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Spanish salvagers located the Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a privately owned galleon, in shallow waters and retrieved her cargo. The Santa Margarita was found in 1626 and eventually divers salvaged most of the silver, guns, and other cargo she carried. The Atocha, however, remained hidden until 1985 when Mel Fisher and his crew located her near Marquesas Key. Over time they recovered a silver box containing an emerald cross with a matching ring and a gold coin, some of her twenty bronze guns, forty-six tons of silver, forty thousand coins, many emeralds and gold bars--artifacts worth more than four million dollars.
The Atocha struck a reef, which ripped out her hull and sank her. Only five people aboard survived--three seamen and two slaves. Of those aboard the Santa Margarita, which was equal in tonnage to the Atocha, more survived because the waves carried the Santa Margarita over the reef and she wrecked on a sandbank.
Next: The Fleet of 1641
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