Pirate Hunters
Page 25
Mattera saw him as perhaps captain of a great whaling vessel, taking on an opponent even more dangerous than the Royal Navy.
“Or maybe he retired as an English gentleman,” Kretschmer said, “living a quiet life in a house by the sea.”
Chatterton and Mattera thought about that one. They looked across the channel. Under the moonlight, they could see waves breaking over Bannister’s wreck.
Then, each together, the partners said, “No way.”
EPILOGUE
Salvage continued in earnest on the ballast pile at Cayo Vigia. Every artifact recovered by divers was period to the Golden Fleece. Over two months, Chatterton, Mattera, Bowden, and their crews discovered gold wedding rings, silver and bronze coins, a small gold statue, boarding axes, thousands of beads, a brass gun barrel, knives, smoking pipes (some with the owner’s initials scratched into the handle), jewelry, china, and a small bronze statue, beautifully crafted, of an English gentleman, wearing a top hat and holding a firelock musket, his dog standing guard by his side. This piece, the men liked to imagine, had belonged to Bannister himself.
Divers often couldn’t wait to get the artifacts topside for cleaning. Blackened Delftware china dishes, washed in mild soap and water, showed their true colors: blue and white, blue and yellow, and, rarest of all, red and black. All of it was delicate and valuable, worth perhaps three thousand dollars a plate, maybe more, given its provenance. A pewter bowl, after gentle rinsing, revealed lumps of leftover porridge still inside. Museums and auction houses would have desired any of these pieces; collectors would have paid handsome sums. Few people got a chance to acquire verifiable pirate booty—and no one knew if it would ever happen again.
Chatterton and Mattera stood to gain financially by these recoveries. By handshake, Bowden had agreed to give them a percentage of the salvage. But after accounting for expenses, neither man knew if he’d break even. For now, everything recovered from the site would be cataloged, preserved, and stored at the laboratory at the Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático. When salvage was complete—and that could take months or even years—a division would be made between the Dominican government and Bowden. It would then be up to Chatterton and Mattera to arrange their own division with Bowden. In this business, parties often selected their artifacts in rounds, in the way professional sports teams draft players: Bowden might choose a boarding ax and a sword, Chatterton a flintlock and a handful of beads, Mattera a pistol and piece of Delftware china, then back to Bowden again for another round. All of it would be done according to the percentages of their agreement.
In May 2009, Mattera and one of Bowden’s crew began to uncover the hull, or lowermost section, of the pirate ship. Chatterton joined them soon after. As they removed ballast, they could see that the ship’s beams had remained intact, and the entire lower portion of the hull was still there, a miracle. If the wreck had sunk almost anywhere else, she would have long since disintegrated. But the water around the island was much less salty than in the surrounding waters, and had a freshwater stream nearby (yet another reason Cayo Vigia made for such an effective pirate stronghold—access to drinking water). Also, the sand and silt under which the Golden Fleece was buried was of a very fine consistency and acted as a preservative for the ship and her artifacts. Hovering over the site, the men could see the Golden Fleece as she had been, steadfast and muscular, a ship as tough as either of them ever had seen. A few days later, they found a cannonball on the wreck marked by the broad arrow, a symbol of the Royal Navy—just as the treasure hunter William Phips reported seeing on the wreck months after the pirate ship sank.
Representatives from the lab, along with archaeologists, visited the site later that month, inspecting artifacts and taking a tour of the island. They snapped photos and congratulated the men on the discovery. None had any doubt about what had been found. By now, divers had recovered thousands of artifacts. Not one dated later than 1686, the year the Golden Fleece had been lost.
News of the find spread quickly through the treasure-hunting and archaeology communities. Those who managed to see the artifacts at the lab or even aboard one of the salvage vessels tipped their hats to Chatterton, Mattera, and Bowden. But perhaps the best endorsement came from the great treasure hunter Bob Marx, who had discovered the lost city of Port Royal, Jamaica. He called Mattera on the boat after he opened emailed photographs of the Delftware china and the pewter cereal bowl. “Goddamn it, you got it,” he said. “I wish you guys were here to see my smile.”
The men couldn’t stop smiling themselves. They’d found a Golden Age pirate ship, the hardest and rarest and most exciting thing an explorer could find underwater, or maybe in all the world. Sometimes, in the middle of lunch or after working on the boat, one would turn to the other and say, “We did it.” And the other would answer, “Yes, we did.”
It was around this time that Mattera flew back to New York to visit family and friends. His last stop was at Moravian Cemetery, at the bottom of Todt Hill Road on Staten Island. He spoke aloud to his father there, bringing him up to date on Carolina and the kids, and on the Mets, who were playing good ball that season.
“And one more thing, Dad,” he said aloud. “I found a really cool pirate ship. I wish I could tell you about it. It was an adventure. You’d love it.”
