The Sea Reaper left Key West on Saturday and arrived in Ft. Pierce Sunday morning to perform its first day of work for the 1715 season. By Tuesday, the third day on one of the famed Treasure Coast sites, divers recovered a gold coin and four silver coins John Brandon, Rob Hill and Dan Porter with gold coin recovered from a 1715 wreck. ​ The day began with two divers in the water performing methodical metal detector surveys after excavations in a target area off of Ft. Pierce.

The Sea Reaper recently returned from another trip to the Santa Margarita site. The crew continued excavations in a main area of focus to the west of the known shipwreck scatter where they’ve concentrated recent efforts and made important recoveries this season. ​ Historic research tells us that a second hurricane may have pushed wreckage material to the west shortly after the Santa Margarita sank. Also, archival documents state that early Spanish salvors had made efforts to

For the last month, the weather has been too windy to conduct excavation on the Margarita site and the MRR crew has been working on the new recovery vessel, Seatrepid, at Three D Boat Yard in the heat of Key West summer. On Tuesday, the crew finally got a chance to get back to the site of the Santa Margarita for four days of ideal summertime dive weather, with calm seas and clear, warm water. The majority of work on this expedition was focused on determining the scatter of ma

The summer season has begun and the weather and sea conditions are reflecting it here in Key West. The Sea Reaper, under the direction of Josh Fisher Abt, headed to the site of the Margarita ten days ago to take full advantage of the opportunity while captain Dan Porter was conducting a successful remote sensing survey in North Florida on another potential shipwreck project. Josh has been first mate on the Sea Reaper for over a year and was given the chance to take the helm

It’s hard to call the recovery of a single silver coin a significant find unless the location of the recovery ties back to the archival information that leads to the missing portion of the Santa Margarita. That is what we believe has happened this week, and all of us at MRR are very excited about it. Diver Rob Hill discovers a valuable clue in MRR's hunt for the missing section of the Santa Margarita. The crew of the Sea Reaper had been conducting excavations in an effort to

On Friday, Sea Reaper and crew returned to Key West from a 19-day trip to the famed shipwreck site of the 1622 Santa Margarita where they logged, tagged and recovered over three hundred artifacts. Clockwise from top: Levin Shavers with his first silver coin from the Margarita site; ​Josh Fisher and Rob Hill on the ladder with silver coins stuck to an artifact; ​Kent​on Dickerson with one of the silver coins recovered from the Margarita. The artifacts include silvers coins, ol

Late last week, the MRR expedition team began excavation in a known area on a Ft. Pierce 1715 shipwreck site managed by Queens Jewels, LLC. MRR divers recovered a total of 54 silver coins, indicating that the area still contains artifacts to be rescued. As seen in the photo, the coins show a significant amount of degradation due to the extended time they have remained in the salt water. With the knowledge of how severely artifacts are affected by the harsh marine environment,

MRR recovered a unique silver artifact from a 1715 wreck site, and while small, it is actually a reflection of the developing cultures in Mexico during the colonial period. The object is likely a button or a decorative boss. There have been many buttons recovered from the 1715 Fleet, however our example shows some unique artistic embellishments. This small object does not display purely European artistic motifs, but rather reflects a design that is also influenced by traditio