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| March - April 2008 Newsletter |
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200 Greene Street , Key West, Florida 33040
~ 305.296.6533 phone ~ www.MelFisher.com ~ 305.296.2220 fax ~ |
| March - April 2008 Newsletter
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"From the Desk of the
Barefoot CEO"
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Although we continue to enjoy our normal warm winter temperatures we also continue to deal with our normal winter winds and the rough seas they can kick up, which limits the time we can spend out on the water treasure hunting. Even so the Magruder has been able to make several trips out to the Atocha Trail, ducking into the shelter of the Marquesas for a night or two when necessary and right back out on the Quicksands when the seas are calm enough.  That persistence paid off in a big way the first (2/23/08) weekend of March, when diver Bill Burt discovered a foot-long, 4 pound, 23 karat gold bar! There were several coins and some encrusted objects found in the same area. To make such a significant find in a previously unworked area is extremely exciting, particularly because these gold bars were stored together in crates, so where there is one there ought to be more. The extensive retrofit of the Dare should be finished and all sea-trials completed to have her back on the water by the end of April, so the pace of new discoveries should really pick up.
May means Division, and this year we are going to have the biggest Division Party we’ve ever held. The theme is “Cannibals and Conquistadors,” in honor of this year’s stop on the Atocha’s journey into history, the island of Dominica. If you’ve seen the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie you have seen the island (and the cannibals). We are going to be back on the beach at the Casa Marina this year with lots of entertainment and great food, and for those of you who were sweltering in your heavy costumes last year, we expect a nice cooling breeze. Of course, the Party is just the culmination of an entire week of fun, socializing, and treasure hunting. You can check out the details on our website www.melfisher.com under the Investor Relations tab. Lee and I look forward to spending time with all of you while you’re here.
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Today's the Day!
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Newsletter Questions or Comments:newsletter@melfisher.com
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Article by Terry Strickland
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| Diver Profile: Bill Burt
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Born: February 5, 1961
Hometown: El Monte, California
Children: 3 daughters, 1 son
Jobs: Army Reconnaissance Scout, Concrete Worker, Treasure Diver
Army Reconnaissance Scout?: teams of four to eight soldiers that get in, reconnoiter an area, and get out without being seen
Worst Army Experience: “In ’82 - ‘83 I was stationed in Berlin patrolling the Wall. The East Germans and Russians patrolled with loaded weapons while the Americans had to keep their ammunition in cases in the back of their vehicle. It was pretty hairy.”
Best Army Experience: “After my first three years of active duty I was redeployed to Germany as part of an Engineering Detachment. We arrived on the first day of Springfest and spent the first fourteen days of deployment in biergartens – then took a weekend trip to Amsterdam!”
Favorite Memories of Germany: “Every little town has its own brewery and those Germans can drink some beer!”
Concrete Experience: “My family runs a concrete construction company building large facilities like hotels. After the Army, I worked for my brother for 12 years on projects all over the eastern seaboard and then I ran my own concrete business in Montana for 4 years. That’s a hard way to make a living, since the winter keeps you from working for three months or more. Then I shut down my business, moved to L.A. and joined the concrete union. I was there two days and got a job making $37.80 an hour.”
L.A. Story: “My two daughters had been living with me for seven years. I decided to move to a suburb of Los Angeles so they could get to know their Mom again. The thing I hated about L.A. was the rat race – it would take ½ hour to get to work and three to get home again.”
First SCUBA Experience: “A buddy in the military was into it pretty heavy. I went out with him a few times before getting certified in Montana in 1997. One of my buddies in Montana was an instructor, so I went from Open Water to Rescue Diver in about six months. I found out I really liked to do it. I’d keep my gear in the back of my truck so when I wasn’t pouring concrete I was diving.”
Diving Certifications: Open Water, Advanced Open, Deep Diver, Night Diver, Dry Suit Diver, Rescue, Nitrox, Advanced Nitrox and Gas Blending. Next up: Tri-Mix and Rebreathers.
Where to Dive in Montana: “Well, everywhere. There are rivers and lakes and we’d drive ten hours to Seattle and dive Puget Sound. A lot of people don’t like cold water, I don’t care - I’ll dive anywhere. I’ve been in Cathead Lake in 39 degree water. There were lakes we dove so much that I knew the first names of the fish. After I moved to Los Angeles I dove Catalina Island a lot which is pretty nice.”
Meet the Fishers: “By January of 2005 I had become really tired of the commuting in L.A.. My instructor friend in Montana said “go to Florida, they always have dive jobs there.” I got on the computer and searched for “dive jobs in Florida” and one of the main ones was Mel Fisher’s. So I filled out an application online. Captain Andy Matroci called me back a couple of weeks later and after interviewing me over the phone basically said “when can you be here?” It was a Monday and I was in Key West on Wednesday. There were a few other dive jobs I considered but this one intrigued me a lot more than the others.”
