Original subtitles

(ominous music)

(divers splash in water)

- This is topside. I'm reading you loud and clear.

What's your viz?

(metal detector beeping)

- There could be treasure.

Could be. - Could be.

(narrator): It's known as The Death Coast.

(waves crash)

An area of rough sea in the North Atlantic

that's claimed more than 6,000 vessels.

(sailors shouting)

Casting those aboard, and treasure,

into its turbulent depths.

(Jeff): We gotta turn this thing around!

Here we go!

(narrator): Gold, silver, and other priceless objects

from the wrecked ships.

- Oh, my God, you're not gonna believe this.

(narrator): Lie scattered across the ocean floor.

- Gold coin right there. - That is gorgeous.

(narrator): But salvaging here has been banned

for more than a decade, thanks to rampant looting.

Now...

- Storm is a-brewin'.

(thunder cracks) Nothing could-- whoa, boy!

(narrator): After a long battle, third generation

shipwreck hunter, Jeff MacKinnon, has won

the exclusive rights to dive in these treacherous waters.

- Oh, yeah!

(narrator): But he only has

eight weeks to do it.

- Are you okay?

(narrator): Can Jeff and his team find the treasure he seeks?

- Find me something.

- Before the stormy waters of the Death Coast...

- It's time for us to get outta here.

- Pull him out. Pull Doug out.

(narrator): ...make diving impossible.

(dramatic music)

(waves crashing)

(Pizzio): Sea conditions are not ideal for this.

(narrator): Five days into their six-week mission,

Jeff MacKinnon and his salvage team are using underwater

SONAR technology just off the coast of Nova Scotia.

- No problem?

- Yeah, no, we're looking good.

(narrator): They have exclusive access to an area they believe

still hides thousands of shipwrecks.

But with the clock ticking,

they've called Ryan Howlett from the engineering firm

McElhanney to help.

(Ryan): Yeah, we're in nine meters of water here.

(narrator): Howlett is doing a bathymetric survey

using NORBIT software to make detailed maps of the seafloor,

which Jeff hopes will focus his dive time by identifying

its most promising targets.

- All right, here we go.

(Pizzio): Starting a line now.

(narrator): They're surveying this area for two reasons.

(thunder cracks)

(narrator): First, they believe these waters

to be the final resting spot of the 1711 French shipwreck,

the Chameau.

The ship's stern was carrying a pay chest

with an estimated 82,000 French livres,

the equivalent of over $20 million today.

- Pull out a little.

(narrator): At the same time, they're also searching the area

for the source of an 1838 American coin

discovered in their most recent dive.

- United States of America.

It's an American coin.

Man, oh man.

(narrator): But unexpected natural obstacles

have made searching the area difficult.

(radio transmission) (bleep)

(narrator): The survey allows the team to see through the kelp

and identify the precious metals they're after.

The multibeam SONAR emits short sounds pulses

that reflect off of the seafloor,

generating a precise, detailed map of the underwater terrain.

(Jeff): Just keep that course, Mike.

That point.

(boat splashes in waves)

(narrator): As Jeff finishes up the SONAR scan...

...the team's marine archaeologist, Jim Sinclair,

is meeting with coin expert, Doug Mudd,

to investigate the mysterious American coin

the divers unearthed days earlier.

- Very interesting.

(Jim): So, this is an important piece for us

because it's associated with a brand-new site

that we think we've found.

And of course, it's an American coin,

so we're thinking that we may have a wreck

of an American ship sitting very close to the Chameau.

- Yeah, this is definitely an American coin.

It's a silver half dollar.

Let's look at this under the magnifier

to get a closer look.

So...

It's got obvious sea damage, and all that.

But looking at the coin,

it's got a lot of detail to it still.

So, you can see, like on the shield,

the lines are still there.

Well, it looks like the coin

might have been uncirculated when...

when it down.

(narrator): The scratches across the face of the coin

are the result of being tumbled in the sea for decades.

However, since the image of Lady Liberty lacks the worn

edges that are a hallmark of coins

that have been in circulation,

Doug believes it is an uncirculated coin,

meaning it was likely travelling as part of a larger load.

- So, that's a great story right there.

- So, that's fascinating.

It's highly unlikely that someone on that ship

just happened to have

an uncirculated coin in their pocket.

