It was 1969 when former chicken farmer turned treasure hunter Mel Fisher started hunting for the shipwreck, Nuestra Señora de Atocha. The Spanish Galleon sank in 1622 during a violent hurricane in the Florida Straits.
For over a decade, Fisher’s dogged search yielded little, but the hunt was just too intoxicating to stop.
At the time of its demise, the Atocha was ladened with a horde of contraband plundered from Central and South America. The galleon’s treasure was so immense that the ship’s Panama departure was delayed. At the same time, the crew spent two months recording and loading their spoils.
Valued at between 250 and 500 million dollars, the Atocha’s cache included silver from Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico; gold and emeralds from Colombia; pearls from Venezuela; a gold chain valued at over a quarter million dollars; and so much more.
When the Atocha caught up with the rest of its Spanish Tierra fleet in Cuba, hurricane season was already upon them.
On September 4, 1622, the 28-ship convoy set sail for Spain. The hurricane smashed into them on the following day. Eight ships went down, including The Nuestra Señora de Atocha. All was lost.
But that all changed on Friday, July 22, 1985. After 16 years of proclaiming “Today Is The Day,” Fisher’s crew hit pay dirt. Just thirty-five miles offshore lay the ship’s elusive “Mother Lode.” With an estimated worth of $450 million, Fisher’s haul was only about half of the Atocha’s original trove. The rest still remains hidden beneath the ocean.
Mel Fisher died just three years after his discovery, but his legacy still lives on at Key West’s Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.
The museum boasts the richest single collection of 17th-century maritime and shipwreck antiquities in the Western Hemisphere and is home to a priceless collection of artifacts from the prized Nuestra Señora de Atocha and her ill-fated sister ship, the Santa Margarita. The museum is also home to other relics from several other historical wrecks, including the English merchant slave vessel Henrietta Marie, which sank in 1700 near the Marquesas Keys.
You can see it all at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, 200 Greene St. More info at 305-294-2633; melfisher.org.