—
MONTHS OF SALVAGE REMAINED to be done on the Golden Fleece, but Bowden and his crew had that in hand, so Chatterton and Mattera turned their sights back to treasure hunting, this time to the San Miguel, the early Spanish galleon they believed could be the most valuable treasure ship ever lost, loaded with gold, priceless Inca and Aztec works of art, and glorious contraband. The prizes from the San Miguel might be worth more than five hundred million dollars at auction. But the finders of the great ship wouldn’t just be treasure rich; they also would have discovered the oldest known shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere. Instantly, the wreck would become important to historians, archaeologists, universities, and governments, its name—and the names of its finders—known the world over. Many treasure hunters dreamed of riches. Others imagined black-tie openings at museums or a dedicated auction at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Still others yearned to make their names legend. For the finders of the San Miguel, every one of those dreams could come true.
So Chatterton and Mattera made a deal with Bowden to go after the San Miguel, which they believed to be sunk in one of Bowden’s lease areas, a discreet and searchable place less than a hundred miles from Samaná Bay. But they knew it would have to happen fast.
In early June 2009, a U.S. magistrate judge in Florida directed Odyssey Marine Exploration, the publicly traded salvage company that had recovered half a billion dollars’ worth of silver coins from a centuries-old Spanish warship, to return the treasure to Spain. That was the kind of writing on the wall Chatterton and Mattera had been warned about early in their partnership. Tides were shifting against treasure hunters, even as the partners began their new quest.
The men spent the next two and a half years in search of the San Miguel. It drained most of their savings. They’d expected to cash in on the pirate booty by now, but most of the artifacts from the Golden Fleece were still at the lab awaiting division. Expenses mounted. They lost their survey boat in a storm, which alone cost them more than one hundred thousand dollars. They raised the vessel, and it sunk again, this time with both of them aboard.
But the years and money seemed worth it. They tracked the San Miguel to a picturesque area on the eastern end of the country’s north coast. There, they found a sixteenth-century anchor that appeared, in detail, to be a match for one carried aboard the galleon. Soon after, they found broken pieces of pottery, which also had likely come from the San Miguel. Hundreds of pebble-sized ballast stones lay nearby, the kind used to fill space between larger ballast rocks on galleon-sized sailing ships. Given all he and Mattera had learned about San Miguel, they had little doubt they were closing in on the great treasure ship.
And then, just as
the men prepared to salvage the site, a business dispute arose between them and Bowden. Months passed as they tried to work it out. Eventually, lawsuits were filed. Chatterton and Mattera could hardly digest their position. They believed they were sitting on top of the most valuable treasure ship ever lost, but couldn’t bring her up while rights to the wreck remained in dispute.
The legal battle continues to this day. If Chatterton and Mattera prevail, they will go back to work on the wreck site. If they do not, the San Miguel might remain undiscovered forever.
—
MOST OF THE ARTIFACTS from the Golden Fleece remain at the lab. The divers have asked officials there to postpone a division until the dispute with Bowden is settled. Given the rarity of the find, it’s difficult to put a precise monetary value on the booty recovered from the pirate ship. By some estimates, the collection might be worth several million dollars.
But even if a single piece from the Golden Fleece never got sold, the men had their prizes. Chatterton had found the rarest and most exciting kind of shipwreck in the world. Mattera had pieced together the story of one of the Golden Age’s great pirate ships, changing how history understood her adventures and her final days. Best of all, they’d found Joseph Bannister.
Each man also got something else from his discovery, something different from shipwrecks and pirates, even if he didn’t expect it at the time.
For Chatterton, it was the chance to learn from the Dominicans. He had arrived in Samaná believing there was just one way to do things—straight ahead and by sheer force of muscle and will. Then he began watching the locals. Many of them were near destitute but made do with whatever scraps they could gather. If they didn’t have a jack to change a tire, they used rocks and sticks. If they needed to dive deep to catch fish, they built an air supply system from an old paint compressor and a garden hose. To Chatterton, even the poorest among them seemed to have all they wanted, not because they didn’t desire much, but because they always found other ways to get what they needed, always found other ways to go.
That idea helped Chatterton break through on the Golden Fleece. But it also stayed with him after he found the shipwreck. He’d long dreaded the day when he would be too old to keep diving, to do what he was meant to do. He knew that his partnership with Mattera, made at age fifty-five, was in ways an effort to have one last great adventure before it might be too late. After watching the Dominicans, he didn’t believe in too late anymore. He knew the day was coming when he could no longer strap on the tanks. But when that day came, he would find other ways to get the feeling a great shipwreck gave him. The water was a big place, and he would find other ways to go.
—
FOR MATTERA, THE GOLDEN FLEECE answered a basic question: Was it ever too late to follow one’s heart? Months into his search for the pirate ship, Mattera’s view on the matter had been dim. He’d spent several years and more than a million dollars to go after a dream—first of treasure, then of pirates—but had yet to find anything important. Worse, it had begun to occur to him, as the failures and stresses piled up, that there might be nothing out there for him to find.
That’s when he discovered Joseph Bannister, buried in historical records almost no one had touched for centuries. The pirate captain had been in his thirties or forties when he’d abandoned a respectable career and a future assured in order to do something daring, something that called to him. To Mattera, Bannister’s calling was democracy, but what mattered most was that Bannister had answered.
