Sands of time

A hurricane swept across the water near Havana Cuba September 5 1622 and by the time it had passed, eight ships were sunk. About 550 people perished and a total cargo worth more than 2 million pesos lay scattered over 50 miles from the Dry Tortugas eastward.

Lost in that storm were the Guard galleons Santa Margarita and her newly Cuban built sister, Nuestra Senora de Atocha. They were outfitted with upwards to 20 bronze cannons to escort the flotilla of ships returning to Spain with various treasures, the majority of which had been assigned to the Atocha and the Margarita. The wrecks were found easily afterwards because they had not sunk in deep waters but little was salvaged from them at that time due to a definate lack of today's technology.

The sister's rested quietly in the sand for centuries until 1980, when the now late Mel Fisher discovered an initial cache of treasure and artifacts from the Santa Margarita. In 1985, he discovered her sister, Nuestra Senora de Atocha and became instantly famous from the huge cache of treasure found.

On June 15 2007, the shifting sands lost their grasp on yet another part of the Margarita's treasure. A group of divers from Blue Water Ventures, under a joint venture agreement with the Fisher group found a stunning part of her treasure while searching for the remainder of her wreck site.

"It's the greatest high in the world, I think, to find gold at the bottom of the ocean and bring it in." said Greg Bounds, captain of the Blue Water Rose.

Hundreds of artifacts including a gold bar, 11 ornate gold pieces, eight gold chains that include two that are more than 4 feet long and a small lead box. It is what was hidden within the 8-inch long box that has stunned the treasure hunting world, when it was opened live on the Web Friday by experts and revealed "several thousands of pearls," ranging from one-eigth of an inch to three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Pearls rarely survive in the ocean once they are removed from the protection of the oysters that create them but it is believed that the box as well as the silt that had sifted in worked to preserve them in an almost pristine condition.

The sister's Atocha and Margarita are rivaled only by Titanic and her sisters in history. While it is the treasures worth millions that went to the bottom with the huge galleons, the Titanic, Britannic and Olympic are remembered for the tragedies related to the another era of giant ships. The Titanic sank on her maiden voyage and the Olympic, the oldest sister was refitted after that tragedy and enjoyed 24 years of service until she was sold and scrapped. The youngest and largest sister Britannic never carried a paying passenger, instead she served in the Royal Navy as a hospital ship in WW I until she sank in the Aegean sea after more than a year of service. While she lies in a busy shipping lane and at about 300 feet deep in the water, she is still within the range of divers, being some 50 + feet deeper than the Andrea Doria. Plans are under way now to develope a multi-million pound complex nearby and allow increasing numbers of divers to visit the wreck.

The historic pearls though, will be conserved, documented and photographed in an archaeological laboratory above the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West FL. Their value won't truly be known until they are properly cleaned and conserved but they seem to be worth upwards of a million dollars. To those of us intrigued by what the sea takes to her depths and holds close, each new piece of history the can be viewed, below or on the surface is an awe inspiring moment.