Best Thing About Being a Diver: “The camaraderie. We have a really good crew, kind of like a family. Everyone treats everyone else pretty well. And you have to. Being out there for ten days at a time everyone has to get along.”
Time On The Water: “220 days last year, so in the last three probably more than 600 days.”
Worst Thing About Being a Diver: “I don’t think there is…unless it’s the days it’s so windy we can’t dive.”
Best Treasure Find: “Just this last Saturday! We were diving a new area north of the Quicksands in about 20 feet of water. I found a 4 pound gold bar! It was a foot long and 23 karats. Chris Norwood (?), the dive master from Lazy Dog, was helping me dig the hole out when I found the gold bar. I showed it to him and said “take it up” so they thought he found it – I still had so much air left I wanted to keep looking. Two years ago another diver and I found two gold bars but this one was much bigger. We also found four coins that day – one of the divers found his first coin. We’re chomping at the bit to get back out there.”
Diving with Investors: “It’s great when the investors come out. We get to see them every year, maybe a couple of times a year and find out what’s going on in their lives and they get to see what we’re doing. We have good safety rules and a dive master to dive with them so we can focus on doing our job and they can help or watch.”
(Note: In 2006(?) the Magruder hosted a film crew from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Mo Rocca, a frequent contributor of short comedy segments to the show wanted to do a piece on being a treasure hunter. Bill was one of the divers he interviewed.)
The Mo Rocca Experience - How did it change your life?: “When I was talking to him and he said ‘you look like a 1970s porn star’ I said ‘how did you know?’ – It wasn’t rehearsed, just something I said off the top of my head! Then when it aired they cut in a picture of one of those guys with the same kind of mustache and hair that I have. Later, I’m walking down Duval Street and complete strangers are saying ‘look, the porn star!’ I had my family and friends calling me up saying ‘we didn’t know’ – and I’m telling them ‘It’s just a show!’” My Mom and sister were watching it and my Mom thought he said “foreign star” – my sister told her “no, Mom, he said porn star.’
The Future: “Diving isn’t as bad on your body as construction – you can dive until you’re in your 90s. I plan on it. It keeps me in shape. I just celebrated my 47th birthday and I’m in better shape than I’ve been in years. It’s never boring because I just know it’s going to happen. I’m an optimist – it’s just a matter of time. Mel said “Today’s the Day” and for me every day IS the day.”
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Article by Terry Strickland
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| Investor Profile: Jeremy and Erin Saunders
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Jeremy and Erin Saunders have lived a fairly adventurous life - so far - and one gets the impression that they’re just getting started. Growing up on opposite sides of the U.S. they met and fell in love while living on a Caribbean island. Jeremy grew up in Vermont and didn’t waste any time moving somewhere warmer: “A friend and I went down to St.Croix right after high school,” he says. “One of the first things  I wanted to do after getting down there was get in the water so I got my scuba certification from a local dive shop.” After an initial stint working charter boats he became a pool cleaner while studying for his Journeyman’s Electrician license. Erin, a certified speech pathologist, grew up in Northern California and began scuba diving when she was fourteen. That combination of interests led her to move to St.Croix in 2002. “I wanted to go somewhere that I could do speech therapy and teach diving without getting a visa,” she notes. “I earned my dive instructor certification while working for the N2 The Blue dive operation on the island. That allowed me to perform therapy during the day and teach scuba classes at night.”
Erin and Jeremy met at a local post-dive watering hole known as the Lost Dog Pub in Fredricksted. The timing was not ideal since Jeremy was planning on moving back to Vermont in two weeks. “I had already sold everything I owned and was living on the back porch of someone’s house waiting to leave,” he says. “She swept me off my feet, so after a month in Vermont I had to go back.” He and Erin dated for another two years before Jeremy proposed. They currently live in Port St. Lucie in Florida, near West Palm Beach. “We’re really island people, but after Jeremy proposed we had to move back to the mainland so that he could get his Master Electrician’s license,” Erin notes. “That will allow us to move back to St. Croix and he can work as an electrical contractor.” Naturally, they held their wedding on the island. “Our ‘honeymoon’ was on the island with my parents there,” Erin notes. “We still want to go somewhere cold and go skiing for our real honeymoon but haven’t found the time yet.”
