I suspected he was not looking for a ring or a bracelet dropped by a vacationer. He was probably hoping to find a gold doubloon or maybe some silver pieces-of-eight dating from the early 18th century.
Such treasures are still being found on the beaches of this barrier island. But it's out to sea a little bit, just past the submerged reef, that the real treasure lies: Gold, silver and jewelry worth millions.
That's why this stretch of Florida's central Atlantic shore is known as The Treasure Coast. The McClarty Museum, in a state park here, fills in the history.
It tells how, in 1715, a Spanish fleet returning to Cadiz with the booty of Spain's South American colonies was riding the Gulf Stream north, prior to the Atlantic crossing, when it was overtaken by a hurricane and driven on to the reef.
Eleven of the 12 galleons floundered. Some survivors -- no one seems to know how many -- made it to shore while the 12th ship sailed back to Havana to raise teams of salvors.
The survivors set up camp on the very spot where the McClarty Museum now stands and waited for the salvors to arrive. Then, by hold-your-breath diving over the next few years, they recovered perhaps 50 per cent of the treasure.
Then the whole thing was forgotten. Forgotten until the 1950s when the late Kip Wagner came on the scene. As he tells it on a video in the museum, he was walking on the beach when he found some "flat stones." He rubbed one and found it was a gold piece.
He formed a salvage company and soon his divers were bringing up gold ingots, pieces-of-eight, emeralds, jewelry, rare porcelain, even a treasure chest. On one occasion, he says, they found 3,500 gold coins in just a few days.
Wagner died in 1972 and his salvage efforts wound down. But, the video tells us, "untold millions remain,'' for some of the 11 wrecks haven't yet been found.
Exhibits in the museum include some items of the treasure and more mundane artifacts such as a cannon, musket balls, armour, a rosary, swords and plates, and bowls.
There's more treasure in the Mel Fisher Museum, in the town of Sebastian, on the mainland nearby. Fisher, who died in 1998, was Florida's -- and maybe the world's -- most famous treasure hunter, the man who found the wreck of the fabulously rich treasure ship Nuestra Senora de Atocha off Key West in 1985. He carried on the search here for some years after Wagner's death.
In the museum shop you can buy original Spanish "reales," pieces-of-eight and facsimiles of jewelry taken from the wrecks.
For more information, visit the websites atocha1622.com/mcclarty.htm and melfisher.com. Tourist information on Florida is available at visitflorida.com.
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