That's really neat.

(narrator): In the early 1800s, all international transactions

were conducted in coin, and new coins left the mint

in carefully measured bags,

each containing a predetermined amount.

Could this American coin have been part of a larger payment?

And if so, where is the ship that was carrying it?

- It has to make you think, what sort of a ship would be

carrying this sort of uncirculated government coins?

(light tense music)

(narrator): Back from the water, Jeff and the team

meet that evening with SONAR technician Ryan Howlett

to review the results

from the morning scan of the Chameau site.

They're hoping the scan

will direct their next series of dives.

- What do you got for me? - This is the scan.

It's a kilometer long and 300 meters wide.

- Ah, there we go.

- And that's the whole Chameau site from The Rock,

all the way down to Woody Point.

- That is really beautiful.

(narrator): The scan shows a swath of ocean scape

equivalent to over 50 football fields.

Not only can it reveal the features of the seafloor,

but anything laying on top of it.

- It's impressive. - Yes, sir.

- That thing's able to see right through the kelp

and everything, eh?

- I heard a lot of complaining about the kelp,

but no problem for that machine, that's for sure.

- Can you imagine when we were with Dad,

if we had something like this?

There wouldn't be nothing left. - No.

- We would've got it all.

- Now, here's something interesting, and honestly,

it was a bit unexpected.

- Whoa, what have you got there?

(Ryan): Look at these formations in here.

- Can you get me in any closer on that?

(Ryan): Sure thing.

(Jeff): That's fantastic.

You've got what looks like

all kinds of little cylindrical objects.

- There's even some real good straight lines in here as well.

- Well. If it looks round to me, it's a cannonball.

If it looks straight, then it's a cannon.

And if you're a coin,

you're getting caught under that cannon.

So, basically what you're saying is that

we've been going in this direction here,

and the targets that you're seeing are here?

Is that right? - Definitely.

(Jeff): The area that we're searching is to the north

and that is an unexplored area.

It could be part of the Chameau,

or it could be part of that American ship.

- I'll give you some coordinates on some of the targets we saw.

Go tackle them this week.

- And if it don't pay out...

- Either did you.

(Jeff laughs)

- That-a-boy.

(tense music plays)

(narrator): The next day, Jeff and the team head out

to explore the three new sites from the survey.

- This is a dangerous spot.

- It's the tides and the wind.

(Jeff): Leaving the trail of the Chameau

is a definite risk and we're going to lose time.

But if there's a pile of uncirculated American coins

out there, I want to find them.

(Jeff): Johnnie boy, be careful.

(Johnnie): I will.

(narrator): While the survey does provide

three high-value targets,

Jeff and the team still need to battle

one of the most dangerous coastlines in the world.

- There are so many shipwrecks

here because this is a hell-hole.

- Just coming up on the Chameau Rock.

(Jeff): And you got a lot of under the water land features.

There she is right there, look.

You get a little bit of wind,

and bam, it nails it.

(Jeff): We've got a big target area there.

Go down, and dogleg to the, to the right.

Let's go!

(small boat motor hums)

(narrator): Jeff sends the divers

to the survey's first target.

But the site comes with an added risk.

They're just 200 feet from the shoreline,

exposed to swells that can easily throw a diver

on to the jagged rocks. - Go!

(divers splash in water)

(Jeff): You got a five, seven knot tide rip

through there 'cause you've got two pieces of land

that form a funnel.

(narrator): The proximity of Port Nova Island to the coast

creates a narrow bottleneck for water to pass through.

And with it, a dangerously fast current.

- This is topside. I'm reading you loud and clear.

What's your viz?

(SCUBA regulator hisses)

(Jeff): You know, if you're not watching what you're doing,

especially the tenders,

could only be a blink of an eye,

you might never see them again.

(radio transmission)

- Copy that. Topside out.

(metal detector beeping)

- That's good news, Mike.

- There could be treasure.

- Could be.

(Jeff): The grooves that we saw

on the bathymetric scan

did catch something.

Now we just have to find out what.

(wave crashes)

- Topside to divers,

you got things picking up here a little bit.

(metal detector beeping)

(Jeff): Copy that, Mike. Dig it out.

(tense music plays)

(narrator): Coming up... (Jeff): Come on!

