Among these 28 ships, there is a 630-ton sailboat "Saint Margaret". On its manifest, there are 65,438+09 silver ingots, 65,438+065,438+08,000 silver coins, 34 gold bars, 65,438+0488 ounces of gold plates, as well as silverware, copper ingots, tobacco and indigo. 14 passengers on board all carried their own jewels, and there were also a lot of smuggled gold and silver on board. When the Saint Margaret left Havana, it was actually a floating treasure house.
The fleet set out under a clear sky. At sunset, they arrived in the east, then turned to the north and caught up with the Gulf Stream. Suddenly, an unexpected hurricane edge-small but powerful-entered the Florida sandbar.
At dawn on Monday, a strong wind blew towards the fleet. At first, the fleet was able to advance according to the predetermined route. At dusk, the strong wind gradually strengthened into a hurricane. In the monstrous waves, the view between ships completely disappeared. The treasure ship was blown into the reefs and shoals of Florida sandbars by strong winds and rough waves. The roaring hurricane dispersed the fleet. The people on board prayed to God all night.
In the rising sun, the sea presents a frightening sight. Huge waves roared up Florida coral reefs, soared into the air and splashed into distant shallows. The captain of the "Saint Margaret" looked around and found her sister ship struggling in the waves. While he was watching, the ship sank. Suddenly, the "St. Margaret" shook violently and quickly rushed to the shallows. The people on board grabbed the railings and pillars of the ship, while the huge waves smashed the ship to pieces.
When the hurricane left and the sea calmed down, only 68 survivors were floating in the wreckage. Most of them were rescued by ships passing through here, and the whereabouts of the rest 120 people are unknown. The hurricane destroyed eight ships on the 50-mile route. Two of them, "Saint Margaret" and "Alcha", sank in the waters of Fiona Fang, which is located about 6 ~ 10 nautical miles southwest of Mangrove Island and was hit by a storm on the shallow beach in Florida.
The rescue of the treasure began at once, but nothing was found. The real search and salvage didn't begin until Francisco nunes melian, a powerful Havana politician, got a contract from the Spanish royal family. 1626 At the beginning of June, sailors in melian found the main ballast on the "Margaret" with a copper diving bell. Then fishermen in Meilian fished out 199 pieces of silver ingots and more than 30,000 pieces of silver coins.
After retreating from the hostile Dutch ship, Mei Lian returned to the sunken ship and salvaged 15 1 pieces of silver ingots, more silver coins, a big anchor, eight bronze cannons and some copper and silver utensils. 1628, 37 pieces of silver ingots and about 3,000 pieces of silver coins were salvaged, but a lot of treasures were left on the seabed.
1629 Before the fishing season, Mei Lian was appointed as the governor of Venezuela and went to Caracas to take office. The salvage of the Saint Margaret was abandoned. The list of "Saint Margaret" salvaged was sent to Spain and stored in the archives of the Andes. As time went on, Spain continued to weaken. The wrecked ships and their treasures were buried in the sand off the Florida Shoal and forgotten.
197 1 year, an experienced fisherman, Mein A. Fisher, found the anchor and other items on Atlantis along the clues provided by the materials collected from the Spanish archives. But the "St. Margaret"-she is like a "ghost ship" in the known Florida treasure legend, but it is rumored to be lying in different places. The materials in the file are also vague in some places. One material indicates that "Saint Margaret" is 3 nautical miles west of "Arca", while the other material indicates that it is east of "Arca".
1980 65438+ 10, Fisher convened a meeting in Xishazhou to plan further salvage steps. The emergency forced him to make up his mind, because a well-funded competitor had already started an operation near the ruins of Atacha discovered by Fisher. Fisher signed a contract with another fisherman, Robert Jordan, to help Fisher search.
In the sandbar in winter, the wind blows. But the winter of 1980 is cooperative and friendly. In the past few days, the search by geomagnetic instrument to the west of Atacha was fruitless. Jordan sailed his ship "Castillo Company" and searched eastward. Soon, on the edge of a wide beach, the geomagnetic instrument drew a unique line on the coordinate map, and Jordan anchored here. The diver found a small anchor and then a 6-foot-wide cauldron. An electronic instrument guides "Castilo Company" to the north. To their interest, the bottom of their next berth was covered with residual ballast stones, Spanish pottery and indigo, and four silver coins wrapped in a big thick leather bag were salvaged.
In the shallow water exposed along the rock head fault north of the first discovery point, the divers of Cascade Company found three heavy gold nuggets. After returning to the dock, the cheerful diver opened the champagne and used one of the gold bars as a stirring stick. Everyone was surprised. What kind of ship is this? Could it be "Saint Margaret"?
"Vergrona" is called the discoverer of treasure in Fisher's company. A few days later, Fisina's tall and red-haired son sailed this respectable work boat to a possible area. He put on a scuba diving apparatus and jumped into the water. The young diver was surprised to see six silver ingots neatly arranged in two rows, which were very symmetrical with the bedrock. You can see a clear view in the clear water. He saw most of a 23-foot-long wooden boat covered with ballast stones, copper ingots and dense decorations. Divers continued to salvage in the surrounding area and found a gold nugget, two large silver ingots and a small silver bowl, as well as a sand shaker, a wax table and plates. They managed to pull a pack of silver coins weighing 105 pounds onto the boat. These silver coins still kept their original shape in the box, but the wooden box had already rotted.
After comparing the sign on the silver ingot with the cargo manifest of the "St. Margaret", people were pleasantly surprised to find that this ship had nothing but the "St. Margaret".
Near the center of Saint Margaret,1On May 25th, 1980, divers of Castillo Company stumbled upon a "mine-rich belt": 1 1 large gold nuggets, 4 small gold nuggets, a part of a large gold plate weighing 50 pounds, 5 small escudo gold coins and 6 pieces.
July 8th can be called "Gold Necklace Day". When the diver Panta Carlin groped around an ingot with his hand, he suddenly jumped out of a big gold chain, and then one by one, all connected together, forming a golden ball-* * * as many as 15. The biggest one has 149 decorative link. The "Vigrona" docked nearby and soon found six gold nuggets and a gold plate.
In the late autumn of 198 1, all the wealth of the "St. Margaret" water confirmed that they were scattered on a 4000-foot-long waterway. Gold alone-56 pieces, plates and strips, weighing 1 18 lbs. Fisher and his sailors also found a gold chain 180 feet long and 56 gold coins, the largest number ever found on a Spanish ship. However, there are still a lot of treasures left at the bottom of the sea, waiting for people to find and salvage.