A gold bar that you can pick up and hold. Museums can be challenging to photograph in. Many forbid flash altogether which is not generally a bad thing. No Flash photographs can be great in a museum!

On September 4, 1622 a fleet of twenty-eight ships left Havana bound for Spain. Onboard was the wealth of an empire, nearly incomprehensable today.


A Macro shot of the same gold bar. Notice the divets and scratches? Getting as close to the exhibits as you can is one helpful tip. I shot this through the hole in the above case (no glass interference).

The heavily armed Nuestra Se�ora de Atocha sailed as the rear guard of the fleet. She bore the name of the holiest of shrines in Madrid. She had been built in Havana in 1620 and was rated at 550 tons, with an overall length of 112 feet (the S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen is 35 feet), a beam of 34 feet (we're 11 feet wide) and a draft of 14 feet (we measure 5.5 feet below the water). She carried square-rigged fore and mainmasts, and a lateen-rigged mizzenmast. Atocha would have had the high sterncastle, low waist and high forecastle of a typical early 17th century galleon.


Old-time currency. Simply twist off a few gold links to pay your bill.
A second trick is to back off the case and zoom in with a telephoto and no flash to avoid reflections and glare.

The Atocha alone carried 24 tons of silver bullion in 1038 ingots, 180,00 pesos of silver coins, 582 copper ingots, 125 gold bars and discs, 350 chests of indigo, 525 bales of tobacco, 20 bronze cannon and 1,200 pounds of worked silverware! Also onboard were items being smuggled to avoid taxation, and unregistered jewelry and personal goods.

A wall of gold coins.
This was shot with no flash but you can still see the reflections from doors, windows and other natural sources of light around the edges of the picture.

The fleet was overtaken by a hurricane as it entered the Florida Straits. By dawn of September 6th, eight of the vessels were scattered from the Marquesas Keys to the Dry Tortugas on the sea floor.


One of our favorite pieces in the museum. This gold cross has the most delicate etchings of Our Lady on the bottom of the cross. Simply lovely! I increased the ISO which increases the camera's sensitivity to light.

The Nuestra Se�ora de Atocha sank with 265 people onboard. Only three sailors and two slaves survived by holding on to the stump of the mizzenmast, which was the only part of the wrecked galleon that remained above water. Rescuers tried to enter the drowned ship, but found the hatches battened tight. At 55 feet, the water depth was too great to allow them to work to open her.


A medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe cast very soon after the event.
Shot with the Macro as close to the glass as possible.

Two additional hurricanes further scattered the wrecks within a month. Though the Spanish searched for the next 60 years, nothing was ever found.

A salver used under a dinner plate or to carry items to the table.
A slower shutter speed will also let in more light but the camera must be held very steady.

Then in 1969, Mel Fisher and his Treasure Salvors crew began their search for the treasure of the Atocha. Using sand-clearing propwash deflectors, or "mailboxes," that he invented, and specially-designed proton magnetometers, they found little bits of the treasure over the years.

A tiny statuette smoothed by three and a half centuries in the sea.

No matter how long since the last piece of treasure was brought up, no matter the 100+ court battles (which finally ended in victory in the US Supreme Court) no matter the personal tragedies that stalked Mel Fisher, every day was greeted with his signature phrase -
"Today's the Day!" That day finally arrived on July 20, 1985 when the motherlode of the shipwreck of the century was found.

Make today your day. Get out there and do something you've been longing to do!

And maybe take a few photos to share too...