True Adventuresby host and producer B

[Music] hi there have you ever heard it said if the sea holds many mysteries well it's true how would you like to go for a swim and find a jewel cross just like this one worth $75,000 this is all part of a fabulous treasure that was lost three centuries ago when a Spanish galleon went down on a reef not very far from here we've come to the island of Bermuda to bring you the story of how this treasure was discovered first we're going to meet one of the world's foremost expert on finding sunken treasure we'll go with him and his companions to the bottom of the Spanish mane here in the domain of the shark will explore coral reefs and dig for treasure not only dig for it will find it what you're going to see filmed by the world-famous underwater photographer Peter stack pool is the real thing for the very first time on TV the actual discovery of Spanish treasure five fathoms down three and four hundred years ago treasure galleon sailed the Spanish mane loaded down with tons of gold and silver the shoals and reefs of the western Atlantic still hadn't been properly charted danger often worked just below the surface of the billions of dollars in treasure that left the new world bound for Spain many millions never got there [Music] how many ships went down in these waters no one really knows but they number in the hundreds and we know that many had treasure aboard the loot of a continent still lies under the waves waiting for someone to come and find [Music] storm clouds are gathering over Bermuda now we've come here to join a search for Spanish treasure among the reefs that surround the island our main worry right now is the weather it looks as though we're in for a squall but our host Teddy Tucker there in the center is still going ahead with plans to investigate a wreck he's discovered five fathoms down next morning the weather's still undecided we leave Hamilton harbor in Teddy Tucker's boat heading for a spot in the reefs some 12 miles away almost at once for caught in a squall it's beginning to look as though we'll have to postpone the trip but every lost day brings us closer to the Huracan season so we keep going hoping the weather will clear up after a while sure enough the Sun comes up the water is shallow and clear as a window teddy and his companion searched the bottom for signs of the record oh there it is [Music] believe it or not that's our ships anchor especially adaptable for use in the reefs and down there under the water lie the remains of a ship hundreds of years old the first to explore the wreck our Teddy and his partner bill Lawrence Teddy's been here before because the wreck is old Spaniard he thinks it dates from the 1590s but all we really know about it is that it's here buried in a pocket of saying [Music] slowly teddy and Bill fan the sand away from the ancient Timbers most of the fish you meet down here friendly sometimes they're too dog gone friendly this fella gets to be quite a nuisance it doesn't take long for the seed to pound a sunken ship to pieces Timbers cargo personal possessions of the passengers and crew they're all scattered over the reef we find encrusted cannonballs even human bones [Music] [Music] down here you're in a slow motion dream world where everything seems weightless but there are dangers among the reefs dangers like sharks still the work proceeds most of what we find is encrusted with the deposits of centuries we really won't find out what it is until later up at the surface Teddy's wife Edna is in the water keeping an eye on the boys [Music] Oh Teddy spotted the shark now [Music] another shark this time [Music] this one's coming in for a closer look this fellas a good eight feet long he may never have tasted human blood but a shark this size is at least a potential man killer Gil Lawrence starts for the surface he's taking up a piece of unfinished lumber that the old ship carried as repair stock and the Sharks keep coming more sharks this part of the oceans getting uncomfortably crowded but something draws Teddy Tucker back down to the bottom he's not ready to quit yet sharks are no sharks meantime Edna's climbed aboard the boat out of danger the first clue a glint of something bright what is it a golden cross studded with emeralds untarnished after nearly 400 years at the bottom of the sea the Sharks are getting more inquisitive for all we know they may be getting hungry [Music] Teddy's on his way up at last Penny's other partners are his brothers-in-law Bob and Dom campus as soon as they get a look at Teddy's fine they begin to suspect that it may be the most spectacular single discovery in the history of treasure hunting [Music] this is the moment that treasure hunters dream oh and there's no telling what else we may find until we break through the layers of ocean deposits that still hide some of the other relics [Music] everyone's feeling pretty well pleased with himself as we head back toward Hamilton Harbor [Music] we still don't know much about Teddy's old Spaniard except that she carried treasure this gold bar is just part of it now although Gold doesn't tarnish in seawater silver turns to black crumbling silver bromide however aboard this wreck were silver pieces of eight discolored but preserved by a flue a gold coin was dated 1592 so the ship went down sometime later some experts say in about fifty ninety five we're not even sure she really was a Spaniard the cannon she carried even suggests that this was a pirate ship and that all the treasure was in fact pirate plunder [Music] we're on the island of Bermuda along with underwater photographer Peter stack pool we've come to share the adventures of Teddy Tucker the world's foremost living treasure hunter the faces and the equipment are the same as those we saw in the first part of the program but this trip is going to be a little different instead of going after treasure we'll watch Teddy and his companions carrying out a modern salvage operation his goal on this particular trip is a steamer that went down back in the 1920s he doesn't plan to float the whole ship he just wants the propeller blades [Music] after placing the charge of TNT that they hope will detach the blades from the shaft Teddy and his partner head back toward the surface [Music] sharks will arrive pretty soon attracted by the fish killed in the explosion you'll have to wait for them to leave again then for the debris to settle then it's back underwater and soon the First's of three propeller blades is on its way up the boys can expect to get $600 for eats salvaged blades it was work like this that first got Teddy Tucker started hunting treasure he just sort of moved up from bronze and brass gold and jewels [Music] Teddy's interests in the past isn't limited to ships that were wrecked on the Bermuda reefs if you visit Saint Anne's Church in Hamilton you can see that his family has been here for many generations in fact the first Tucker stepped ashore in Bermuda several years before the pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock and since those days Bermuda has seen a lot of colorful history go by Spaniards had visited the island in 1543 but they left no one came again until a ship was wrecked here in the 1600s she was called the Sea Venture and this is one of her guns she brought the