As you would expect, Erin first learned of Mel Fisher and the story of the Atocha through diving, although from a rather unusual connection. “Dreams of Gold,” the 1986 TV movie about Mel’s search for the Atocha was filmed partially in St. Croix. The boat used to represent the ill-fated Northwind in the film was subsequently sunk there as an artificial reef and has become a favorite dive site. As part of her pre-dive briefing for the site Erin would talk about the fate of the Northwind and the story of Mel’s search for the Atocha. “I didn’t really understand the significance at first but after I saw the movie I would tell the story with a lot more emotion,” she says. When her father came to visit Erin took him out to dive the Northwind. After hearing her talk about it, seeing the boat and watching the movie he became fascinated with Mel’s story and treasure hunting – a passion that would become instrumental in Erin and Jeremy’s path to becoming investors.
Jeremy’s first exposure to Mel was also during one of Erin’s briefings on the Northwind. After seeing the movie and hearing more about the idea of treasure diving from Erin’s father he decided to try it himself. A friend had shown Jeremy the location of a large cache of antique bottles dating from the early 1700s. His friend then suffered a broken leg that made him unable to dive, so he made Jeremy a fateful offer: he would buy any of the bottles that Jeremy could recover. The dreams of enrichment that have driven so many men into treasure hunting began to take hold of Jeremy – but in this case it wasn’t monetary enrichment that he had in mind. He decided to recover enough of the bottles that he would be able to buy an engagement ring and propose to Erin!
It’s well known that treasure hunting requires ingenuity and daring. In Jeremy’s case it required almost James Bond-level ingenuity and daring. “When I came out of the water after my first dive on the cache there was a cop with a machine gun standing there.” Apparently the sight of a lone frogman emerging from a busy harbor area with a sack of liquid-filled bottles aroused some concern over his activities. “He thought I was up to no good” Jeremy points out dryly, “standing there shaking his head at me. I had to be careful to not be so obvious after that. Technically you weren’t supposed to be out there but they never really enforced it.” The treasure bug also led him to buy a metal detector and he found several rings lost in the beach sand – none quite right for his purpose, though.
Despite the danger Jeremy kept going back until he had recovered almost 200 bottles, which he decided would be enough to buy a suitable ring for the woman he wanted to be his wife. However, when Jeremy went to Erin’s father to ask for her hand in marriage it turned out Dad didn’t like the idea one bit. Not the idea of Jeremy marrying his daughter, that was fine – no, he didn’t like Jeremy’s plan for the bottles. “The thought of Jeremy selling those amazing old bottles made my Dad sick” Erin recalls, “so he gave Jeremy my great-grandmother’s ring to propose with instead!” The bottles are now proudly on display in their home.
By December they were convinced. Jeremy explains what finally made up their minds: “The appeal of being part of this amazing piece of history is hard to explain, but the thrill and the adventure are the main reasons we decided to become involved – we’ll also be happy with whatever we get for division. I look forward to displaying it next to my bottles!” Erin adds “After learning about Mel and Deo and their story we became really passionate about it. If we could we’d quit our jobs and just go treasure hunting like they did. It’s an adventurous, fun, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” They were also impressed with the people. “Everyone we talked to was so nice,” Erin points out. “When we went out on the Magruder we met another couple of investors who were just great and the crew made us feel so comfortable – we’re really excited about the upcoming year! We’re very impressed with the whole operation and so happy that we ended up doing this.”
 Erin points out that their plan to make the most of their investment is to try to dive the Atocha at least once a month. Their first time out on the Magruder was at the end of February and the events of that day bode well for their future dives – diver Bill Burt found a foot-long gold bar and several coins were also recovered. “Approaching the Magruder, seeing it from afar after seeing all the movies and pictures it was almost surreal,” Jeremy notes. “It was an iconic image. It’s mind-boggling to me to see it out there in the middle of nowhere and wonder how they ever found anything. It was really exciting to meet Captain Andy (Matroci) after seeing him in the movies and on TV and in magazines.” Erin adds: “He was very friendly and humble, which was actually a bit of a surprise. The dive world, especially when I first started, was dominated by men and there was a lot of arrogance. We expected to encounter a certain amount of arrogance and pride here, but there was not one iota of that attitude. Everyone was so friendly and helpful and down-to-earth -- they made us feel so welcome.”
