National Geographic: Treasures of the Deep Page #2

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of the Atocha, and it reads:

In sincere appreciation to Mel

and Deo Fisher

in their extraordinary efforts

in accomplishing

mankind's most elusive goal.

They've followed their dream.

In the 1960s,

Mel fisher is a man with a mad dream.

Often short of money and deep in dept,

he hunts the shallow waters off coast

for treasure.

He is determined to find

the shipwreck called the Atocha,

a Spanish galleon that had sunk

in 1622 in a hurricane,

reportedly carrying king's ransom

in sliver and gold.

Year after year, with the help

of his wife and children,

Fisher combs the Florida sea.

Until 1975, when his son, Dirk,

finds the first real evidence

of the ship nine bronze cannons.

Just a week later,

while returning to the site

of his triumph,

Dirk Fisher's boat capsizes

in the dark of night.

Dirk, his wife,

and another diver die tragically.

Fisher is devastated.

But he vows to continue

and to honor his son's memory.

The Atocha seems so close.

But she continues to elude Fisher,

to tease him for over a decade.

Then in 1985, in 60 feet of water,

he finds her, the Atocha,

the mother lode of all treasure ships.

It's worth 400 million dollars so far.

And today,

Mel Fisher is counting the riches

still out there on the ocean floor.

So right over here about

a quarter of a mile

is all the kings taxes for five years,

all the church collection money from

all the Catholic churches

in this hemisphere for five years,

all the wealthy merchants,

there was 28 of them on board

all their lifesavings for 10

or 15 years in business over here.

They were gonna go home and retire.

They didn't make it.

So there's probably another four

and a half billion right over there.

Today, aging and ailing,

Mel Fisher is still bringing up treasure.

These days, it is emeralds.

His passion for treasure

has been passed on

to his youngest son, Kane Fisher.

Is there more come from their cursor

and they want our men for this

When we found that... ah... we found that

court martial referee

in our linds send the leve

I got one...

Here me go. that ahold a half carat

that about 3000.a carat 6000

You got to be real persistent

and not give up, no matter what.

And you got to believe it's there.

And you got to want it bad.

If you want it bad enough, you'll get it.

You just got to keep looking

and don't stop no matter what.

I dream about gold

and emeralds every night.

And you'll never know what's

five feet away from where you left off.

That's what keeps it exciting.

The Atocha puzzle still isn't solved.

I don't know

when we're gonna figure it out.

And you just keep going and going.

It seems like you

never get done working a shipwreck.

We've been working those wrecks

for 34 years now

and still finding stuff.

It's exciting.

That's what keeps you going.

Today, Mel Fisher is big business,

and almost respectable.

But a swashbuckler makes enemies,

big enemies.

Charging that Fisher has

seriously damaged the seafloor

with his salvaging techniques,

the federal government has dragged him

through the courts.

And Fisher's had to pay hundreds

of thousands in fines.

But Fisher knows how to change

with the times.

Conservator Sid Jones,

who worked extensively

with Fisher on the Atocha,

acknowledges the need to protect history.

In the past treasure hunting,

back in the '60s or the '50s

when it was really getting started,

there wasn't much

thought given to recording data

or preserving the artifacts.

Of course, there was a large emphasis

on finding something of value,

but we've learned in time

that every artifact that comes

from these ships has value.

Once you understand the complete picture,

the items not only have a monetary value,

but they have a historical value as well,

which didn't always exist in

the early phases of treasure hunting.

After finding and

carefully cataloging his treasures,

Fisher sells most of it off

piece by piece.

Fisher believes that two billion more

is just waiting to be recovered.

Deep in the Mediterranean,

the NR-1 is still hunting for

archeological marvels with no luck.

After three weeks of trying,

the sub and its robot arm

have been unable

to make a dent in the ocean floor,

which unexpectedly turns out to be

sticky and thick like clay.

Ballard's master plan

is just not working.

Do the wooden hulls of the Roman

vessels still exist just beyond reach?

Or has time stolen them away.

Ballard wonders if he'll ever find them.

The deep sea is always surprising me.

I every time I think I understand it,

it throws me another curve ball.

But that's okay. That's part of it.

I think it wouldn't be fun

if it if I knew it that well,

and it wasn't full of surprises.

Ballard decides to change

the way they use the NR-1.

He sends the sub out to do

what it does best,

to act as a high-tech bloodhound,

to roam over Skerki Bank

and to explore as much as possible

with its exceptional sonar senses.

Sir, request permission to rig ship

for deep submerges.

Rig ship for deep submerges.

Rig ship for deep submerges, aye sir.

Rig ship for deep submerges.

Will the NR-1 discover the unknown,

the unexpected?

Ballard will just have to wait and see

By working to develop

new underwater technology,

Ballard has revolutionized deep

sea archeology.

At the same time,

he has inadvertently helped to blow

the world of treasure hunters wide open

Now anyone with $150,000

to spare can buy an ROV,

a remotely operated search vehicle,

right off the shelf and set off for gold.

Still there are only a handful

of successful deep-sea salvagers.

Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology,

out of Tampa, Florida, is one of them.

Seahawk hit the jackpot in 1989

discovering a 17th century Spanish

galleon, heavy with gold and jewels,

off the Florida coast

in 1,500 feet of water.

Seahawk is looking for treasure again,

this time in the seas off the coast

of Georgia.

Michael Reardon,

Seahawk's current expedition leader,

sees himself as a treasure hunter

with a difference.

That's one of our goals,

is to choose shipwrecks

that are archeologically important

as well as having a commercial cargo.

So we're playing a fine line

between the archeological community

and the out-and-out smash-and-grab

treasure hunters, which we're not.

Reardon is after

a 19th-century paddle wheel steamer,

which they've code named

The Golden Eagle,

to keep her identity hidden

from other salvagers.

Now they've narrowed the search

to a mere 200 square miles.

It's very difficult locating shipwrecks.

Un, with all the sophisticated

equipment we have today,

it's still quite a chore.

Keep in mind right now

we're 433 feet above the seafloor,

trying to put a small vehicle

on a shipwreck.

There is no road sign over there.

It has taken Rearden and his colleagues

years of hard work

to reach this point.

Now, using some of the same high tech

tools to Ballard.

They are hoping to claim their fortune

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