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Part 1
Spain's colonial wealth
The Spanish Empire, also known as the Spanish Colonial Empire, was one of the world's first truly global empires and colonial empires, and one of the largest empires in the history of the world, and the Spanish Empire is considered to be the first empire where the sun never sets.
The Armada of the Spanish Empire
The Spanish Armada, meaning the great and fortunate navy, was the Spanish maritime fleet of the late 16th century.
The Spanish Armada consisted of more than 150 large warships, more than 3,000 cannons, and a sea fleet of tens of thousands of soldiers.
At its peak, the fleet consisted of more than a thousand ships, and the fleet ran rampant in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Oceans.
Departing from Spain's Port of Sanlucar, it travels west across the Atlantic Ocean to the east coast of South America
Spain's plundering of colonial wealth was in its most barbaric way, and at a time South America proved rich in gold and silver and other rare resources, so the only job of the Spanish colonists in the New World was to mine and operate mines.
South America
Ship after ship of gold and silver treasure became evidence of colonial plunder.
Spanish gold carriers were most afraid of pirates and hurricanes, and in order to deal with pirates, each fleet was equipped with a cannon and a strong hull "escort ship", and the Atoka was such a escort ship.
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Part 2
Escort ship: Lady Atoka
In August 1622, the Constellation of 29 ships of the Lady Atoka returned to Spain from South America with treasure.
Since it was a frigate, the most valuable and precious treasure was placed on the Atoka.
Leaving Havana in early September 1622, the ship, in addition to 265 men, carried as many as 40 tons of silver, gold and various fortunes from Colombia, Peru and other parts of South America.
The Lady Atoka galleon
The heavily armed Madame Atoka galleon served as the rear guard of the Spanish fleet.
Havana, the capital of Cuba
On September 4, 1622, the Spanish Sailing Group set out from Havana and headed for Cuba with a fleet of nine ships bound for Spain.
Cargo ships laden with silver, gold and other New World treasures encountered an evil hurricane as they entered the Straits of Florida the next day. As the convoy sailed to the waters between Havana and Cuba, a hurricane swept through the last 5 ships in the convoy that had fallen.
Hurricanes hit ships
Unfortunately, the atoka's cannons had little deterrent effect on hurricanes.
The Atoka was the first target due to its heavy load and slowest sailing speed, and the ship soon sank to the bottom of the sea at a depth of 17 meters.
After a hurricane on September 5, 1622, eight other ships in the fleet sank, and the seafloor from the Makzas Islands to Dry Tugas was littered with garbage, located 30 to 70 miles west of Key West, Florida.
The two sailors and three slaves aboard the Lady Atoka clutched the ship's rear mast, the only part left on the surface, but rescuers were unable to open the ship's hatch.
shipwreck
Sailors on other ships immediately jumped into the water, hoping to salvage some of the treasure, but just as they were finding the wreckage and preparing to salvage the gold bars, another more powerful hurricane struck, killing all the people underwater.
A second hurricane of October 5, 1622, further destroyed the shipwreck, killing hundreds of people when it sank, including sailors, soldiers, priests, slaves, and nobles.
Despite 60 years of searching by Spanish salvagers, no trace of Atocha or its treasure has been found.
Of these Spanish shipwreck salvagers, the most famous is the Fisher Family.
Interestingly, the family's last name also happens to mean "fisherman".
Kim Fisher, the family's contemporary head, said in an interview: "There is an amazing treasure between shipwrecks on the seabed, and in the last 300 years, about 700 Spanish sailing ships have sunk, but only a very small number of shipwrecks have been salvaged."
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Part 3
Undersea Treasure Catcher: Mel Fisher
On July 20, 1985, the world's most famous "underwater treasure hunter", the American Mel Fisher has been saying that "this day" finally arrived, Mel found his "dream of dreams", the legendary Spanish famous treasure ship Lady Atoka.
1 American Mel Fisher's Treasure Hunt Dream
Mel Fisher (1922-1998) was the most famous underwater treasure salvager of the 20th century in the United States.
Mel was born in August 1922 to a chicken farmer family in Indiana, USA.
Mel Fisher's treasure hunting dream began with the robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island he read as a child, and the stories of those who first ventured into the deep sea in a huge and bulky wetsuit captivated Mel Fisher.
