Ocean Lady rolled easily with light swells created by passing traffic in the Miami River as it was being fitted out at the Jones Boatyard.
The former University of Delaware research vessel had crisp lines and new yellow and green paint. The crew was making final preparations to leave after months of planning and installation of customized treasure-detecting equipment.
The vessel was loaded with electronics and search gear. It would leave on a journey of discovery and adventure—next port of call Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.
"Our first objective is to find a mystery ship on the Navidad Bank," said veteran treasure hunter Burt Webber.
"There was testimony in 1688 that a galleon was seen there. Captain Swinsteed and his men on an English ship said they could look down and see cannons and what appeared to be silver bars but they were not equipped to recover anything. That will be our first survey.
"Then we'll head for the South Reef of the Silver Banks. We produced an air mosaic of the area. We'll search for an English corsair. Victims of the wreck of the Spanish galleon Concepcion reported they had been attacked by pirates in their boat en route to safety on Hispaniola after Concepcion wrecked. The pirates stole their valuables and stripped them of their clothes. The survivors told the pirates, under threat of torture, about piles of gold and treasure that had been placed on top of coral heads, left behind when Conception sank," Webber explained.
"In the process, we'll find many wrecks we don't know about," this pioneer ocean explorer and diver added.
Burt Webber and his organization, Hispaniola Ventures LLC, are exclusive contractors with the government of the Dominican Republic, Ministry of Culture, to search and salvage in waters where shipwrecks might have occurred.
Webber lives with his family in the city of Miami, Florida. His son Eric will accompany him on the voyage as one of the divers. Steve Streeter, another diver, grew up with Burt's sons in Pennsylvania. With only six divers on the expedition, living in close quarters, teamwork is necessary and requires a close-knit family group that will be compatible even when working under difficult conditions. Putting underwater exploration teams together is not new to Burt Webber.
He gained fame as the man who followed in the footsteps of William Phips. Phips, in 1687, found the remains of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de la Pura y Limpia Concepcion, which sank on the Ambrosia or Silver Banks in 1641, with a fortune in treasure aboard.
In 1978, after months of searching with high-tech location equipment, much of which he designed and innovated, Webber and his team of divers found the Concepcion. The wreckage lay in an underwater grave, between and under coral heads that loomed large and massive—obstructions to navigation that broke the surface at low tide or were just two or three feet underwater.
Any ship caught in that area would have wrecked and been stove in by the masses of shallow coral. The Webber discovery made worldwide news. In one underwater cave alone, the divers recovered 50,000 silver Spanish coins. The total take of coins recovered from Concepcion by the Webber team was 60,000. They also found gold chains and artifacts.
All of the artifacts were given to the government of the Dominican Republic as part of their cultural heritage. Webber was proclaimed a national hero.
"The artifacts were not for sale. In the long run, that was beneficial. There is always a debate between private sector exploration of shipwrecks versus academia. If all this stuff disappears into private hands, it is not beneficial to the public interest. There is no opportunity to study it and view it. In the case of the Concepcion, what I recovered became part of the National Patrimony of the country and was retained by the national museum," Webber said of his former discoveries.
Burt Webber is a meticulous person and insists that all details are worked out before a voyage begins. Lessons he's learned from many projects, including competing with Mel Fisher in the search for the galleons Atocha and Margarita, his quest for the legendary shipwreck Maravilla in the Bahamas, and his successful galleon hunt for Concepcion in the Silver Banks convinced him that success is only reached with careful planning and preparation.
"This is the vessel," Burt said. He was standing in the operations room, the nerve center for his search operation. Fragile equipment was stored in specially designed cabinets, and delicate electronics were protected by padding in the event of high seas. "When it came down from Virginia, we put all this in. This is the control panel. One of a kind. The only one that exists," Burt said.
He removed a housing and Geometrics cesium magnetometer from a shelf. "It has a cesium isotope 133 optical pumping cell. This one component costs $18,000. With the housing, cesium magnetometer, and generator board, the unit costs $32,000. This is totally my design. It is diver operated, no cables. The cesium goes into the receiver tube that separates it from the diver. The housing is based on my design. The generator board considers the total intensity of the Earth's magnetic field and the diver reads anomalies from the panel and also receives an audio signal in headsets," Webber explained.
He was putting the cesium cell into the receiver with Greg Erkes, who is his project manager, and diver Steve Streeter.
Greg Erkes was first mate on Ocean Lady before he joined Webber as project manager. The former paramedic and Special Forces soldier hails from Coral Springs, Florida. He has qualified for a 200 ton captain's license and holds a 100 ton master's license. Erkes spent eight years working on small, luxury cruise ships.
" Ocean Lady is 128 feet long, has a 23-foot beam, is 198 tons. The ship can carry 9,650 gallons of fuel and produces 2,900 gallons of water a day in water makers. It is an all-aluminum vessel," Erkes explained.
The ship, under the command of Shannon Wilkins of Reedville, Virginia, has a full medical emergency dispensary. "We have satellite communications and can be in contact with doctors twenty-four hours. We have emergency defibrillators aboard and a pharmacy. I can administer antibiotics and morphine under a doctor's orders if necessary," Erkes explained.
The operation taking shape in a rough-and-tumble boatyard in Miami, already 40 days against the quay, will take advantage of state-of-the-art modern technology guided by a man with a lifetime of diving and treasure hunting experience. Modifications had to be innovated everywhere. A large cargo hold had to be created in the stern to accommodate the hoses, dive equipment, and gear storage.
Two large, inflatable 17-foot boats powered by 50 hp Mercury engines were on the stern. They were not just any inflatable runabouts; these were military-quality work boats with Raymarine Navtrak, GPS, radios, depth recorders, and even a support platform so that magnetometers could be operated from the inflatables. This is necessary because coral formations in the Silver Banks where the team will be working make it impossible for Ocean Lady to maneuver safely among them.
"We can do our surface surveys right from these inflatable boats," Webber said. Everything was new. A compressor equipped to fill mixed-gas Nitrox breathing cylinders, 24 new dive tanks, even little propellers that strap to divers' legs so they don't have to swim underwater on long surveys, were on board.
A 185-cubic-foot per minute, 100 psi (pounds per square inch) diesel Ingersol Rand compressor would be the last piece of equipment mounted forward. The compressor will provide air to pipes underwater that act like vacuum cleaners to remove debris from the site by divers working below.
"We're looking for that proverbial needle in a haystack," Webber smiled. He was already planning what he needed to discuss with his team in the air-conditioned control room in a few minutes. "When you look at the vast area of the South Bank, the analogy fits—but then look at our tools. We have the equipment to find the needle," he said.
Luck always plays a role in treasure operations at sea. Even a shipwreck is a small target in a large ocean area. After more than three centuries underwater, coral and marine life will have disguised a ship's remains and storms and hurricanes will have scattered them.
It was with skill, technology, and dogged persistence that Burt Webber found the remains of the Concepcion and brought up treasure William Phips left behind. It will be with the same dedication that the new team leaves aboard Ocean Lady for the Silver Banks. The area got its name for legendary Spanish galleons that met their doom and spilled their treasure upon the treacherous reefs. With advanced technology and luck, Burt Webber and his team will again be successful and discover treasure beneath the sea.
Dr. John Christopher Fine is the author of 24 books, many about the discovery of shipwrecks and treasure galleons. He is a marine biologist and expert in maritime affairs whose research and studies around the world have called attention to ocean issues.
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