NOTABLE NAVIGATION
8/29/2007 12:16:05 PM by Sandy Lindsey
We scoured the globe to gather the best seafaring stories of all time and the experts who love them. From ancient ships to world-changing discoveries, buried treasure and rewritten histories, we hope you enjoy our brief jaunt through our favorite accounts of man’s obsession with the sea — and all the mystery and adventure that comes along with it.
Discovering new worlds. Rediscovering the sunken treasure of old worlds. And, of course, scantily clad water nymphs. This is the stuff that makes men, and women, go out to sea.
“The optimism of a society can be tracked to some extent by the tone of their sea legends,” says Greg Kneads, retired captain and sea legend aficionado. “Seafaring tales go back to the roots of our modern civilization in Ancient Greece. One of the earliest sea stories is by Homer, dated around 800 B.C., about the Greek Sirens.” These sea nymphs with the head of a woman and the body of a bird used their mesmerizing songs to lure mariners to their destruction on the dangerous rocks surrounding the Siren’s isle. “Eventually as cultures became more stabilized and less vulnerable to outside influences and environmental havoc,” Kneads continues. “These devious precursors to mermaids evolved into the sweet, wish-granting versions of modern fairytales and films.”
When it comes to seafaring stories, however, legend can’t compete with reality. No tale is more famous or more controversial than that of explorer Christopher Columbus. “What makes Columbus different from the other nautical explorers of his time is that he was the first to return home to tell others where he had been, how he got there and what he saw — an event that ignited waves of European settlements that followed his path across the Atlantic. He was not the first, but his was the first historically significant discovery of the new lands for Europe,” says Thomas Bowden, historian and author of the book The Enemies of Christopher Columbus.
Heated debates continue amongst scholars, ranging from whether Columbus arrived in America first to whether he actually arrived in America at all. Some believe he actually landed on the Caribbean islands. Other heated discussions concern this statement he made about the native population: “I could conquer them with fifty men and govern them as I please.” Many believe Columbus’ actions and foreign disease eradicated an entire thriving race of people.
Few people are more enthralled by sea stories than author Clive Cussler, who has been called the “Grand Master of the American Action Adventure Novel.” In a case of life imitates art, Cussler, who introduced his famous hero Dirk Pitt and his fictional National Underwater and Marine Agency in 1973, personally formed the actual non-profit National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) in 1979. With a crew of experts and volunteers, Cussler has subsequently discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wrecks. One of the most notable is the confederate sub C.S.S. Hunley, best known as the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, as well as the Housatonic, the ship the Hunley sank. He has also discovered the infamous U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania.
“My goal is to preserve maritime history,” says Cussler. “It is a significant part of who we are as a people. We have been succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. I did not think this would happen in my lifetime,’’ he continues, referring in particular to the thrill of locating the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued 705 survivors from Titanic, only to be later torpedoed by the Germans.
One of the most famous wrecks ever discovered is the Atocha, the quest of noted treasure hunter Mel Fisher. The hunt and recovery took a painstaking 16 years and is as interesting a tale as that of the sunken ship. In 1980, Fisher found the Santa Maria, then five years later he pinpointed the Atocha, which was in 55 feet of water off of Key West, as originally noted by a salvage team in 1622. He passed away in 1989, at the age of 76, but not before forming the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West. The museum celebrates his find of approximately $400 million in coins and jewelry, some of which were smuggled goods and not on the ship’s manifest.
“It’s all part of my father’s legacy — ‘if you have a dream, go for it,’” his son, Kim Fisher, CEO of Mel Fisher’s Treasures, an umbrella firm controlling 30 companies. “My dad’s last words to me were, ‘Don’t let the small stuff bother you.’ There’s an incredible thrill to find gold and emeralds. It’s too much fun to quit. It’s still a trail of gold down there. There is probably an additional $500 million that still lies in the ocean.’”
That treasure continues to be found. Just this year, the Odyssey crew made worldwide news with the discovery of the Black Swan treasure. This merchant royal British ship was loaded with an estimated $500 million in Spanish coins when it sank off the southwestern tip of England in 1641. While the Odyssey explorers received exclusive salvage rights to this area, Spain has filed a claim in U.S. federal court, declaring the right to the treasure, which is expected to result in the largest dollar amount ever recovered from the ocean floor.
“It’s been very frustrating for everyone,” says Alder Nasser, Odyssey’s director of international relations. As the legal battles continue, Odyssey refuses to name the location of the wreck, which yielded 17 tons of coins flown to the U.S. this past May.
The company’s co-founder, Greg Stemm, says, “I resent the company’s growing reputation as modern-day pirates. We bent over backwards to communicate with the Spanish and other governments about its movements and treasure searches. The great irony is that Spanish authorities last year declined our invitation to be part of the search-and-salvage operation as it could yield riches and have cultural significance to the nation.” It seems the days of uncompromising friction between governments and privateers aren’t as far behind us as we may have thought.