There were few oceans in Indiana for him to conquer, but at the age of 11, Mel Fisher made his first hard helmet diving device himself and dived to the bottom of a mud-covered lagoon.
After World War II, Mel Fisher went to Florida and continued to explore his interest in the sea and diving.
In 1950, Mel moved with his parents to Torrance, California, and opened a domestic chicken farm.
Soon, Mel opened his first dive shop inside the chicken farm, where he had a small compressor and sold compressed gas and diving supplies for underwater breathing.
2 Wife Dolores: A combination of like-minded people and the accumulation of experience
After graduating from Purdue University in Indiana in 1953, he married Dolores Horton Fisher (1936-2009) and opened a diving shop in California.
Mel Fisher and wife Dolores
In 1953, Mel met his wife, Dolores, and the two like-minded people soon got married, and on their honeymoon, the two newcomers decided to go diving in Florida.
To raise money to start a dive shop, the two men fished lobsters in california's cold waters.
Over time, they opened a shop in Redondo Beach, California, called the Mel Ocean Shop.
Mel and Dolores had great success in an industry that was avant-garde at the time.
They trained more than 65,000 novices who dive through underwater respirators.
Meier divers dive underwater in search of shipwreck remains
As an underwater pioneer, Mel made underwater films for training, advertising, and entertainment purposes.
While television media was still young, Mel's underwater adventure program had become a weekly show on local television.
Dolores was Mel's best assistant in business and one of the first women in history to learn diving, leaving behind a world record for the longest woman's endurance underwater: 55 hours and 37 minutes.
Along with other talented divers, Mel searched for shipwrecks around California's coast and successfully embarked on some exciting underwater treasure excavations in the Caribbean.
While the discovery was limited, it also gave Mel and Doloss a wealth of experience.
3 Partners join
In 1962, on his way back from the Caribbean Sea through California, Mel met another "underwater treasure hunter," Jeep Wagner.
A powerful combination
Wagner had been searching for the Spanish fleet that sank on the east coast of Florida in 1715 due to a hurricane.
With limited equipment and a lack of full-time divers under his command, Wagner invited Mel to take a stake.
Mel promised to spend a year with a group of 7 people searching for the "Belt of Riches" without pay.
360 days passed and nothing was found.
After that, Meier began experimenting with an invention called the "mailbox": after the ship broke anchor on the surface of the sea, it sent a thick pipe underwater and pumped the crystal clear sea water on the upper layer to the bottom of the sea. This greatly improves the visibility of divers on the seabed, and an additional benefit is that the sea water washes away the sand layers on the seabed.
Undersea gold coin paving
The "mailbox" brought new discoveries: they found 1033 gold coins at the bottom of the sea: "The sight of the gold coin paving the seabed that you will never forget for the rest of your life."
4 New target on the scavenger hunt: the Spanish sailing Lady Atoka
In 1969, Mel found the goal of a new scavenger hunt, turning his attention to the warm waters off the coast of Florida near Chiwest Island and beginning his search for the Spanish sailing ship Lady Atoka, as recorded in the Potter's Guide to The Treasure Hunt on the Seabed.
Undersea treasure hunting guide
It was a Royal Guard sailing ship laden with 40 tons of gold and silver, which sank in a devastating hurricane in 1622.
Considered one of the largest treasures on the ocean floor, the Lady Atoka is known as the "Bank of Spain", and legend has it that there were 40 tons of treasure on the shipwreck, of which nearly 8 tons of gold and nearly 500 kilograms of precious stones, with a total value of up to about 400 million US dollars.
5 The pinnacle of the undersea treasure hunt
In 1980, Mel pushed his undersea treasure hunt to the top.
He found the sister of the Lady Atoka, sank st. Margaret in the same hurricane, and found more than $20 million worth of gold and silver on board.
Mel and his discoveries
Finding priceless treasures is just the beginning, followed by a series of jobs: preservation, research, restoration, documentation, and sharing with the world, exhibitions.
Restoration of artifacts
Sadly, Mel's first "floating museum" sank in the 80s.
Meier then bought a building that had been used by the Navy as the permanent site of the non-profit Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society Museum.
It also houses research centers, educational centers, and conservation labs, allowing people to gain knowledge while sharing the glory of him and his team.
The original dream
In his 20-year salvage career, Fisher has salvaged 6 famous Spanish shipwrecks, becoming a celebrity in the circle and earning a lot of money.
