WABASSO BEACH, Fla. - For Captain
Greg Bounds, Saturday on the "Capitana" started like any other.
"From getting on the boat, and
getting ready, it's hard work," Bounds said. "We're out there, all
day, pulling ropes and diving, and lifting anchors, big heavy anchors. It's the
hardest job I've ever had in my life."
Bounds and his crew headed offshore,
about 200 feet off the coastline on Wabasso Beach, then began looking for
sunken treasure.
It sounds glamorous, but it can take
years to find anything.
"A lot of times, it's beer
cans, fishing weights, just garbage," explained Bounds.
But Saturday turned out to be their
lucky day. Bounds found forty-eight gold coins, buried in the sand.
"You go out every day, hoping
that it's gonna happen, and a lot of times it doesn't," said Bounds.
"But when it does, it's just amazing, the feeling that you get."
Brent Brisben's company, 1715 Fleet
Queen's Jewels, owns the salvage rights to the shipwrecks they hunt, off the
Sebastian Inlet.
"Eleven Spanish galleons,
loaded with treasure, were sunk along the coastline out here by a hurricane (in
1715)," said Brisben. "That's what gives us the Treasure Coast."
Brisben said finding the gold coins
from ships that wrecked almost 300 years ago is exhilarating.
"To see (Bounds) come up out of
the water, and over the rail, I'll never forget, he waves us in," recalled
Brisben. "He says, 'I think I got one more,' and he drops about fifteen in
my hand."
Valued at almost a quarter million
dollars, the clink of the sound of the golden coins is music to the treasure
hunters' ears.
"I love the sound of
gold," said Bounds, pouring the coins from hand-to-hand. "This makes
it all worth it."
courtesy of wptv.com
No comments:
Post a Comment