November 1, 1605 Juan De Cordoba's eight vessel Terra Firme fleet sailed from Cartagena bound for Havana. Five days out they encountered a hurricane that separated the fleet. By dusk November 5, 1605 the fleet was in sight of the Pedro Banks southwest of Jamaica and the ships captains no doubt made the decisions necessary to save themselves.

Two of the smaller galleons sailed on for Jamaica-a Spanish holding at that time--and they were spared.
One vessel, returned to Cartagena on the 18th of November under a jury rigged sail.
The patache was witnessed to roll and keel over.
The four principal vessels were last noted and recorded to be sailing west from the Pedro Banks. Those vessels--- two of five hundred tons, one of six hundred tons, and one eight hundred ton galleon were lost to history. The Spanish spent enormous resources scouring the Western Caribbean looking for this lost fleet. Some rigging and masts were found tangled in the reefs of the Serranilla Banks and the Spanish focussed much of their hunt in that area. Even today some texts still report the 1605 fleet as having been lost in the Serranilla Banks. But both E Lee Spence of Hunley Fame and Sir Robert Marx--(I just love being able to affix that moniker to the legend) worked the Serranilla Banks with scant findings. Further, I've been to those small cayos now manned by Columbian navy and if the ships had gone aground there they would have littered the beaches and reefs with a lot more than a few spars, a couple of masts and some rigging. Just saying the searchers would hardly have missed even one galleon grounded in those shallows.

Claudio Bonifacio--noted archivist/shipwreck researcher of Oddysey fame--did some work for me in 2001 and 2002 focussed on the 1605 fleet and some other wrecks lost in the Western Caribbean--save that for another post--perhaps. Much of the information I have outlined is from Bonifacio's efforts.

Some six years after the loss of the fleet a Flemish pilot, Simon Zacarias was working on a vessel of Frenchman who sailed North from San Andres Island in 1611. Two days out they struck a reef and all except for the Pilot from Antwerp and a Frenchman who made it to a small island were lost. Midway in the first quarter/quadrant from the island ( Northeast???) was a shipwrecked galleon that the pilot estimated to be a five hundred tonner---the story gets more fanciful from there including the details that several small survivor type cottages were built one of which contained the remains of an officer with the colors of the Capitana Real--or royal galleon--which would have been the 500 ton SanRoque. Sparing flash and unneeded detail it would seem that this information aligns with the reported wrecks lost in 1605. The Frenchman and Zacarias, the pilot, built a raft and left the island later recovered by an English vessel and later still Zacarias escaped the English while the boat was obtaining water and provisions and was interred at Trujillo and sent to hunt for the island by the spanish.

Bonifacio became convinced that two of the galleons including the one Zacarias describes are wrecked near the tiny Swan Island Archipelago---I disagreed but was civil about it. Bonifacio went on to pitch the Honduran government under then president Ricardo Maduro but never got past the Ministro de Antroplogia as I later learned. My reason for doubting that location--distance alone from San Andres to the Swans is a bit great for a two day sail.

Off the radar screen, I was quietly running a cargo freight service providing relief to the Miskito Indian survivors of 1998's Hurricane Mitch and unknown to Claudio, until and unless he reads this post, I had been diving at some rather remote keys examining locations reported by lobster divers. I was shown every location either by a lobster diver or a fisherman who knew those treacherous waters. Many a fiberglass fishing vessel has been lost there during my twelve years of familiarity with the Honduran Moskito Coast. Our vessels, two old steel hulled bullet proof Vietnam era LCM-8's have four feet-(empty of cargo) drafts and I could thread through holes in the reefs which no other boat would dare attempt.

In 1999, we had found the principal cannon pile with thirty two cannons---some were like field howitzers--very short barrelled, and four anchors outside the reef and one monstrous anchor with a bent shaft of fifteen feet long (and with a ring large enough for me (220 lbs) to swim through ring). inside the reef and a trail of deadeyes that led deep into that reefs lagoon--no chain anywhere. Lead sheathing was sheared off all along the reef, large amounts of small flints, varying sizes of cannon balls and some earthen pottery shards were at the edges of a small amount of ballast and the remainder of the ballast pile was so overgrown, it was treacherous to work with sea conditions anything more than 2 to 3 feet.
I wanted to return with a better equipped operation, but life intervened and three years and one less wife later I returned to the site, this time with a signed partnership with a now defunct and unnamed company who had neither the magnetometer they assured me they had, nor the expert diving crew who "would show me how to go about finding treasure. To be fair, they did have a good management team in the front office--but there lacked a lot of oversight of the captain once he was at sea and the guy was difficult to work with. He 'knew it all'.

We had a signed arrest warrant as the waters there are International and that part was legal as I was present when the 11th US Circuit Court Judge signed the documents. Unfortunately for the unnamed company and captain--who led the landlubber CEO and CFO around by virtue of his brash and bullying ways, they never found the vessels goodies.