Unconsciously, Fisher reached retirement age, but he was reluctant to leave the salvage ship because he had vowed to find the Legendary Lady Atoka, who had the most treasure in the legend.
So the family gave up the normal operation of the company for this ideal, and Fisher's wife, son and daughter accompanied their father to the water to find their dreams at the bottom of the sea.
Their search was meticulous, and whenever they saw something that was not stone, they had to probe it with a metal detector.
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Part 4
Dream Come True: The Spanish Sailing Ship Madame Atoka
Mel made a promise to himself that he would find the legendary Spanish galleon: the Lady Atoka.
Mel believes that at the beginning of each day, the mysterious lady is waiting for him at the bottom of the sea.
"It's today!" ——— this is Mel's belief in supporting his search and has become his motto.
1 Location of the sinking of the Lady Atoka: appeared in 1971
In order to find the shipwreck, Mel abandoned the management of the company and launched the water with his wife and children to find the Atoka.
Mel hired Duncan Mathewson as his chief archaeologist.
After obtaining his master's degree in England, Duncan conducted archaeological research in Ghana, West Africa, and later in Jamaica. In the end, a phone call from Messe Fair took him to Key West, and in the subsequent collaboration, the two sides praised each other.
Key West
Beginning in 1969, Mel and his family explored almost every possible location on the ocean floor after 16 years of constant exploration, culminating in the discovery of the sinking site of the Atoka in 1971.
Shipwreck ruins
The site of the shipwreck is 22 feet underwater and spread over a sandy area about 11 miles long and about 100 feet wide.
In order to salvage the shipwreck, Mel sacrificed his life.
2 The World's Worst Investment: Treasure Hunt in the Ocean
While underwater treasure hunting may seem like a costless business, it can cost millions of dollars to actually perform a treasure hunt.
In 2014, Bloomberg named Ocean Treasure Hunt "the worst investment in the world."
The worst investment in the world
Because for those who invest in the treasure of the seabed, although treasure hunting may mean getting rich overnight, it may also become bankrupt and in debt.
During the salvage of the wreck, Mel's basic investment is about $3 million a year, which includes maintaining two 90-foot vessels, a smaller search vessel, scanning devices and salaries for 25 staff.
Compared with other solid investments, the return profit margin of the undersea treasure hunt investment fluctuates greatly.
Treasure Hunt project
Spending $3 million to find and salvage a shipwreck, you may be able to get items that sell for only $300,000, and of course you may find $400 million in treasure.
Mel once joked to his investors: "If your investment advisor suggests you invest in a treasure hunt project, you should immediately fire him." ”
3 Hardships and tribulations, shortage of funds
As time passes, investors' interest is waning.
Because of a shortage of funds, Mel lives with his family in a houseboat in Key West.
Sometimes they have to choose between food and boat fuel: if they choose fuel, it means that dinner can only be solved by fishing to save fuel.
Shortage of funds
To cover daily expenses and treasure hunting expenses, he took out loans across the country, and even for months he didn't pay his employees and lawyers a single penny.
The process of treasure hunting is full of hardships and tribulations.
4 The loss of a loved one
On 20 July 1975, during the search for the Atoka, the treasure hunting vessel sank due to the failure of the bilge pump.
In this accident, Mel lost his eldest son Dirk, daughter-in-law Angel and diver Rick Gage.
For the Fisher family, this devastating disaster made them almost give up.
But in order to ensure that the sacrifice of their loved ones was not in vain, the Fisher family was more active in seeking the treasure under the sea.
Stick to your dreams
Meier has lived his life in his dreams and firmly believes that "Today is the Day"!
He regrouped and continued to search.
5 Another decade
After that, it was another decade of hard work and a long search.
On July 20, 1985, the big day of the Fisher family's treasure hunt, they finally found the shipwreck of the Lady Atoka and the treasure known as "The Atocha Motherlode" near the Key West coast of Florida.
The treasures, which are estimated to be worth $450 million, include 40 tons of gold and silver, as well as 114,000 Spanish "pieces of eight" silver coins, gold coins, Colombian emeralds, gold and silver artifacts and 1,000 silver bars.
A gold plate found in the shipwreck of the Lady Atoka
On July 20, 1985, after 15 years of continuous searching, Mel finally made his dream come true.
