Silver Coins on the Margarita Site
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 material to the west of the Main Pile, which is where the initial impact of the wreck is believed to have taken place. The Main Pile is the area that was found by Mel Fisher’s Treasure Salvors in 1980. MRR is grateful for the opportunity to be contracted with Motivation, Inc. to conduct recovery operations and continue the exploration of the fabulous Margarita site.
Levin and Josh with a silver coin from the 1622 galleon, Santa Margarita.
While working the area to the west of the Main Pile, the Sea Reaper crew continued to excavate a trail they've been defining, where silver coin recoveries have been made. The crew recovered a total of eight more silver coins from the trail, working until sun down on one of the most productive days of the trip. While working the southernmost portion of the trail, approximately 2,500 ft. south of where the coin recoveries were made, we recovered a piece of unidentified silver. We’re not sure what this piece might be but we are confident that John Corcoran at the Motivation, Inc. Laboratory will be able to tell us. One observation made while working the trail was that we were not finding any of the more common artifacts such as pottery and ship spikes. There were only treasure coins, the piece of unidentified silver and a few ballast stones along the trail.
Rob and Missy recover coins until sun down.
Rob and Kris with another silver coin.
On the last day of the trip, the Sea Reaper moved northeast and excavated in the main body of the wreck site, close to where some of the most valuable Margarita recoveries have been made in the past. This area produced a good number of artifacts and another silver coin.
The crew is back at the dock and will be working on the Seatrepid buildout project until the next weather break.