(narrator): The team discovers an unusual artifact.

- What the hell is this? There's something more to this.

(narrator): And later,

as Jeff searches for the American ship...

- We're almost there.

(narrator): ...a major discovery changes everything.

(radio transmission) - Pull that baby up.

- Mike, don't lose that.

(tense music plays)

(narrator): While diving in the dangerous waters off

the Death Coast of Cape Breton Island.

(narrator): Diver Mike Pizzio has made a discovery.

- Way to go, Mike! Good job.

Sound like we got a major, major pile of wreckage.

(wave crashes)

(bleep)

(Jeff): You have to be very,

very careful dealing with wind and tide.

It could easily take a diver out to sea very quickly.

- 'Cause the ocean doesn't care.

(Jeff): Get them in the ----ing boat.

Kick that thing in gear, boy!

(motor whirs)

(Jeff): I have a chase boat on site to ensure that my divers

are safe 100 percent of the time.

(water bubbling)

You got a diver up.

- Copy that.

A-ha! Whoa, look at that.

Beautiful.

- I came up on this cannonball running off like mad.

(Jeff): What the hell is this?

There's something more to this.

(overlapping chatter)

- That's a bar shot, that's exactly what that is.

You imagine a bar that goes between that and another piece.

- This would have done some serious damage

to a ship's rigging.

(narrator): Bar shot is a type of cannon artillery

with two iron balls attached by a straight bar,

like a dumbbell.

It spins as it leaves the barrel,

slashing through rigging and sails.

(mast crashes) Immobilizing enemy ships.

- It's a little corroded, but it's old.

(Jeff): The bar shot is a great find,

but without any markings on it to indicate whether or not

it's French or American,

I won't be able to tell whether or not it came from

the same ship as the American coin.

All right, let's go.

(narrator): With the sun setting,

and after a long day of difficult diving,

Jeff directs the team back to shore.

(stimulating music plays)

(narrator): The next morning, Jeff sends archaeologist

Jim Sinclair, and local historian,

Jenna Lahey, to deliver the cannonball

to the Louisbourg fortress,

where they meet resident blacksmith, Jeff Helmes.

Helmes specializes in reproducing replicas

of 18th century objects for the fortress,

including nails, muskets, and cannonballs.

The team hopes his expertise can help them determine

the origins of this artifact.

- We believe it's part of a bar shot.

So, what we're looking to do is to find any information

that we can to identify not only where this was made

but possibly what ship it was being carried.

- You can vaguely see a small seam

created during the casting process,

called sand casting. And so, it would take mold,

and they would embed it into

two halves of a form that was full of sand.

And the sand usually had some sort of a binding agent

that caused it to stick together.

You have a hollow chamber on the inside,

and they would pour a molten cast iron into that.

(Jim): Cannonballs were made using different methods.

The two-part construction that we see suggests

that they were made before the middle of the 19th century.

(Helmes): The British and the French

would both stamp their cannonballs with a touchmark.

French balls were often marked with a fleur-de-lis,

and British balls were marked with a broad arrow.

I wonder if we can find anything like that on your ball?

And that would definitely identify what country it's from.

(narrator): During the 1700 and 1800s,

many countries marked national property,

especially ammunition and other military equipment,

with a unique symbol.

The Americans, however, did not adopt the practice

until the late 1800s.

- Yeah, there's not much there that I can really make out.

- I don't see anything clear.

- So, there's no smoking gun here.

There's no stamps to indicate

whether it's a French or a British ball.

- There's nothing definitive on this,

so yeah, we have a lot more research to do.

- A lot. And we got to go dive, dive, dive.

- Thanks, Jeff. Always good to see you.

- You're welcome. It's good to see you.

(tense music plays)

(narrator): While Jim and Jenna's search came up empty,

Jeff and the team are back on the water,

hoping to find more artifacts

from the survey site that produced the cannonball.

- There's a whole concretion field here.

Establish your perimeters.

Just go and search.

(narrator): With the weather report calling

for the wind to pick up,

Jeff is pushing to cover as much of the site

as possible before his dive is cut short.

(Jeff): We're gonna have waves,

and those waves are gonna push my divers up into the rocks.

(waves crashing) (Jeff grumbles)

It gives me a very narrow window of opportunity.

