Billion Dollar Wreck is at least partially based on reality, not pure fiction. By continuing to browse this site, you agree to this use. Dooley was certain it was a reference to the English commodore Charles Wager, of the HMS Expedition, who had attacked the San Jos and whom the Spanish would have referred to as The Admiral. As soon as Republic sank, rumors spread of a precious cargo, but Republic has kept her secrets intact for over a century. Imaging the Sunken Treasures and Cannons of the San Jose Wreck. If this was a shipwreck and not a natural rocky outcrop, I would say that it could be more a metal hulled ship, he told me in an email after analyzing the sonar image. Harriet Boyd Hawes' work paved the way for today's modern excavation at Gournia. The Titanic lies more than two miles deepalmost five times deeper than the San Josyet thousands of its artifacts have been pillaged and sold on the black market since the wreck was discovered in 1985. 9 Episodes 2016. Gertrude Caton Thompson (1888-1985) Gertrude's interest in archaeology came during a trip to Egypt as a young woman. His parents divorced when he was an infant, and his Cuban mother remarried a Cuban man by the name of Montaes, who moved the family to Havana in 1957 and found work as night manager of the new Hilton hotel. (Sea Search Armada argues that Thompson is far from a credible source: He has spent the last six years in a federal prison in Michigan for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of gold coins he salvaged from the SS Central America, worth an estimated $2 million to $5 million.). In a tweet posted at 11:19 a.m. Wednesday, OPP . He never knew his father, who was of Irish descent. Dooley tells me a couple people insinuated that they could help him move his project along in exchange for a kickback, but that he never got into that. He had managed to entice Santos personally, so no intermediary was needed. No sir, this is the Colombian peoples cultural heritage. Rattling the ghost of the Spanish Empire has long been a winning political strategy in Latin America, so there was little incentive for Santos to give in. If MAC is awarded the contract, a U.S. firm has vowed to sue the Colombian government to halt the excavation of the San Jos. He points to a red dot labeled SJ, where MAC found the San Jos, then puts a finger on the location reported by Glocca Morra in 1982, several miles away. In 1984, Glocca Morras cut was slashed even further when Colombia passed a lawapplied retroactivelyreducing the ownership rights of a shipwrecks discoverer down to 5 percent of the wrecks contents. Scanning the San Jos's hull, which has been estimated to contain around 20 billion dollars (16.7 billion) worth of precious metals, the robotic-diver filmed some of the gold coins and collections of intact crockery. Was it even Colombias to sell? He flew to Seville, Spain, to the General Archive of the Indies, a notoriously labyrinthine trove of records dating to the beginning of the Spanish Empire. They will be returning to the wreck that nearly destroyed their family. This was years ago before the show, but Martin's past is coming up now that he has joined a new reality show. In fact, the loot has already been the subject of political and legal battles involving several nations and private companies, the Associated Press reports. Why not saturation diving. But before we get into why. She was Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford from 1962 to 1973. EIN Presswire, Everyone's Internet News Presswire, Verney Wheelers excavations were funded almost entirely by donations from the public. Why no heavy equipment to get underneath the collapsed walls? That same day, November 26, Dooley ordered a higher-resolution scan of the area. He found nothing. With tolls that can . Modern underwater treasure hunting was born in the 1950s, following the development of practical scuba equipment and survey technology. A plan to recover what may be one of historys greatest treasure troves from the wreck of a Spanish galleon could be set in motion on July 23. [CDATA[// >