The remains of the Lady attoka have been located! They found thousands of ancient artifacts; countless silver and gold coins that seemed to have just been minted, Spanish pottery, delicate jewelry studded with gems, gold chains, plates; weapons of all kinds, and even seeds (which later sprouted successfully).
Gold and silverware and coins salvaged from the ruins of the Lady Atoka shipwreck in 1985
Mel and his team claim it is the richest treasure since the discovery of the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun in the 1930s.
Gold necklace
In 2011, Bill Burt, a diver at the Mel Fisher Museum, salvaged a 1-meter-long gold necklace from the ruins of the Lady Atoka.
The necklace has 55 joints, a gold cross pendant, and a double-sided nameplate engraved with the symbols of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Grail, respectively, and is estimated at $250,000.
It is said to belong to the priest on the Lady Atoka.
6 Lawsuits continue
Mel's price for the underwater treasure hunt includes not only his son, daughter-in-law and close assistants.
In the process, Mel also went through more than 100 lawsuits.
Under U.S. law, if a shipwreck is in U.S. waters, the finder must report to the U.S. Maritime Administration and obtain permission to search the waters.
To prevent treasure hunters and salvagers from diverting the wreck, the United States also passed the U.S. Abandoned Shipwrecks Act in 1987 to specify this in detail.
Open door legislation
Under the circumstances, Mel Fisher's company was one of several salvage-qualified companies in Florida that had the right to search for shipwrecks in their waters, but they were also subject to strict legal regulations in areas such as marine environmental protection.
On one occasion, Meier dived into the deep sea in search of shipwrecks and fought with his bare hands a large grouper weighing about 80 pounds in an underwater protected area established in the Florida Keys, in violation of local environmental regulations.
Big grouper
In 1992, during a search for a sunken Spanish galleon near the Florida Keys, Mel's company also destroyed more than an acre of seagrass in the reserve.
In 1997, a judge awarded nearly $590,000 to Mel & Co. and his son Kane over the incident and ordered them to hand over shells, anchors and other items salvaged from the wreck.
Of all the lawsuits, Mel's biggest legal dispute was the ownership of the wreckage of the Lady Atoka.
Since 1975, the Fisher family has salvaged various gold, silver, jewelry and coins. These shipwreck treasures brought wealth at the same time, but also put the Fisher family in a long lawsuit with the U.S. government.
Wishful thinking
The U.S. government and the Florida government were no longer satisfied with the previous agreement with Mel to donate 25 percent of the salvage assets, arguing that the treasure should all belong to the government.
At the same time, the Florida government also seized a large number of treasures.
In 1982, after nearly eight years of tireless efforts, Mel and his team finally won an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled that the Fisher family had ownership of the Lady Atoka and the treasure of the Shipwreck of Santa Margarita, but the previous agreement with the government to donate 25% of the total value remained valid.
As a result of this decision, the legal attribution of ownership of the wreck's treasure has become increasingly complex, but the salvage of the Wreck of the Lady Atoka can finally continue legally.
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Part 5
American version of "iron pestle grinding into a needle"
Together, they raised five children: sons Dirk Marlin Fisher (1953-1975), Terry, Kim, Kane and daughter Taffi — who later became heirs to the family's dreams.
The Meier family displays gold objects salvaged from the wreck of the Lady Atoka
All five of Mel's children took over their parents' jobs, while Mel himself spent his entire life exploring underwater treasures.
Mel lost two children in the pursuit of his dreams; yet he also became the epitome of the "American Dream."
After becoming rich, the Fisher family was also actively involved in the development of underwater archaeology and the protection of the site.
Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society Museum
The Fisher family established the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society & Museum in Key West, recruiting experts in the field of Iristem heritage conservation and restoration.
The Fisher family is committed to integrating underwater cultural resources of private and public interest, particularly the preservation of underwater archaeological sites in Florida.
The principles and programmes set out in these activities have also been incorporated into the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
Hollywood filmed his search for the wreck of the Lady Atoka into the film Golden Dream, and Academy Award-winning film Cleve Robertson played the legend of the treasure hunting world.
This is the recognition and praise of Americans for Mel, who has the spirit of relentlessly chasing dreams.
Fisher's search for the wreck of the Lady Atoka has become the story of China's "iron pestle grinding into a needle" in the United States, and "looking for Atoka" has become a common phrase, meaning that if you stick to your dreams, you will succeed.
Mel Fisher completed his legendary life on December 19, 1998.