I understand from a diver who worked with the ship that they worked away on the primary ballast pile's edges and never did really get to work on the center of the reef where I most wanted to search--The ship and company continued that fall of 2005 without letting me know they were working and since they were based in Jamaica and I was in Honduras I did not know they were failing top honor the agreement. Well Karma can kick one's ass and three hurricane's Wilma ,Beta and Gamma chased them off to jamaica, Grand Cayman, and San Andres before they finally left for Colon Panama to repair some damages suffered. There the cannons they had retrieved were confiscated, their ship was seized and they were accused of---pillaging cannons from Columbus' vessels from his fourth voyage.

That was the proverbial final straw---but the story continues. Several of the bronze cannons ended up sold to a Caymanian with interests in North sound and who has been known to cherry pick that and a couple of other wreck sites along the Nicaraguan Rise.

In 2006 I took my LCM-8 back to check the area and found things pretty much as they were when I was last there. There is another wreck a mere fifty miles away and I only dove it once--and without scuba gear---I found the ballast pile, but could not locate any cannon's and only found one anchor a large one Flukes about twelve feet across and shaft (not bent) of fifteen feet long.

Could these vessels be from the 1605 fleet?? In 2009 I was working on a project in Tegucigalpa and had some time before my next appointments and I decided to go to the Archives. The oldest record in the archive was from September 1605--- a very faded four page copy of the purchase agreement for a galleon constructed on the Rio Dulce and sailed to Trujillo Baywhere it was inspected and purchased for use by the Spanish Crown--The vessel---The Nuestra Senora de Begonia--one of the four vessels lost in the Hurricane----The contract included the hiring of Pedro Agurcia the ships captain for the upcoming voyage.

The Pedro Banks are on the 16 degree of latitude as is Trujillo Bay and no reefs exist between these two points--but just South of that line are the viboras reef and many small keys an area well known as a ship trap. Would it not have been natural for the ship's captains to have considered the unlikely possibility of a late season hurricane and deferred to Captain Agurcia to run for the best hurricane hole between Cartagena and Havana--Trujillo Bay. Taking it one step further, only one thing could have drove these vessels south against the prevalent 2 knot westrn-northwestern western Caribbean current--a counterclockwise rotating nightmare. First order of duty in such a storm---chop down the masts and rigging and jettison it. The vessel that returned to Cartagena made it and the crews recited horrific stories about the ferocity of the storm. The NOAA hurricane website list this hurricane as one of the worst in historical record and the small colony at Providencia was almost obliterated by this storm. South of the fifteenth degree of latitude lie the Serranilla Banks--I postulate that it trapped some of the ships rigging and mast which the searchers later reported. Counterclockwise currents would have carried the jettisoned debris there.

The vessels were lost many miles away and await discovery. In late 2009 I met a middle aged lobster diver/fishing boat captain who related he had found a broken ceramic pipe near the location I suspect is the site of the second galleon--He found the broken pipe bowl among a big pile of black reef that lay in stacks as he described it. The pipe was white with blue lettering and a drawing of a tower and dated 'sixteen zero two' he related in his Bay Island English. I offered to buy it from him but he had sold it a few years before to a tourist from Tampa Florida

What a coinky-dink. Perhaps if I live long enough this story is to be continued.

"big pile of black reef that lay in stacks "

Sounds like the Atocha's silver bar pile!

I really need to renew my passport!

Great story. Maybe you'll get an opportunity to revisit these wrecks.
Aquanut

WOW Gringomedico you really know the area! I contacted Claudio in 1996 and he was really hot on finding Cordoba's fleet. My partner, Eric White was on the Pacific Geographics expedition to the Seranilla Banks back in 1994 with Dr. Jack S. Williams. Those two ballast piles you found might be part of the 1605 fleet but no one knows for sure. I think the San Roque wrecked on Bajo Nuevo. I saw the map of Simon Zacarias in Claudio's new book. Do any of the islands off Honduras look like that?

I've studied the map a lot and no island in the Moskito Keys, Key Gorda,Hobbies key, Carasca key--nothing matches--one reason no running water no stream The stream Zacarias purportedly described and the Claudio hangs his opinion on simply would not exist on any island as small as those--e.g.---How many large streams are on any of the Bahamas--Only one I know is Fresh Creek on Andros and thats more of an inlet than anything.
I'd love to talk with anyone who has an interest in the 1605 fleet and see if we could begin actually plotting the possible course of those four lost galleons. One good Cesium magnetometric sweep of the area would identify most of the wreck sites there--and I have heard--rumor only that an interested party in Grand Cayman acquired a magnetometer in 2007 but it was destroyed surveying Arricife Alagardo.

Hey gringomedico, can you please tell me how hard it was to get the 11 Circuit Court to issue that paperwork? Do you want to go back and work that area?

