Odyssey Smoke and Mirrors

Salvor 6,

I thought it would help me in determining where the Seahawk was in 1999. Either Sarmiento was right, or he was deliberately lying when he said that he saw a ship by that name in 1999. In searching the Internet, I came across one site that said that in 1996, the Seahawk was available for leasing by other salvage companies. As John Morris and Greg Stemm had such a close association with that ship, it did not strike me as unlikely that they would be leasing it three years later. I would lik`e to make my mind up as to whether or not Sarmiento was telling the truth. Why would he make up such an easily refutable detail?

Mariner
 

Ossy, it is the UN Convention of 1982 “Law of the Sea” that established under international law, and set the basic accepted 3 mile (later amended to 12 miles), standard for the territorial waters of all sovereign nations that have boarders on the sea. This issue will ultimately be decided by the EU in accordance with its constitution concerning boarder disputes between member nations. So it’s not a matter of Spain ceding any of its waters, it’s a matter of Gibraltar exercising its rights to territorial waters under international law.
 

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Spain appears to claim the full limit for Ceuta/Mellila, yet not recognize it for Gibraltar.


...talk about wanting it both ways. :coffee2:





Jay
 

Easiest way is to check the shipping registry and if it was US flagged it should state the owner often as we all know vessels are "bought" and the sale is not always closed reverting to the original owner or company (the title) Cheers
 

salvor 6,

Thanks for that info. I agree that that rules out the Seahawk Retriever.

Saturna,

If I remember correctly, Gibraltar has not exercised the right to extend its territorial waters to 12 nm, but has kept them at 3 nm.

Mariner
 

wreckdiver1715 said:
Truly a work of Fiction! - There are smoke and mirrors’ going on with this story and it looks like it’s all coming out of Spain from the anti-Odyssey crowd.

Spain is still upset that the British maintain control of “The Rock” as a Sovereign Colony of the Crown, and it is Spain that illegally claims the waters off of Gibraltar to this day, even after Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain under the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Not even the UN buys into this Spanish claim.
Click to expand...

Tom... Pipe Sarmiento is a bigger liar than Santiago Mata if that's possible. :(
 

Hi everyboy. I´m new here and I want to congratulate everybody for the level of this forum. And excuse me, please, for my bad english skill.

I have a lot of doubts about the Odyssey issue but I have something very clear: Sarmiento can be whatever he wants but accurate. A couple of spanish papers let him to write on them every so often and usually he tells science fiction stories to the glory of him self. He pretends he has a lot of "secret" information but finally the great secret are the tracks of the Odyssey Explorer downloaded from AISlive in a certain period of time. Big deal! His articles and reports are stuffed (I´m trying hard not to sound offensive) with mistakes and unaccurate "information". This guy cant be considered a serious writer (much less a serious journalist).
By the way, Sarmiento assures that is not the Mercedes. A question: what about the legal theory (called, I think, the poisoned tree theory) that stablish that if you get a conclusion with a false or illegally obtained clue, the conclusion must be dismissed. I mean, if Pizzo says that Spain has the right to have "back" the "treasure" because it belongs to the Mercedes, what could happens if somebody prooves that the wreck is not the Mercedes?
And one more thing. If there is coins in the "Black Swann treasure" with the face of Fernando VII on them (1808-1833), how comes you can find this kind of coins in a shipwreck that went down in 1804? It´s hard to understand for my self. Much harder if the wreck went down in 1760, as Sarmiento says. In this case, the coins manufacturer was a kind of fortune teller that knew who would rule Spain forty eight years later.
 

Hola, trinidad and welcome.The ( Mercedes ) Black Swan coin's date up 1804 only ! Odyssey have had two years cleaning and looking for dates beyond 1804 and have found none ! I do agree with the Santa Ana Real 1760 ? coin dates don't match !
But we don't know if Odyssey raided other ship wrecks in the Mediterranean, they had a lot of time unchallenged !
As time goes on, I'm sure we will all get the whole story :read2: I seek the Truth ! I don't hate Odyssey or it's loyal supporters
I love History and my Spanish roots, good and bad ! and I will always defend Spain !!
Ossy
 

trinidad said:
Hi everyboy. I´m new here and I want to congratulate everybody for the level of this forum. And excuse me, please, for my bad english skill.

