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A lot of people have asked me why my shop is named
Treasure Divers. One reason is because years ago I worked a couple of
short periods for the late Mel Fisher. I also worked for other
treasure hunters, and even the state of Florida, but Mel was the most
memorable. And the most successful. In 1989 I interviewed and
photographed Mel for an article that was to be in a British dive
magazine.
"Today's the day!"
For sixteen years Mel Fisher spurred on his tired
divers and reluctant backers with this now familiar phrase. It was the
creed that Fisher lived by.
The "day" finally arrived for Fisher and his
crew on July 20, 1989 when Mel's son, Kane, aboard the salvage vessel
Dauntless radioed the Key West office of Treasure Salvors, Inc. and
exclaimed: "Put away the charts! We found it!" The
"mother lode" of the Atocha, one of the richest galleons to
sail from the New World, had been found.
A tireless and innovative treasure seeker for over
thirty years, Mel Fisher had recovered gold, silver, gem stones, and
other valuable artifacts from numerous shipwrecks along the Florida
coast. The Atocha discovery was his crowning achievement and made him
a legend among treasure hunters.
But even success has a price. Fisher lost a son and a
daughter in law during the hunt and had to fight long and hard to keep
his find. The state of Florida originally claimed the treasure despite
the fact that the wreck lay in international waters. Once in state
custody some of the artifacts disappeared, never to be found again.
After the state, another lengthy and costly legal
battle ensued with the federal government over the treasure. With the
enactment of the federal Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, Fisher and
other treasure salvors that
followed, faced new obstacles in their quest to discover and retain
ownership to sunken treasure. For any government to take responsibility for
found treasure was a great loss as Fisher saw it.
"I don't think the government should enter the management of
treasure," said Fisher. "I think the new act is unconstitutional,
and should any one challenge it, I think they will win." He told me it
cost him 1.6 million dollars to regain the treasure from the Atocha.
"They (salvors) will be afraid to work, so things will just corrode
away," he said. "Or they will work the wrecks and not report them
to the government because of the horrible regulations. That's the way it is
in Turkey, Greece and Italy.
"The governments there don't get any of the artifacts, but they claim
they own them all," he continued. "They all end up in the London
museum and they just get smuggled out."
Maybe Mel was right. The federal and state governments don't have the money
to search for shipwrecks, and because of the new regulations there are fewer
treasure hunters these days than ever before. There are hundreds of wrecks
out there that might never be found because no one wants to spend the time
and money discovering something that you might have to fight to legally hang
on to.
Mel is gone now, but his legacy lives on. His company is still doing active
treasure seeking and salvaging here in Florida and in the Caribbean. Some
people liked Mel Fisher. Some did not. The thing I remember most about him
was his unflagging spirit and his optimism. I still get up in the morning
some days and think to myself, 'Today's the day!' Who knows. Someday maybe
it will be.
Randall Rush is the owner of Treasure Divers of Miami dive shop. He has been
a sports diver since 1958 and a commercial diver since 1969. He can be
reached for questions, suggestions, or comments on line at www.treasuredivers.net
or by phone at 305-251-2710.
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