In 1590, Lois de Velasco took over as viceroy of New Spain and immediately took steps to make the route between the Phillipines and New Spain more effective. He requested a Cedula authorizing him to send a vessel to scout out safe harbors on the Pacific coast. In October 1593, he was granted permission to do this. Later in 1594, the King ordered that the mission be undertaken. A Portugese, Sebastian Cermeno, was allowed to make the voyage, and carry a specified tonnage of goods to make a profit for himself for his troubles.
He left Acapulco in March, 1594 in the San Pedro, a ship provided by the Spanish crown. At Manila, he switch ships and returned in the San Augustin, a ship of about 200 tons with 140 tons of freight and a crew of 70 men. He sailed from Cavite for Acapulco. In November, they sighted point Saint George or Rocky Point. As they traveled south, many fires were seen on the shore. They attempted to enter Trinidad Bay, but an unfavorable wind made them abort the attempt.
On November 6, 1595, they rounded Point Reyes and entered the bay. Many indians came to the beach. One paddled out to the ship on a boat made of reeds and they gave him some silk, cloth, and a red cap. The next day four more appeared and they were given gifts also. Cermeno then took 22 men and went ashore. He landed near an indian village and took possesion of the land for the King of Spain and named the bay, "La Bahia De San Francisco."
After scouting the bluff above Drake's Estero, and meeting a group of indians who surrendered to them, they returned to the shore and began to build the boat, a "viroco" they had brought over from the Phillipines. On November 15, Cermeno went up the estero with nine other men with arms in the boat, to explore it and visit the many indian villages they saw along the estero shoreline. Late in November, the San Augustin was lost during a strong shore gale that drove it aground. When they returned to the camp, a short battle began over wood that the indians were trying to haul away from the shore.
Cermeno gathered up some food, things from the wreckage, and headed for the Faralon Islands in the viroco, which are just visible from the hills above Drakes Bay on a really clear day. He finally reached Chachala, in New Spain, after finding Monterey Bay and San Luis Obispo Bay. At one point they were so hungry during the trip that they ate the dog they had with them. At another point, they ate a dead shark or whale they found on a beach.
None of the cargo was brought back. There was probably a point to this. The insurers in Manila would not pay off the loss if it was only a partial loss. Partially wrecked manila galleons were sometimes burned to accomplish this. Francisco de Bolanos, who had been a sailor with Cermeno, was later the chief pilot of Vizcano's capitana, the San Diego in 1603. Vizcano interviewed a group of indians on the coast who brought out two pieces of silk they had been given by Cermeno and stated about where they thought the wreck had taken place. When they entered Drakes Bay, plans were made to search for the wax and silk which had formed the cargo of the San Augustin. Anxiety over the the accompanying frigata, the Tres Reyes, prevented the search, and the capitana sailed on without putting out a landing party.
Looking at pictures, the estero mouth was further east in 1940.
Old mast:
This I think is just a rib board off a small fishing vessel circa 1920 now. It is submerged to the west of the estero and pieces of it have been coming in to shore recently. I also have a picture of a cross beam and some spikes that were part of a rib section going across this boat. There was a fishing dock in the area at one time and the Russians hunted otter in the bay for awhile.
Part of a cobalt blue glass plate. They stopped importing this in 1650, probably because they learned how to produce it in Europe. It is really much darker than this. Got to go retrieve it soon and turn it in to the park.
