Treasure hunting: Salvaging the Steam Ship New York

Have you ever dreamed of what it would be like to find sunken treasure? To swim down and pop open the treasure chest filled with silver and gold coins that haven't seen the light of day in ages? Though it could never be that easy, I felt extremely fortunate that I was invited by my Aunt Renee and Uncle Gary to help crew for them on board Night Moves, a real life treasure hunting - scratch that - treasure finding ship, an incredible opportunity that inevitably will change the course of my life.



Gary is the capable Captain of Night Moves who has been an avid diver since he received his diving license at age 16 (the age minimum). In second grade his Aunt gave him the novel Treasure Island, which his Mom thought he was too young to read so he had to prove her incorrect, and ever since his dreams were filled with adventure and treasure. Raised in southern Louisiana on a sugar cane farm that he would eventually find himself running, many of his diving trips led him to the Gulf of Mexico in search of sunken ships that intrigued and utterly fascinated him while fueling his passion even further. The best way he found to locate these spots (sunken WWII vessels, huge oil tankers, merchant ships, and many others) was to coerce the hot spots out of commercial fisherman (where they would inevitably snag their lines and nets repeatedly over the years), and the easiest way to do that was sharing a few drinks with them at many of the local pubs. The fish congregate to ship wrecks like a natural reef, and undoubtedly fisherman would be very reluctant to part with such valuable information... he had to convince them he wasn't a fisherman but a diver in search of ship wrecks and often times offered his own prime fishing spots in return. With the coordinates to a possible new diving location in his pocket, he'd set out with friends on his sailboat with the difficult task of trying to locate the ship in the vast Gulf of Mexico by using primitive tools such as a depth gauge, fish finder, and a nautical map. They'd always hope to find the new spot but even if they didn't they still were on a boat, sharing beers and stories, and they loved spear fishing at the base of the oil rigs if they came up with a scratch. If it went well they'd succeed in locating the new vessel and often times returned with very cool artifacts like brass port holes, gun sights, compasses, builder's plaques, and other nautical treasures.

My Aunt Renee married Gary after many exciting dates where he taught her to dive, spear fish, and she quickly learned the navigation, communication, and seamanship skills necessary for her to become a capable crew member in her own right. She changed careers into drafting around the time she met Gary, and those skills would prove invaluable as she would be the one to not only dive but plot the most detailed site survey map I've ever seen... a real treasure map!

Avery is the dreamer of the group. I've never met him but from the stories I've been told I can tell he's very charismatic. I was told how he'd gotten his hands on a metal detector when he was very young with his friend Craig, and they'd dig up hole after hole on the back of Craig's property. After finding a civil war musket ball he was infected with the treasure hunting virus to which there isn't a cure. He became an avid scuba diver early in his life, and after spear fishing with Gary they planned future adventures exploring the gulf. After many successful ventures with Gary he decided since they were putting all this effort into finding these ships he'd start researching for ships that were documented going down with something worth finding. One of the ships that interested him was the S.S. New York, which when it sank in 1846 carried an estimated $30,000 - $40,000 in gold, silver, and bank notes (millions today). It was his years of researching articles, marine surveys, and interviews that focused the search to a general area where they believed it could have sank - which Gary was able to quiz the right fisherman who coughed up the coordinates to it's correct location!

Craig, a childhood friend of Avery since the age of 2, was easily convinced to join Gary and Avery on these adventures as well. As he was new to diving, often times he let the crazies go down on the really deep dives with the wrenches needed to unbolt the port holes and keep sakes - visibility in the gulf is often poor and no artifact is worth your life. He enjoyed his career as an engineer - and his intellect proved necessary in helping design the prop wash system needed to redirect the ships propulsion down to the seabed to blow the top layer of sediment away; thus revealing the surviving artifacts. It's also a very difficult thing to try and understand the events that transpired over 160 years ago by looking at one small blow site, but he knew they were clues that could lead them to an understanding of how the ship sank which is necessary to determine where the safe would be located which carried what they all called the 'motherload'. If you think golf is hard putting a ball in a small cup a few hundred yards away at least you can see the flag on your target - try locating a coin or safe in the endless bottom of the seabed which is covered in a couple feet of sand and mud...

These four characters, after discovering the vessel in 1990, used every bit of wit, persistence, time, and resources they had to become a successful treasure hunting operation - and they named the corporation 'The Gentleman of Fortune' after the pirates from Treasure Island. It didn't happen overnight - many, many, obstacles were hurdled when others would have given up - and any given factor could have shut down their dreams (like the Court Decision on claiming the site - which has very tricky archaeological implications) Countless artifacts, along with extremely valuable gold and silver coins were recovered and have financed the operation to the point it is today in hunt of the safe.

