Treasure Hunting Article

[GordMay]

Interesting article from "Sports Iluustrated:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/fea...ure/29/diving/
SI.com - SI Adventure - Booty Call - Wednesday July 02, 2003 04:25 PM

[Canibul]

Thought some of you interested in these things would enjoy seeing a stone ballast pile on the reef here in the TCI. I tied the line to one of the stones to anchor a marker float so I could get a good GPS on this site.

The stones include granite and blue slate, among others. The only native rock here is marine limestone. period. So when we see these different shaped and colored stones we know what they are. They are covered in the marine "dust" of centuries. Broken bottle parts we found with this wreck site are handblown and circa 1720. Also found a lot of bricks and firebricks from the ships galley. the blue slate likely came from the Azores, hence a Portuguese or Spanish wreck. We have two other wreck sites in the same general area, boats that missed a cut in the reef and broke up.

The other photo is six firebricks I stacked up, all picked up within 20 ft. of the photo. Means the boat was big enough to have cooking facilities, i.e. ocean-going and not local fishing boat.

I really need an underwater metal detector, for this site and several others. We continue to search. Have some bearings taken in 83 to a reported "12 ft. anchor". We have a six foot one we recovered sitting next to the driveway.

[Canibul]

heres the anchor we recovered. Its an 'admiralty' style, originally from England. This one still has some tarred cord chafing wrapped around the round bail! The English had gone to chain by 1870, so its older than that.

Raised it off the bottom with a Boston Whaler Montauk, an 8 ft. length of 4x4, and two pieces of line. Getting it to the house from the boat was another story.