JayDee

The dive ladder bounces up and down in the offshore surge. We’re hanging on tight, fighting the current, nearly deafened by the roar of the boat’s diesel engine. It’s revved high to send powerful jets of water down two curved metal tubes called “mailboxes,” which fit in front of the propellers. Below, on the ocean floor, the redirected prop wash is sweeping away a swath of sand 40 ft. wide.

When the noise of the engine dies down, first mate Tony Gil shouts from the deck of the 65-ft. converted lobster boat: “Ready?” I nod and put on my mask, but the other two divers have already plunged into the cloudy water—racing to the bottom and the gold that may lie there.

I’m 35 miles west of Key West, Fla., diving with Mel Fisher’s Treasures, a company named for America’s most renowned treasure hunter. Over the course of 35 years, Mel Fisher and his divers recovered gold, silver and jewels from some of the richest wrecks in the Western Hemisphere. Fisher died in 1998, but his descendants still carry on the family business. In an era when marine salvage often means remote-control rovers probing deep-water wrecks, Fisher crews find bounty from shallow waters using strategies developed by Mel decades ago. What’s surprising is that those rich, shallow waters are American. “Key West is our bread and butter,” says Mel’s grandson Sean.

Survey boats tow 4-ft.-long metal “fish” mounted with side-scan sonar, which can help locate piles of ballast rock, and cesium magnetometers, which are used to find chunks of iron from decomposing ships. When wreckage is located, the work becomes even more basic: Scuba divers with metal detectors scour the seabed and excavate artifacts by hand.

The other two divers and I are breaking all the rules I’ve mastered in years of recreational scuba diving. Loaded with more than twice my normal dive weight, I jump in without inflating my buoyancy compensator, the flotation device that controls a diver’s position underwater. I’d be concerned if we were diving deep; here, I land like a stone safely on the sand 20 ft. below.

The wreck we’re working is the Santa Margarita, which left Havana for Spain in the fall of 1622. The 630-ton galleon and another vessel in the 28-ship convoy, the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, carried emeralds, gold and silver jewelry, and coins and bullion from Central and South America. The ships were anxiously awaited by the Spanish crown, embroiled in the Thirty Years’ War and nearly bankrupt. But a hurricane scattered the fleet and sank eight ships, including the two galleons, which were dashed onto reefs off Florida’s Marquesas Keys. For nearly four centuries, storms scattered and buried Spain’s lost treasure under shifting sand.

Today, expectations are high that we’ll find something valuable. Earlier this summer at the Santa Margarita site, Fisher divers discovered gold bars and chains, silver coins and a box containing about 6000 to 10,000 pearls potentially worth $20 million. According to historical records, there are at least another 155 silver bars and 80,000 silver coins valued at up to $50 million down here.

The two divers who beat me to the bottom comb the sand with metal detectors. Trailing empty-handed, I peer into crevices for hunks of black, which may be oxidized silver, and lumps of orange, which may be oxidized iron artifacts. Occasionally, one of the divers swims to the collection crate and puts something in it. After about 15 minutes, they signal to ascend.

On the surface, the lumpy white rocks in the crate take on more character. A hand-shaped chunk with an orange stain likely has an iron spike embedded in it. A rounded rock is probably an ancient iron ball lock. It turns out that a treasure hunt is actually a rock hunt: Most artifacts are encased by nearly four centuries of marine encrustation.

But not gold. It is inert, and remains unchanged after centuries of immersion. “Gold,” Mel Fisher used to say, “shines forever.”

http://www.popularmechanics.com/outd...s/4230711.html

Life is not is life without Family & Friends
Bored weekend
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Feel free to add me on msn :
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Fun Fact: Penis is the lightest thing in the world,as it can be lifted up by a single thought.

Read email,earn money?
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.