Back to 1980: Please Love Me Again

Chapter 345 Salvage of the Deep Sea Treasure Ship (1)

Caribbean Sea, off Cuba.

If Zhao Wenmu had been here, he would have pinched the little guy on the top of his head and said with a smile:
"Would Daddy bring a ton of gold for my daughter?"

Facing the rising sun, the smooth and elegant luxury yacht merged with Mel's salvage boat. Compared with the former, the latter looked like it was picked up from a pile of junk.

In fact, this salvage ship was converted from a fishing boat. The real expensive thing is not the hull itself, but the search equipment on board.

Towed sonar equipment specially used to scan the seabed, diving equipment for ten divers to dive deep for a long time, a marine crane to lift 20 tons of cargo at a time, special devices modified near the ship's propeller...

The battered-looking Merry is actually a tried and tested veteran.

It has been with Mel for 12 years.

"Mr. Mel, when this salvage is over, you can get a new boat!"

Zhao Wenmu patted the rusty deck of the Meili, looked at the divers who were ready to go, and joked with a smile.

"Yes, Mr. Zhao. I have already thought about the name of the new ship, how about calling it 'Wanli Sunshine'?"

Mel had indeed been planning to buy a new ship after this operation was over.

After all, he can get 2000 million US dollars!

The corner of Zhao Wenmu's mouth twitched, and he reached out to give Mel a thumbs up.

Very good, I dare say you are the man who wants to become the One Piece!

"Zhao, come and see! These are the good things we salvaged!"

As Mel said, he brought a plastic box. From the blue veins on his forehead and some difficult steps, it can be seen that the things in the box are very heavy.

Zhao Wenmu hurried forward, and the two worked together to carefully place the box on the table.

The box is full of "bull nose rings".

Or something that looks like a half-open bracelet, the whole body is black, covered with corals and shellfish on the bottom of the sea.

"These are manillas, a silver currency in Spain at the time, and a manilla bracelet can buy almost 30-40 slaves!"

Mel looked at the puzzled expressions on the faces of several people, and explained at the right time.

"The sonar has found more than 120 abnormal points in the vicinity, scattered in the surrounding area of ​​about 12 square meters. Among them, there are two densely populated abnormal points. We are going to investigate them one by one."

Divers salvaged a staggering 1726 Manila bracelets!
Combined with the results of the sonar scan, Mel has been able to confirm that there is at least one large shipwreck, and it is a treasure ship carrying a lot of wealth.

Whether it is the Lady Atoka remains to be determined.

The value of this batch of ancient silver coins alone is more than 300 million US dollars!
Meier had reason to believe that the Manila silver coins were only a small part of the treasure trove.After all, this kind of currency was mainly used for the slave trade, and its uses were not very extensive. There was no reason to only carry these currencies on the sunken ship, and there must be other commodities.

After all, gold, silver ingots, and slaves are the mainstream goods on this route.

Except for slaves, gold and silver are neither washed away by sea currents nor decayed.

They just sink to the silt on the ocean floor.

Then quietly wait for someone with predestined relationship.

12 square meters sounds like a lot, but it is actually just a small area 400 meters long and 300 meters wide, and it will take only a few days for divers to perform a carpet search.

Normally, it is impossible for a shipwreck to occupy such a large area. Some ancient shipwrecks are even well preserved, lying quietly on the bottom of the sea.

For example, the famous Nanhai No. [-] ancient shipwreck in Huaguo.

This is an ancient sunken ship in the early Southern Song Dynasty. It was salvaged as a whole in 2007. It carried tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain. Some people even estimated that the entire ship was worth hundreds of billions of dollars!

Of course, it is now completely lying in the museum, playing its true historical and cultural value.

These are things that money cannot measure.

Meier divided the sea area of ​​12 square meters into several grids, and Meili searched grid by grid in order.

Before Zhao Wenmu arrived, they had searched more than 2 square meters.

In fact, most of the more than 120 abnormal points are natural structures such as geological protrusions and coral reefs on the seabed.

Sonar can only find anomalies, but these anomalies are not necessarily what they are, and may be just normal geological structures in nature.

Five divers on the deck jumped into the water one by one, and the anchored Meili adjusted the propeller to a vertical angle, and the engine started to run at full power.

"Isn't the boat parked here? Why is the engine still running?"

Noticing the roar of the engine, Zhao Wenqiu asked a little puzzled.

"The seabed in the coastal area is very turbid, and divers cannot see the surrounding situation clearly underwater. To solve this problem, I invented this set of equipment."

Mel proudly introduced his invention to the Zhao brothers and sisters.

In order to be more intuitive, he took the two of them to the propeller at the stern.

"I found that the water on the surface of the ocean is actually very clear, so I invented this device, which uses the thrust of the propeller to pour the surface seawater into the bottom of the sea. In this way, divers can clearly see everything on the bottom of the sea!"

Zhao Wenmu looked carefully, and sure enough, there was a thick black pipe directly below the propeller leading to the bottom of the sea.

The water depth in this sea area is about 15-20 meters, and it is about 50 nautical miles from the coast. The seabed is covered with sediments, and divers will splash them when they move a little underwater.

Under such circumstances, it is indeed difficult to see the bottom of the sea clearly.

Conditions are limited at the moment, and salvage ships mainly rely on divers to search underwater.

Later generations use various advanced underwater robots to directly realize the one-stop operation of search and salvage. The operators on board can clearly see the underwater situation with the help of high-definition cameras.

"This device can not only make the underwater environment clear, but also blow away the sediment buried on the treasure, which greatly improves the salvage efficiency!"

Speaking of this, Mr. 'Engineer' Mel is very proud.

This is definitely his greatest invention, and it is the gospel of the vast number of underwater treasure hunters.

After a while, the diver surfaced.

"Cannon! We found cannon!"

According to his description, this undersea anomaly is two cannons.

This news immediately excited Mel.

The Lady Atoka is a huge armed transport ship after all, and according to historical records, it should be equipped with 26 cannons.

The cannon had not been found for the past two days, which made him very worried about whether the sunken ship under the sea was the Lady Atoka.

The crew worked in an orderly manner, and soon a huge gondola was placed on the sea surface by a crane, and then slowly lowered to the seabed under the guidance of divers.

The divers worked hard and spent nearly an hour before finally salvaging the two cannons.

The surface of the cannon, which has been corroded to a bad shape, is full of coral and shellfish.

Hundreds of years of seawater immersion, or this kind of cast iron cannon that is not resistant to corrosion, the two cannons have long been changed beyond recognition.

It can only be seen that there are two cannons, not two big iron rods.

"Look, there are snake decorations here!"

Mel said excitedly.

The position of the cannon near the base is decorated with serpentine ears, a common practice on many Spanish ships of that era.

To be honest, Zhao Wenmu only saw two bumps, so he couldn't tell that it was originally a snake.

"Zhao, I have a hunch that the Lady Atoka is right below!"

(End of this chapter)