first Englishman to Bermuda as castaways their survival inspired a permanent colony had also inspired a play by a man by the name of none other than William Shakespeare called The Tempest somehow Teddy's interest in the past always shows results in the present right now he's doing something very unusually squirting oil onto the ocean to calm the surface and give him a better view of the bottom [Music] this time there's no big mystery we know all about this wreck it's all that's left of a big French man of war her name there mean this was a frigate with two decks of guns about sixty altogether she was a big well built ship for her day but someone miscalculated her course she hit the reef and went to the bottom in the year of 1838 there's a very large jellyfish we don't expect to discover valuable treasure on the wreck of the French warship at least not treasure in the usual sense but we're going to try to recover some relics of historical interest some of her cannon for instance the big guns proved to be too big to haul aboard Ted's boat and they're too long to drag across the reef hanging them from the treasure hook on the bow but we found a smaller cannon and we think we can save it [Music] a ship's gun underwater since Martin Van Buren was President of the United States a ship called the Caesar was another victim of the Bermuda reefs the Caesar went down in 1818 along with a cargo of bricks and grindstone Teddy's idea is the genuine antique bricks and grind stones are just what the buying public wants to build patios with so here we are down among the brain coral and all this left of the Caesar collecting future patio incidentally the Caesar had no more excuse for going to the bottom than the French ship had there was no storm no hurricane the captain said that he just found himself among the rocks luckily though no lives were lost [Music] with the treasure-hunters instinctive curiosity teddy is determined to make sure that he and his friends don't overlook a thing he goes through the wreck with the divers equivalent of a fine-tooth comb but all he finds is some cochineal a type of dye it's still colorful even though it's almost a hundred fifty years old getting these things up to the surface is going to be no easy matter [Music] now I know someone's going to ask if this patio paving idea really is a moneymaker well Teddy says yes at least it will be as soon as he can find some reasonably inexpensive way to ship all this stuff over to the United States meantime though we've also found a collection of old bottles relics of early America and maybe someone can find a use for antique cochineal [Music] here's a new idea of teddys looking for sunken ships from a balloon watching the experiment is Sir Julian Gascoigne the governor of Bermuda the whole idea is that you get a clearer view of the bottom from up there of course there's one very important point you have to stay up long enough to get a good luck not this time there he goes again [Music] the unsuccessful balloonist is Mendel Peterson of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC believe it or not the balloon really is a good idea for underwater archaeology and since we don't have a supply of extra helium to make the balloon more buoyant we'll just have to try with a lighter passenger namely Teddy's wife Edna unfortunately our cameraman wasn't able to get any pictures from up there but since this experiment teddy has spotted several previously unknown wrecks from the balloon it's better than a plane because you can hover and take your time and helicopter rotors churn up the surface of the water [Music] we're over a reef seven miles from shore we've come out here to investigate the wreck of the San Antonio along with Teddy and Don Canton we're going over a job that was first done way back in the year of 1621 that's when the Spanish ship went down her Spanish crew made it safely to shore they asked the governor to keep the people of Bermuda from looting the wreck he promised faithfully he would but as soon as the Spaniards had left for Europe on another ship the governor organized his own looting party and plundered the San Antonio himself this ungentlemanly piece of piracy made him a very rich man the question is how thoroughgoing a salvage job did he really do here and first is nothing but iron spikes used in building ships looks like treasure fever is contagious [Music] another of the iron spikes [Music] our friends have to sift to the sand almost grain by grain and they find a few links of gold chain so here in this strange underwater world the search goes on and while the boys are hard at work Edna takes a nap the Tucker's little girl wendy is too excited for anything like that and finally she sees her uncle and her dad be coming up with the results of their first look at the San Antonio [Music] leather shoe soles from the days of the pilgrims pottery to a reminder of the simple ordinary routines of shipboard life in those far-off days now a pair of Spanish daggers there's jewelry two overlooked by the original salvagers nearly 350 years ago all together the San Antonio will give up $20,000 worth of treasure including a pair of golden earrings that were buried 40 feet apart Teddy Tucker might have cleared a fortune from his treasure hunting instead he started his own Museum and later sold the whole collection to the government of Bermuda for $100,000 that's just a fraction of a total worth not even considering the gold and jewelry items like this inkwell from the old Spaniard these ancient carpenter's tools our valuable as relics of a bygone age they bring the dry facts of history to life they put the age of exploration right there at your fingertips one would-be buyer offered Teddy $75,000 for the jeweled cross alone but here two value isn't just a matter of dollars or British pounds considered as loot all this is a pirate's ransom but it's also a chapter in the story of the new world back when it was really new it evokes an age of heroism and piracy on both land and sea and there's more where it came from according to Teddy he's down there every chance he gets looking for treasure clues to the past and true adventure treasure-hunting sounds like a boyhood dream doesn't it but as we've seen it's a dream that can come true now there's treasure to be found on both sides of the Atlantic for example in August of 1700 and 217 Spanish galleons left the new world for Spain when they got there they discovered that Spain and France were at war with England in Holland the enemy naval forces were looking for them well the galleons sail into Virgo Bay on the west coast of Spain tried to hide out in an inner Lagoon called San Simon Bay it didn't work there was a battle which the enemy won hands down now seven of those galleons were captured but the Spanish managed to scuttle the rest of them and they went to the bottom with 500 pounds of jewels and 500 tons of silver and gold since then they've been all I would say about 70 full-scale Salvage attempts but only a tiny fraction of that treasure has been recovered the rest of it it's still there waiting for somebody like Teddy Tucker or somebody like you I hope you've enjoyed sharing this true adventure with us until we meet once again this is Bill burr at zing may all your adventures be happy one [Music] [Music]