Due to medical reasons Avery had to leave the group, and I (along with other friends at various times) was given an opportunity to help crew, and if I wanted, to learn to dive and help in the salvage operation.

We use four anchors to hold us on location - and blow the prop wash for 30 minutes which pushes the sand and mud off of a 20-30 foot hole exposing the hard clay bottom. The sand collects onto the outer edges of the hole creating a berm ranging from a foot to sometimes 4-6 feet if we have been pushing the same sand in a single direction over the course of a few blows.
I hear the engine rev down, indicating the hole is ready for us to explore... So now I find myself walking awkwardly toward the dive ladder in my fins, with 14 lbs of weights strapped to my waist along with the already heavy scuba tank and gear - and I have to convince myself when I jump I won't sink like a lead weight directly to the bottom... With my mask pressed against my face I take my first plunge followed shortly by my first breath underwater - a whole new world is about to present itself to me! I grab the down line that is tied to the boat leading to the weights sitting in the freshly blown hole - and I begin my descent into the abyss clearing my ears as often as I could all the while wondering how much further I have to go to reach the 60 foot depth - probably 5-6 times deeper than I've ever been before. Stay calm... Don't panic... Upon reaching the bottom I clip my reel to the down line as I was trained - and with a visibility of around 6 feet I wondered if I could see the light of the sun shining on the surface - so I looked up...

Water started flooding into my mask - DON'T PANIC! I could taste the salt water in my mouth - and I knew I could neither panic and try to resurface or afford to do anything that would cause the mask to flood further as I'm not sure how to clear the mask... I pressed the mask back against my face and realized my straps were loose and when I looked up the buoyancy of the air in my mask was pulling it away from my face allowing the great pressure of water surrounding me to enter my mask... I called Gary over for his assistance and after a few pulls on my straps to tighten them I was breathing, stable, and ready to start exploring this underwater world. I passed my first test!

I followed behind Gary and I saw him pick something up - it was a knife! I quickly realized that I'll never find anything by following and feeling more comfortable already I decided I'd take my reel and swim ahead... it didn't take but maybe another minute and I found my first treasure! Another knife! The blade was covered in barnacles which acted as a natural sheath. Most people's first dive is in a pool and here I am on a shipwreck riddled with artifacts! Upon surfacing I learned these knives were special indeed and were built with ivory handles. Another artifact, a marble plaque probably attached to the wooden crate the knives were originally contained in, said they were imported from Germany by Henderson and Gaines operating out of New Orleans on Canal Street! How crazy is that! To know that I was the first person to see this in over a 164 years was chilling in deed...

My first dive definitely tested my nerves - but as I continued to take the plunge I'd become more and more familiar with the equipment and overall process used to complete these dives safely. I began to hear Gary tell the dive boat "found another coin" and I couldn't have been more jealous that he had that underwater metal detector aiding his search! Completely unfair! I was hoping to pull my weight on board - and while I felt I've done a good job crewing on the surface I hoped I could prove myself as a diver as well. I knew it would take time to get comfortable with the gear and process - but it was my wish that I'd find something valuable enough to at least cover the expense of having me on board. So after my first 7 trips to the bottom, visually finding broken wine bottles and nails, I'd get my chance to start using a metal detector on my own - yet another item to learn and get comfortable carrying and operating.

Everything has a technique. Something that would take Gary, Craig, or Renee 1 minute would take me 10 if I didn't apply the techniques they were teaching me properly. For example, when finding a metal detector hit it's important to find the center not only horizontally but vertically as well. This should pen point the item, but if it's covered in sand you should fan the water above it to reveal it. Don't fan in both directions either - that will kill your visibility and if the item does move you won't know which direction... fan down the sand berm towards the hard clay field so the item can be recovered. I've had to learn not only diving, but treasure hunting 101 as well. In low visibility swimming around will get you disoriented very quickly. I've learned to use my compass to keep me straight on which direction I'm facing and to help me visualize my work area better. These coins can be worth suitcases of money, so leaving any behind isn't an option. After we dive a hole - we need to have a reasonable amount of assurance that we didn't leave anything behind - because no one wants to dive a hole that someone else didn't clear.

We've started finding some very interesting items; one's that most assuredly were located in the pursers office... and if they had eyes I'm sure they must've stared at the safe for years... but with seas starting to roll in from a hurricane in the south western gulf we reluctantly lifted the prop wash so we could motor back to port.

I'm taking diving lessons this week while seas are rough - I just hope my instructor doesn't think I'm crazy when I tell her this story!

My first coin!

The S.S. New York sank after going thru an eye of a hurricane on September 7, 1846 - and while most passengers were able to survive on make shift rafts, nearly 20 lives were lost in this tragic accident. Thru the artifacts we find I hope their legacy can continue and that I can share with you times of a different era...