Things went badly for Bannister at first. Then he began a singular adventure, one of swashbuckling and daring that culminated in doing the near impossible—defeating the Royal Navy in battle. To Mattera, the lesson was clear: A person had to go when his heart told him to go. Even if he didn’t know how the journey would end.
Mattera was never the same after that. He fought through frustrations and challenges in Samaná, spent even more of his money, then found the Golden Fleece. He kept a cannonball from the wreck, a reminder to listen to his heart when next it asked him to go.
—
BY 2013, CHATTERTON HAD moved back to the United States, while Mattera, now married to Carolina, remained in Santo Domingo. In the spring of that year, Chatterton made a trip to the Dominican Republic to visit Mattera. The men had planned to take it easy that weekend, lounging around and eating grilled octopus, as they had in the early days, when every shipwreck in the New World might be theirs. Instead, they drove to Samaná, where they took the Zodiac across the channel and anchored over the Golden Fleece. It was tourist season. The beaches should have been crowded, but that day it was quiet. Only Chatterton, Mattera, and Bannister were there.
NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, GREENWICH, LONDON
An English merchant ship, similar to the Golden Fleece, underway in 1682.
HOWARD EHRENBERG
John Chatterton
HOWARD EHRENBERG
John Mattera
JOHN MATTERA
Heiko Kretschmer
JOHN MATTERA
Howard Ehrenberg
JOHN MATTERA
Carolina Garcia (Mattera’s fiancée) and Victor Francisco Garcia-Alecont (her father, and former vice admiral and chief of staff of the Dominican Navy).
A Royal Navy yacht, similar to the Drake.
A Royal Navy ship of the line, similar to the Falcon.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MINISTRY OF TOURISM
Cayo Levantado (western beach in the foreground). It was here that generations of treasure hunters had searched for the wreck of the Golden Fleece.
TODD EHRHARDT
Cayo Vigia, as seen from the villa where Chatterton, Mattera, and crew stayed during much of their hunt for the Golden Fleece.
ROBERT KURSON
Site of the wreck of the Golden Fleece (marked by the stick in the water).
HOWARD EHRENBERG
Chatterton (left) and Mattera, with a musket barrel they found on the Golden Fleece.
HOWARD EHRENBERG
Musket barrel lying atop the ballast pile of the Golden Fleece. At first, it looked like a pipe to the men.
JOHN MATTERA
Expensive glass fit for drinking wine, and worthy of a merchant ship captain, recovered intact from the Golden Fleece.
ROBERT KURSON
Pirates carved dice from bone. Note the spiked corners, likely to prevent sliding on wavy seas (on display at the lab of the Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático, Santo Domingo).
JOHN MATTERA
Silver treasure coin recovered from the Golden Fleece.
JOHN MATTERA
Pirate beads, and a bowl, both recovered from the Golden Fleece.
JOHN MATTERA
Cereal bowl, with uneaten porridge still inside, from the Golden Fleece.
ROBERT KURSON
Table setting fit for a pirate, along with a treasure dessert (on display at the laboratory of the Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático, Santo Domingo).
ROBERT KURSON
Bannister could have taken off a man’s arm with one swipe of this sword (on display at the laboratory of the Oficina Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático, Santo Domingo).
JOHN MATTERA
Cannonball recovered from the Golden Fleece wreck site. Note the mark of the broad arrow, a symbol used by the Royal Navy.
JOHN MATTERA
Pirate knife from the Golden Fleece.
KEVIN MORRIS
John Chatterton
JILL HEINERTH
John Mattera
HOWARD EHRENBERG
Hull of the Golden Fleece.
For Amy,
my treasure found
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful for the help and support of the following people:
Kate Medina, my editor at Penguin Random House, for her unwavering belief in me, sharp instincts about story, and the kindness she has shown me through the years. I have learned much from Kate about writing, and even more about what it means to h
ave a beautiful heart.
I also wish to thank the following people at Penguin Random House:
Derrill Hagood, editorial assistant, who worked with me on this book tirelessly and cheerfully, and was the engine that always kept the project in motion.
Deputy copy chief Dennis Ambrose has worked wonders on my manuscripts—and talked diving with me—for years.
I’ve been very lucky to work with Sally Marvin, director of publicity at Random House, and Tom Perry, deputy publisher at Random House/Dial—the best in the business at what they do—and I count them as friends. I can’t begin to describe how much their encouragement has meant to me.
Gina Centrello, president and publisher, Random House Publishing Group, has believed in me from the start, which helps me believe in myself.
I would also like to thank these terrific people at Penguin Random House: Barbara Bachman, Laura Baratto, Sanyu Dillon, Richard Elman, Kristin Fassler, Karen Fink, Carolyn Foley, Sarah Goldberg, Ruth Liebmann, Poonam Mantha, Leigh Marchant, Tom Nevins, Allyson Pearl, Bridget Piekarz, and Erika Seyfried.