I have a lot of doubts about the Odyssey issue but I have something very clear: Sarmiento can be whatever he wants but accurate. A couple of spanish papers let him to write on them every so often and usually he tells science fiction stories to the glory of him self. He pretends he has a lot of "secret" information but finally the great secret are the tracks of the Odyssey Explorer downloaded from AISlive in a certain period of time. Big deal! His articles and reports are stuffed (I´m trying hard not to sound offensive) with mistakes and unaccurate "information". This guy cant be considered a serious writer (much less a serious journalist).
By the way, Sarmiento assures that is not the Mercedes. A question: what about the legal theory (called, I think, the poisoned tree theory) that stablish that if you get a conclusion with a false or illegally obtained clue, the conclusion must be dismissed. I mean, if Pizzo says that Spain has the right to have "back" the "treasure" because it belongs to the Mercedes, what could happens if somebody prooves that the wreck is not the Mercedes?
And one more thing. If there is coins in the "Black Swann treasure" with the face of Fernando VII on them (1808-1833), how comes you can find this kind of coins in a shipwreck that went down in 1804? It´s hard to understand for my self. Much harder if the wreck went down in 1760, as Sarmiento says. In this case, the coins manufacturer was a kind of fortune teller that knew who would rule Spain forty eight years later.
Click to expand...
trinidad for your information, the coins have up to CAROLUS IIII only ! and are the Portrait or bust type only, the oldest date they have found is 1804 !
 

Ossy, I’m sure what you are telling is surely true. I was just showing the kind of things Mr. Sarmiento is able to write down. At the same paragraph he can destroy the Pizzo´s recommendation or denies that OME is able to recover the treasure in just ten days. I’ve read the opposite argument from this same guy: no archaeological standards were aplicated to this recovery because they (OME) did it in just one week. What’s the truth? And if we are able of thinking of OME as pirates, how comes they put the "right treasure" before the judge? OME had the time and the opportunity of mixing down coins from the Black Swann with others coins belonging to some later o earlier shipwreck. If I were the kind of pirate or crook that Sarmiento and others are trying to show to the public OME is, I would have not doubt at all about doing something like that to confuse the judge and everybody. And one more thing. We all know about shipwreck researches that last for 15 or 20 years and nobody is able to put a name on it. In the Black Swann case, just taking a look over some pictures, some videos and a very few amount of coins, in less that a month, Spain is able to report with no doubt that all this treasure comes from La Mercedes. Jesus! It’s must be a Guinness record or almost! I don’t know. I’m Spanish, I love my country but I love the looking for the truth. I don’t want to mix patriotism with legalism. When somebody do that, historical issue becomes hysterical issue and it’s not the same thing.
It looks like everybody here and around believe that OME makes big money just from the recovery of historical stuff from the bottom and selling it some time later. I’m not sure about that. I’m almost sure that OME would like to get agreements from different govs to help them with historical and appropriate recoveries and putting a price about it. It would be current money, legal money, no problems at all, and the "academy" would be happy about it. But not, in OME all the staff has become crazy and they just want to annoy as much as possible to all their potential customers making public a discovery and recovery that for sure would earthquake this very small community that historical shipwreck lovers is (including "academia", govs, divers, historians, journalists, patriots, mothers, fathers and so on). I don’t know. To me it´s just hard to believe but I dont say it´s not true.
PS: to all of you that could be suspicious I’m not a friend of anybody at OME.

Here is the extract of what Mr. Sarmiento said on "Diario de Mallorca"

http://www.diariodemallorca.es/seccione...llorca-Portada-odyssey-conexion-Costitx

...Aunque en el juicio celebrado en Tampa (Florida) se habla siempre de que el Odyssey Explorer expolió los restos de La Mercedes, hundida en el Atlántico, la realidad es que todo lo hallado pertenece a Santa Ana la Real, fragata que naufragó alrededor de 1760, frente al Estrecho. "De nuevo, nuestro Gobierno no ha querido entrar en guerra con el Reino Unido y Gibraltar y ha preferido creer la versión de Odyssey que asegura no haber sacado nada del Estrecho y sí del Atlántico". Una teoría que se descartará en el momento en el que Sarmiento revele las imágenes vía satélite captadas desde Costitx. En ellas se ve claramente como el Odyssey Explorer "sólo estuvo diez días navegando por el Atlántico, cerca de Faro. La Mercedes se hundió millas mucho más hacia el norte". Además, en una semana "no da tiempo a extraer las más de seiscientas mil monedas que dicen poseer". Tampoco coinciden las fechas de los objetos hallados, de épocas que van desde el reinado de Carlos III al de Felipe VII. "Una disparidad tan grande responde a que durante meses han estado campando a sus anchas por el Mediterráneo. Sólo recuperaremos parte del botín".
 

