The Gulf of Mexico serves as a real graveyard for sunken ships. No one knows precisely how many vessels have met their tragic fate here. However, protecting the future involves understanding the past.
Keys to unlocking the rich maritime heritage of the Gulf of Mexico lie in the numerous shipwrecks from different eras resting on the ocean floor throughout the Gulf. These remnants are like time capsules capturing the essence of their period. Sometimes explorers make new discoveries that outshine previous ones.
In the past centuries, the main routes used by the Spaniards to export treasures “borrowed” from the indigenous American people were through the Gulf of Mexico. The scale of this resource redistribution can’t be compared to any modern financial scheme. Needless to say, with such a scale, various ship accidents were bound to happen such as storms, pirate attacks, crew sabotage, overloading due to greed, and so on.
Quite a lot of ships got sunk as a result. Do you think all these treasures have been found over the centuries? Well, not at all! Searching for sunken treasure at shallow depths is very difficult even using the most modern methods. Unfortunately what’s peculiar about shallow waters is that sunken ships are quickly engulfed by the sand becoming unreachable within days, let alone decades.
Of course, the Spaniards salvaged many treasures right after the shipwrecks, but most of them still lie at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Some ships have been found and treasures retrieved but these instances are rare. As a result, the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Caribbean Basin Remain the richest areas in underwater treasures.
Some experts estimate that the treasures lying at the seabed between North and South America amount to trillions of dollars. Nowadays, only a few enthusiasts are dedicated to searching for sunken ships with treasures. Paradoxically, if you want to get rich by finding gold in the Gulf, you must already be wealthy! It’s a laborious, technically complex, legally ambiguous, and generally quite costly endeavor. That’s why if sunken ships are discovered now, it’s usually by chance or as a side bonus during other research. But each of these finds is a high-profile event that keeps everyone talking about it for a long time.
One of the most famous discoveries was the wreck of Buen Jesus y Nuestra del Rosario. The lost ship had been resting at the bottom of the Gulf for four centuries before its parts were extracted more than ten years ago. Its innumerable treasures included 27 bars of gold, extravagant oyster pearls, a golden chain weighing about a pound, 1,200 silver coins, and some precious gems. This ship alone was so loaded with gold that its wreckage might have contributed to the downfall of the Spanish empire.
If you are more than intrigued about the prospects of treasure hunting, please hold your horses before authorities will hold you back. In some countries, treasure hunting is considered illegal or is a very ambiguous endeavor in terms of regulations. For example, a huge treasure that was found in the 1960s in the Gulf of Mexico was fully confiscated by Texas authorities. Since then, this activity has been illegal in the state’s territorial waters.
This is why you need to always be careful with found treasures even if you came across them by accident. The best idea would be to report your find to the historians and conduct legal research as to your award. Although some adventurers are thrilled by a chance to smuggle something and fob it off at the black market, we strongly recommend against it. After all, treasures belong to history first and foremost and only then to those who found them.
