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05/18/2024 07:00:06 am

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Blast from the Past: ‘Incredible’ $4.5-million sunken treasure recovered off Florida coast

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(Photo : Reuters) On July 30, 1715, a Spanish fleet carrying looted and bargain treasures was hit by a hurricane seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba. The ships sunk off Vero Beach, Florida, leaving over a thousand sailors dead and millions of coins buried under the seafloor.

Brent Brisben, CEO of a Florida-based shipwreck salvage company, seems to have extremely missed the limelight as he was seen facing the American press again just weeks after his firm's "enormous" Atlantic Ocean discovery in July.

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He re-appeared on various American news programs to talk about his team's latest discovery in Florida's Treasure Coast. The 350 gold coins recovered from 11 Spanish sunken ships have an estimated value of $4.5 million, the firm's biggest catch to date.

"It's been incredibly surreal. It really is an amazing, amazing situation and I couldn't have written it in a script, to be honest. To have it actually happen on the 300th anniversary told me these shipwrecks still have a story to tell," Brisben told ABC News.

Indeed, the discovery was made exactly on the 300th year of the Spanish ships' stay on the American ocean floor. On July 30, 1715, a Spanish fleet carrying looted and bargain treasures was hit by a hurricane seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba. The ships sunk off Vero Beach, Florida, leaving over a thousand sailors dead and millions of coins buried under the seafloor.

The 300th anniversary of the tragedy is treated by treasure salvagers with extra significance, believing that recovering the treasure on its anniversary adds badge to the achievement itself. In July, a handful of small and giant exploration companies doubled up their search in the area in hopes of becoming the first team to recover the Spanish treasure. Now, everyone knows that it is Brisben's team who made the discovery.

"I'm inundated, particularly after a story like this, with people wanting to do it and so we vet them, but yeah, I try to give people the opportunity to live the dream," Brisben said in a statement.

According to the law, Brisben's company owns the exclusive salvage rights to the remains of the 11 shipwrecks.

"At the end of the year, the state of Florida will come and review what we found, assert an interest into certain artifacts for purposes of displaying in their museum. And once we work that deal out, the federal court adjudicates legal title to either my organization or the state of Florida," he confirmed.

Apparently, the shipwreck salvage industry is replete with successful explorers from Florida.

Blue Water Ventures International (OTCPK:BWVI), an exploration firm focused on shallow ocean historic shipwreck, has been the darling of the American salvage industry ever since it made "incredible" discoveries in the business.

In 2006, a year after its founding, Blue Water Ventures had already made successful search and recoveries in North American oceans and the Caribbean, among which was the 1622 fleet galleon Santa Margarita that was discovered near Key West, Florida.  Since then, the company has been impressing the industry for its consistency in recovering some of the largest sunken ships in Florida.

Blue Water Ventures, which is led by revered finance expert Keith Webb and celebrated archeologist James Sinclair, has already recovered over $16 million worth of rare and exceptional treasures and artifacts from the various sunken ships since 2008.

"Apart from having a team of superstar archeologists, veteran treasure hunters, as well as experienced legal experts, what makes [our company] a dominant player in the industry is our adherence to technology. Unlike others, we are not naysayers of the latest machines and equipment that could help us enhance, speed up, and improve our search. Add to this our unsullied love for what we do-as a lot of them here are only after the treasure, not the joy of the search itself," Webb said in a statement.

Recent interviews revealed that the company has now expanded to Asia. Its first phase of operations has already begun on the Tradewinds Project in the Philippines, and it will soon start the Phase I exploration in Indonesia right after securing permits and fulfilling legal obligations with the country's local government.   

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