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The Search for Our Lady of Atocha

This is a story of one man's magnificent obsession. It would cost him terrible personal tragedy and sixteen years of his life, but it would ultimately end in triumph. Mel Fisher was a chicken farmer from Indiana. From an early age he had fallen in love with diving - in particular diving for treasure. Fisher became obsessed with the lost Spanish Galleon the Nuestra Senora de Atocha ("Our Lady of Atocha"), that had sunk off the Florida coast. It was loaded with fabulous treasure looted from the New World - including copper, silver, gold, tobacco, emeralds, jewellery, and indigo. But she was caught in a hurricane 35 miles off Key West in the Florida Keys and sank. 265 people drowned. Mel uprooted his wife and four children: and took them to Florida in his hunt for the Atocha. For sixteen years they found nothing. In the middle of these lean years, as money ran short, tragedy struck. On July 13, 1975 Mel's oldest son Dirk, his wife Angel, and diver Rick Gage died after their boat capsized during their quest for the treasure. Mel kept going through these hard times thanks to his motto; Today's the Day. Finally, on July 20th, 1985, his son, Kane Fisher, captain of the salvage vessel Dauntless, sent a jubilant message to his father's headquarters, "Put away the charts; we've found the main pile!" Ecstatic crew members described the find as looking like a reef of silver bars. At long last, the wreck's "motherlode" had been found. But this is not the end of the story -it continues today with Mel's grandson - Sean...

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  • Originally Aired May 11, 2014
  • Runtime 60 minutes
  • Network AHC
  • Created May 5, 2019 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified May 5, 2019 by
    Administrator admin