The Treasure Fleet

The Treasure Fleet

A poem about eleven ships of a Spanish treasure fleet
that sank in a hurricane in 1715 in the waters between Florida's Sebastian Inlet
southward to Fort Pierce and Vero Beach

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So many Spanish treasure Fleets sank in Florida's shallow offshore waters
from 1500 to 1820
that treasure divers now call this coast

The Bank Of Spain

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Deposits were made in this bank
by the Kings of Spain and their mighty Fleets
for more than 300 years.

Today the withdrawals have just begun.

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The Treasure Fleet

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Stand on this beach and close your eyes
and once again the ensigns fly
from the great, gilded galleons
as they sail by

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Laden with Treasure; Pieces of Eight;
Laden with Glory; Laden with Fate;
Laden with Lives; Both Humble and Great.

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The Ornate Flota still homeward Steers
That's been Drowned and lost three hundred years.
With your eyes closed here,
the Image is clear.

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Imperial Spain's imperial dreams
riding the winds -- riding the Stream.
with your eyes closed here, how real it seems.

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Drowned and gone three centuries past,
nothing remains of sail and mast
of Glory, and Lives,
and Dreams long Dashed

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       But stand on this beach
         and close your eyes
         and just offshore the Armada lies
             and in its mighty, splendid grandeur of long ago
                                                    it homeward flies

To visit our PowerPoint presentation
on Florida's Sunken Treasure and Spanish Shipwrecks
Click the Bank of Spain Icon below

Actual Wrecks On Friday the 13th, July, 1733, 22 ships of the Combined Armada set sail from Havana, Cuba with more than 20 million silver spanish coins worth at least $600 million dollars.

	By dawn on Sunday, the entire fleet, under the command of General Don Rodrigo de Torres Y Morales, was gone -- stricken by a massive hurricane. .


	In 12 feet of water off Key Largo lay the 60-gun galleon, the El Infante .
Other wrecks and their treasures lay strewn from reef to reef -- from key to key.
The Los Tres Puentes lay in 12 feet of water .
The Chavez in 10 feet .
El Poder de Dios rested in 20 feet .

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