Mel Fisher, 76; Found Undersea Treasure

Mel Fisher, a treasure hunter who found fortune in underwater riches left behind by unlucky Spanish sea captains, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 76.

Fisher died Saturday at his home in Key West, said Dr. Madeleine Burnside, executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West.

The Fisher family struck it rich in 1985 when son Kane found the mother lode from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon loaded with an estimated $400 million in gold, silver and gems that went down in 1622 off Key West.

The find helped legitimize a business that has grown very popular in Florida, with an estimated 2,000 colonial-era shipwrecks hidden beneath its waters.

Fisher first found traces of the Atocha site in 1971. He lost a son and daughter-in-law during the project when the boat they were on capsized in 1975.

Always short on capital, Fisher and his family lived for years in a rundown Key West houseboat prone to sinking. He took out loans to pay expenses. His staff and lawyers went unpaid for months.

His mantra every day during the years spent pursuing the Atocha treasures: “Today’s the day.”

The discovery led to a prolonged legal battle with the state of Florida, which maintained that wrecks found within the state’s three-mile territorial waters belong to the state.

A judge ultimately sided with Fisher, marking the first time a federal court ruled that federal admiralty law supersedes state salvage law for wrecks in state territorial waters. Under a deal reached with Florida, Fisher kept 75% of the recovered treasure and the state got 25%.

With fortune came controversy.

Last year, a judge ordered Fisher’s company, Salvors Inc., to hand over cannon balls, an anchor and other loot from a sunken Spanish galleon for ruining more than an acre of protected sea grass off the Florida Keys while looking for shipwrecks in 1992.

In April, state and local officials swept into Fisher’s shop and seized 25 antique gold coins from display cases.

The shop, in the same building as the independently run Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, offers salvaged emeralds, silver pieces and gold coins that can sell for $15,000 or more apiece. The coins were being offered as salvaged pieces from the wreck of a Spanish fleet that sank off the Florida Keys in a 1733 hurricane. Coin experts said they were fakes.

Fisher denied the allegations.

“I would have no interest at all in fakes,” Fisher said in May. “I find so many real ones.”

Fisher always remained a favorite with the Key West locals. In July, he attended Mel Fisher Appreciation Day parties, and he was four times crowned “king” of the Conch Republic--the name longtime residents use for the Florida Keys.

Fisher is survived by his wife, Dolores Fisher; sons Kim, Terry and Kane, and daughter Taffi Fisher-Abt.