It was almost 7pm, last dive of the day, when Captain Drake Nicholas of the salvage vessel DARE went over the side into about 50 feet of water off the Florida Keys. Nobody was expecting much — the crew had logged hours of routine mag-and-fan work over a well-picked patch of seafloor. Then the sand gave up a 22.5-pound bar of Spanish silver that hadn't seen daylight since 1622.
The bar carries a mark cut by Spanish officials to prove it was solid silver — before it was ever loaded onto the ship, in 1622.
The bar belongs to the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, the Spanish galleon that went down in a hurricane off the Marquesas Keys along with the rest of that year's treasure fleet. Mel Fisher spent sixteen years searching for it before his team found the "mother lode" in 1985, and the site has been quietly giving up artifacts ever since — but not silver bars. This is the first one recovered from the Atocha since June 1999, a 27-year gap that made the moment land hard for the crew on deck.
A Mark From Four Centuries Ago
Lead diver Blake Baker was topside when Captain Drake surfaced with the bar cradled against his chest. What makes the find more than just another chunk of bullion is a small notch cut into one corner — an assay scoop mark, gouged out by Spanish colonial officials centuries ago to prove the bar was solid silver all the way through before it was ever loaded onto the ship. "This discovery is a powerful reminder that the Atocha still holds secrets after decades of salvage," said Gary Randolph, president of Mel Fisher's Shipwreck Expeditions. "Every major discovery begins with a single artifact."
The bar is now headed to Mel Fisher's conservation laboratory in Key West for documentation and XRF analysis before it goes on public display. For wreck divers, the find is a reminder that even the most thoroughly worked sites in diving history — the Atocha has been salvaged continuously for four decades — can still turn up something nobody's touched since the last century. It's also a good excuse to put the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, a short walk from Key West's dive shops, back on the itinerary.
Image credit: Silver ingots salvaged from Atocha wreck