Visiting Treasure Museum with Marissa in January 2016

Marissa came to visit in January at the end of her winter break from her MBA program at Washington University in St. Louis. She flew in to Orlando. They have the best food court and waiting areas at that airport. They better. It is really busy with lots of little kids coming and going to and from Disney. 

After collecting her we headed east towards the coast. Instead of heading directly home we decided to get a bite at a restaurant on the water. We didn’t have a place in mind, just something on the water. We used Yelp and kept a look out for a likely spot, passing numerous Yelp suggestions until landing at a shack along the ICW off of Cocoa Beach. Boy, was it nice. We even saw dolphins right off the patio.

We took the long way home down US 1 through all the little towns between Melbourne and Fort Pierce, watching the sunset, spotting some bagel shops (who knew?), stopping at Target cuz why not, and stopping at the grocery store for supplies. On the way home we drove past the US Navy Seal Museum, still haven’t been there, and a small sign that said, “Treasure Museum”. Now THAT is a place we had to come back to.

The next day we headed out early in the morning (usually not before 11am, I have to be honest) to pick up bagels in Melbourne and find that treasure museum just south of Vero Beach.

Fort Pierce is just about in the middle of Stuart and Vero Beach, two quite wealthy communities focused on boating and rich old people. Fort Pierce has a much better marina but is kind of an odd town, a little scuzzy around the edges after you leave the historical district in the old town where the city marina is located.

All three of these towns are located on the west side of the Indian River (the ICW) and both have related communities on the eastern side of the Indian River along the ocean. The treasure museum is located on those outer banks between the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean, south of Vero Beach and just north of the bridge back to the mainland north of Fort Pierce.

The ocean elicits many reactions. We love the beautiful water, the color, the sound, the smell. We love boating on it and swimming in it. But the ocean also hides many secrets.

In the 1500s Portugal and Spain were already heavily raiding Central America and Mexico for treasure. One king really wanted to be married to his betrothed, a princess from an Italian state. She made many demands for a huge dowry and the king was really eager so he gave orders to his plunderers to bring back this huge dowry FAST. They collected all sorts of goodies: gold, silver and precious jewels from as far away as the Orient. Many ships brought the treasure to Panama area where it was trucked and boated to a consolidation site near Cuba. It was loaded onto about a bunch of big ships (at least 11) carrying almost 1000 people too for fast transport back to Spain.

The king’s eagerness for a bride made the Captains overeager to please. They set sail late in the year despite weather warnings. As they rounded the Straits of Florida into the Gulf Stream a hurricane blew up. The ships were blown west into the shoals off Fort Pierce. Almost all ships were destroyed hundreds of people lost their lives.

The few survivors gathered on the beach between what is now Fort Pierce / Hutchinson Island on the outer banks and Vero Beach. They gathered as much of the treasure as they could salvage. They built a little shelter against the sun but the bad weather and mosquitos eventually got most of them. 

Eventually the powers that be figured out that the fleet was lost and set out to find them. Another set of ships set off to Central America and the Orient to replace the precious dowry so the king could eventually get married. The salvaged treasure and the few remaining people were picked up by a ship from Cuba and taken home.

What a fantastic story! We wouldn’t know about that story at all if it wasn’t for a guy in the 1950s with a metal detector found some Spanish coins in the sand between Vero Beach and Fort Pierce. He found more coins, then a bowl then some more stuff. Caught by the treasure hunting bug, he made a viewer out of a glass bottom bucket and found more stuff while leaning out of a boat close to shore.

I bet you can guess the rest! He and a few friends joined up with a real treasure hunter, Mel Fisher (remember him from your visits to Key West). The new corporation started hunting and found the wreck of the fleet in the 1960s. They are still bringing up treasure.

This little museum stands on the hill overlooking the beach where the fleet went down in that hurricane in 1507. It is filled with cool relics like coins, plates, and parts of ships. A forty minute movie shares the history. Gosh I love those movies!

The best part if wandering down to the beach where you can look out over that wild ocean to imagine the terror of those passengers as the big wind and waves hit that terrible night so many centuries ago. Miles and miles of bleak ocean and bare beach. Must have been terrifying. But the museum was great!!