I was present at the Richard Russell Building, but the actual legal paperwork was written by an admiralty law expert at Emory University--

We saw a Federal Judge who reviewed the documents, asked a number of clarifying questions and signed the papers--- it seemed relatively painless.

Very interesting travels Gringomedico, you are certainly a very knowledgeable person in this subject. If I may, there are some minor inaccuracies though that I will try and clarify regarding the Luis Fernandez de Cordoba fleet (not Juan). There is no mention of the Cordoba fleet sinking in the Pedro Banks, to my knowledge, and if there is please do correct me. The Pedro Banks in contemporary accounts were called “bajo de las viboras” (sometimes spelled “Biboras”).I will cite a well known account of the several that are available in the archives: “…on Sunday November 6th, at a height of 15 degrees, between the Serrana and Serranilla shoals, we were surprised by bad weather at nightfall with winds from the SE that at 2:30 AM switched to the North with such force that some sails were ripped and masts broken. At daybreak we were alone and had to recover 27 survivors from the Patache de la Armada. Later we saw the San Martin, both ships now sailing E-SE in search of the Capitana and the rest of the fleet and on the third day they found the San Pedro”
There are therefore not two but three ships heading for Jamaica, the San Gregorio, the San Martin and the San Pedro. In the early XVII century there were some references to Serranilla also as “las Viboras” (or “las Biboras”) which can account for the confusion with the “Bajo de la Vibora” or Pedro Banks, in clear reference to the snake like shape of these shoals.
I have the greatest respect for the legendary "naufrologo" Claudio Bonofacio, accomplished researcher and investigator but here I disagree.Regarding the Isla Misteriosa/ Zacarias legend, it is my belief that Zacarias invented the whole story to get out of prison, at that time the loss of the Cordoba fleet was widespread and common knowledge, it had happened eleven years earlier and it was a great story to tell. He eventually confessed to the lie.
The rigging and mast (mascaron de proa con su baupres, dos arboles con sus jarcias)found were in Panama, “Escudo de Veraguas”.
Lastly, very interesting your lobster captain’s 1602 pipe find, this could be a promising lead to one of the four missing galleons. You should pursue this find.
Panfilo

Doc?

Hello Gringomedico. The reef you describe sounds a lot like Arrecifes de la Media Luna. Thats just north of Alagardo. I was exploring around Cabo Falso so I am familiar with Honduran waters. Last I heard from Claudio, he believes the San Roque is wrecked on Bajo Nuevo.

Salvor 6:
If one reads Claudio's book , he believes the San Roque wrecked in Isla Misteriosa, Swan Islands or where ever Zacarias said he had found it. The historical documentation is there though some of us believe that to be the invention a prisoner who wanted to get out of jail. Claudio has also put forward an interesting theory of the San Roque being in Bahia de Ascencion, Mexico but he has since modified this scenario.It would be most illuminating to have Claudio explain this new Bajo Nuevo theory. I have never heard anybody say that the SR wrecked in Bajo Nuevo, possible but very unlikely for several reasons. Nothing was ever found except for the objects I mention in my previous post. And there has been no historical mention of this site as it relates to the Cordoba fleet. Indeed in theory they could have wrecked there though Bajo Nuevo or Petrel Islands do not appear until 40 or so years after the Cordoba fleet wrecked.
Panfilo

Where could a person find out details about these ships like footage,number of cannons and size of cannons? I've been looking but not having any luck. I'm supposed to be going down there to dive a spot that sounds a lot like this one and would like to learn as much as I could before I get in the water.

Most of the relevant information regarding the Cordoba fleet can be found in the AGI in Seville, Spain as it relates to the cannons, the investigations after the dissapearing of the galleons and the ships construction details. When you say you'll be diving "down there" I don't know where that is but if its in the Serranilla area, I would be very careful and would not adivise it as there are no exploration permits being issued and diving without a permit there can have terrible consequences.
Panfilo

The guy I know that knows where the wreck is that sounds like gringomedicios hasn't told me what area his find is in. I would be happy just to go dive the area and see the cannons and know I was looking at a 2 to 300 year old shipwreck.

Panfilo do you mean diving for artifacts without a permit or just diving in general? Is there somekind of map you could post a link to that would show where you can and can't dive. I know absolutely nothing about about what you can and can't do down there and I'm slowly trying to look all this stuff up before I go.

brofle 1402:
Not sure exactly where you want to go, where you want to dive and to which wrecks exactly you are refering to. Media Luna, Cabo Falso, etc. or the Serranilla bank. Either way diving for treasure wrecks without a permit here in Colombia is not recommended, youneed a permit, the jails are not very nice places. Same applies to Nicaragua and Honduran waters. In serranilla you are so far from civilization there are no tourists there and due to the drug trafficking routes the area is very well patrolled by both Colombian and US military. I strongly advise against diving for "treasure" without the necessary permits.
Panfilo