Ossy,
Since Odyssey is the devil incarnate to you for salvaging 200+ year old ships of Spanish origin, what are your feelings of the Fisher's and the Atocha, Margarita, etc. shipwrecks? Do you feel those salvaging those vessels have the right to do so or that Spain should be getting whatever is found from them?

Regardless of the country of origin for a treasure salvager, I really do feel for them. I relate finding a lost wreck with treasure on it to winning the lottery or getting an inheritance. Out of nowhere, you have jokers coming out of the woodwork trying to lay claim on it. The Spanish government has become like ambulance chasers. They don't care enough to try to chart shipwrecks and arrest the sites, but instead wait for others to do the work for them. Then they swoop down with their claims of any and everything. It's near impossible for anyone to find anything fair and square anymore because Spain rolls in and stakes their claim to stealing it fair and square first, so they have the stronger of the claims.

Once Odyssey finally begins work on the Sussex, I look forward to what Spain's claim on that one will be.
 

Well, Jeff, I wouldnt name it that way, but it´s a fast way to understand the kind of stuff this man produces. In relation to the lack of attention that Spain and spaniards paid to our underwater heritage (UH), things look like they are changing. But we have to wait a bit too see if this music has a liryc too. A few days ago, our Ministries of Culture and Defense signed an agreement looking forward to protect and preserve and know and explain to the rest of the citizenship what we have laying on the botton of the sea. It´s a reaction to the general critics our politics received after the Black Swann "case". It would be ironic that we start to care about our spanish (and latinamerican, and latinasian) UH thanks to a big misunderstanding that is what I think It happened. Because here in Spain there is a lot of people that mix Black Swann with Sussex and Sussex with Black Swann, thanks to a campaign of misinformation based on a kind of "patriotical journalism". Now, in Spain, Judge Pizzo is a kind of hero, James Goold is our Rocky Marciano knocking out a giant pirate and we have great plans for that enormous treasure of coins. It´s funny nobody here cares about the rest of the treasure that is not on silver or gold. Let´s see what happens next.
 

Trinidad... I know not everyone in Spain is against Odyssey. It's only a few outspoken people that have caused the tensions between Odyssey and Spain. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and even the Junta de Andalucia were working with Odyssey. It was the Minister of Culture and some archaeologists that always delayed any progress on the Sussex project. Odyssey could not wait forever, so they went looking for other shipwrecks.

James Goold will be collecting millions of dollars in legal fees from Spain, so I wonder who the real pirate really is.
 

Could be, Jeff, could be, but you cant imagine the noise about Odyssey we had (and have) to hear day by day. And even the Minister and the officials from the Junta didnt tell all the truth. While they were working hand by hand with Odyssey representatives they made public statements against this company or against "treasure hunters", putting in the same bag a wide variety of people. Maybe as the time goes by things will fix and we´ll know who is who in all this story. Good night from Spain.
 

Philvis said:
Ossy,
Since Odyssey is the devil incarnate to you for salvaging 200+ year old ships of Spanish origin, what are your feelings of the Fisher's and the Atocha, Margarita, etc. shipwrecks? Do you feel those salvaging those vessels have the right to do so or that Spain should be getting whatever is found from them?

Regardless of the country of origin for a treasure salvager, I really do feel for them. I relate finding a lost wreck with treasure on it to winning the lottery or getting an inheritance. Out of nowhere, you have jokers coming out of the woodwork trying to lay claim on it. The Spanish government has become like ambulance chasers. They don't care enough to try to chart shipwrecks and arrest the sites, but instead wait for others to do the work for them. Then they swoop down with their claims of any and everything. It's near impossible for anyone to find anything fair and square anymore because Spain rolls in and stakes their claim to stealing it fair and square first, so they have the stronger of the claims.

Once Odyssey finally begins work on the Sussex, I look forward to what Spain's claim on that one will be.
Click to expand...
Philvis I don't think Odyssey has turned into Lucifer, but Greg does get that funny look in his eye's some times :laughing7: Must be all that gold and silver :icon_pirat: I think treasure hunters have unknowingly done the world a big service
they have brought back to life history that lay forgotten to the benefit of everybody but mainly for their own personal gain !
I believe the original owners have the right to claim and the salvager should be paid his cost's and a percentage of the value
What would you say if Spain recovered the Sussex? Odyssey has been looking but hasn't found it ! and It may be in Spanish waters !
I feel Odyssey were on the right track with negotiating a deal before they go and salvage a wreck, what changed??? maybe they
thought they would get away with it !
One thing I will give Pipe, he blew the whistle on them !
 

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