How did it feel being there when Bill found the gold bar? “When I was getting in the water my dive knife fell out of my pocket,” Jeremy recalls. “It settled on the bottom almost right below the ladder and right by where they found the gold bar – if I would have fanned the sand a little bit when I was recovering my knife I might have found the bar myself!” Erin was also in the water: “I was just about to go back up to the boat because I was getting a little cold but decided to stay down for a few more minutes. That’s when they found the gold bar and you could see how excited Bill was. Later I smacked Jeremy on the head and said ‘why didn’t you find that?’” she laughs. Sailors and divers can tend to be a superstitious lot, so when it’s pointed out that no doubt the crew of the Magruder is as anxious to have Jeremy and Erin back on board as they are themselves, Jeremy replies: “I’m very superstitious too and I told Erin that I’m going to wear the same shirt, the same shorts, the same hat, and the same pair of sandals out to that boat the next time I go – and be sure to drop my dive knife!” With their penchant for adventure, it seems likely that the Saunders will be in the right place at the right time many more times to come.
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Article by James Sinclaire
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| Gold Chains of the 1622 Fleet
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Perhaps one of the most unanticipated finds from the 1622 Fleet shipwrecks are the gold chains. This was a class of item that while expected turned up in numbers that were truly staggering. The fist of the gold chains to be found came from the area where the first galleon anchor was found in the area of the Quicksands that was dubbed the Bank of Spain.
The fist of the chains to be found was a fairly small example but it none-the-less brought much excitement. Brought to the surface by photographer Don Kincaid, it was a thrilling moment for those involved. While some silver coins had been found, along with the galleon anchor, the presence of gold made the find that much more real and exciting.
It was over the course of years but many chains would be found, literally thousands of feet in total of many different sizes and designs. As one of the members of the team researching and explaining the collection from the wreck, the sheer volume of this class of gold artifact was puzzling.
However more research by our historian Dr. Eugene Lyon among others helped to shed light on just why we were seeing so many gold chains being recovered from these important shipwrecks.
Gold chains began to become extremely popular across Europe in the century before the Atocha and Margarita were lost. This fact can be seen in the many portraits dating from that time that show the wealthy (both men and women) wearing chains of gold. Women would wear the chains as, necklace, belt or choker. Men would wear them either around the neck or over the shoulder with and without suspended decorations.
 
In fact in Spain a number of edicts were passed by King Philip II court that prohibited the ostentatious jewelry that was in vogue during the reign of his father Charles V. This earlier jewelry can be seen in many paintings of that earlier period. Perhaps one of the best known is the portrait of Henry VIII wearing his famous collar of gold and jewel encrusted pendants. Indeed Phillip II became increasingly sensitive to the poverty of the Spanish people, especially after the failed invasion of England in 1588.
In a series of edicts the wearing of this type of jewelry was forbidden, however the King conceded that the wearing of gold chains was okay. As a result, gold chains of prodigious size and weight began to be manufactured (the bigger the more well off) and their presence in the art of the day begins to show in increasing amounts. By the time of the loss of the Atocha and the Santa Margarita in 1622 the style was firmly implanted in the culture of Spain and by extension it’s colonies in the New World.
However, there were other dimensions to the chains from the 1622 fleet. One of the interesting findings was that some of the largest chains had links of very pure gold (usually 23K) and each of those links weighed a very specific amount. In fact these links weighed the same as some of the gold coinage that was circulating at the time. Why would this be? Even by the year 1622 the king had not given permission to mint gold coins in the New World, although many had petitioned the court for this to be done. As a consequence there was a shortage of gold coins in the New World to be used in commerce. So these chains are thought to represent a way around this shortage and were in a very real sense portable wealth.
There was also a lesser tax on jewelry than on bullion so that even the cost of making of these chains represented a substantial savings over the creation of bullion pieces and the payment of the Quinto (the royal tax of 20%). Once we had realized that this was a sort of end run around the taxes of the time as well as a stand in for gold coinage, the chains that had links that represented the weight of coins were dubbed “money chains”.
One chain that was recovered from the Santa Margarita merited its own name. Two 3-foot loops of massive gold chain joined by a central link bring this object to nearly 7lbs of gold. In the New World as in the Old, customs survived and one of these was the dowry, a payment of the bride’s family to that of the groom’s for the marriage of the daughter to the son. A custom also existed to show the unity of the two families by placing a “garland” of flowers over the head of the bride and the groom. These flowers were joined by a central loop thus the “unity”. This massive chain seems to echo this old custom on both counts hence the name “wedding chain”.
This past summer (2007) Blue Water Ventures, working under an agreement with Motivation Inc., made a stunning find-- a box of wonderful pearls and many beautiful gold chains. These chains for the most part were not part of the inventory of material listed on the manifests of the Atocha or the Margarita. They were the unrecorded, untaxed property of the wealthy passengers and officers aboard these vessels and they were undoubtedly kept close by in each of these individuals small cabins – in the stern castle of the ships. How many chains will eventually be found when the remains of the Atocha’s stern castle is found? It is impossible to say but given what has already been found, these unfound chains will be a wonderful part of the treasure that is still “out there”
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