(divers splash in water)

(water bubbling)

- I read you loud and clear, pal.

(waves crashing)

- Give me a visual on my divers, please.

(crackling radio transmission)

(radio hisses)

- Way to go, Mike!

(Jeff): If something wants to be found, it'll be found.

- And if it doesn't wanna be found,

(bleep) it, I'm gonna find it anyway.

(wave crashes) (water bubbling)

- I gotta get this done before he runs outta air.

(narrator): With precious little air left,

and fighting strong currents along Nova Scotia's Death Coast,

the divers spot something out of the ordinary.

- That sounds interesting. I want you to bring that up.

- Just pay attention when you guys are coming up because

the current's pushing in such a way

that you wanna get yourself off of those breakers.

(Jeff): You got a diver surfacing here in a minute.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Divers up. Divers up, Chris.

It really boosts the spirts when the divers

find something and bring it back.

(tense music plays)

(Jeff): That's pig iron, 100 percent.

Is there many of them down there?

- They're all over the place.

- All right, that was a, a shipment of pig iron.

We've never seen pig iron on the Chameau.

This has to be from a different ship.

This stuff could be heading somewhere

to be reforged or re-smelted.

- And remade into new products.

(narrator): Pig iron is produced by smelting iron ore

in a furnace, then casting it into ingots.

The process involves lining up molds,

like piglets suckling milk from a sow.

During the Industrial Revolution,

pig iron starts to replace the softer wrought iron

in the making of buildings, tools, and weapons.

- Do we know if there was a foundry anywhere in here,

once upon a time?

- Not at that time. - Okay.

(narrator): Pig iron has never been linked to the Chameau.

Could this be from the American ship?

And if so, could the team be closer

to finding the suspected cash of American silver half dollars?

- All right, I'm gonna get this stuff in water.

(Jeff): Sounds good.

(gentle music plays)

(narrator): Searching for answers,

Jeff meets with archaeologist Jim Sinclair

later that day, to piece together the clues.

He wants to know if the cannonball and pig iron

found at the site can be tied to the American ship,

they believe their coin originated from?

(Jeff): Jim Sinclair is, barring on

one of the best in the business.

He has worked with some of the most notable salvers

on the planet earth, including my father.

We've got quite a few good finds here

and we have some real head-scratchers.

Would it be possible for an American ship to be up this far?

- By the time that that particular coin was lost,

the war of 1812 was over. - Mm-hmm.

- And you know, there was commerce going between

Boston and the St. Lawrence,

so yeah, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be

an American ship. Back in 2004,

when we were working on this area,

the big thing that we found that kind of had us all

scratching our head were these objects

that were obviously sort of fragments of a larger piece.

Turned out, well, they were parts of a Congreve rocket.

- Really? Close to this area?

- Close to that area.

(narrator): Named for inventor, Sir William Congreve,

Congreve rockets are used

by both the British and Americans in the 1800s.

They were wildly inaccurate,

but their loud noise and fiery trails made them effective

for psychological warfare.

In September 1814, the British fired these rockets

at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland,

eventually inspiring the line in The Star-Spangled Banner,

"The rocket's red glare."

- That's telling me that there is another ship there.

- Mm-hmm.

The question is,

is can we put a name to this ship?

(Jeff): I still need to get that pig iron examined by an expert.

If it turns out to be American,

then we could be on the trail of an American pay ship.

You've definitely given me a lot to think about.

And the only way to find out for sure

is to get back in the water.

- Keep investigating.

- That's my job.

(tense music)

- Johnnie, we're gonna have to pick up that mooring

and take it up closer to the rocks.

- Yeah, sounds good.

(narrator): With the prospect of yet another wreck,

and of a possible cash of uncirculated coins,

Jeff moves the team to the next site identified in the survey.

(Jeff): Find me something. Go!

(motor rumbles) Let's not waste this weather!

Come on!

I think that we're on to something here and that,

this could be a great, new area to work.

(divers splash in water)

(Jeff): That wind's starting to pick up a little.

I wonder how long we got here

before she turns against us again?

(metal detector beeping)

Boys, get over there and give Pizzio a hand, please.

Cannons attract coins.

Cannons are a great place to find stuff.

Things just have a way of getting stuck in underneath.

(metal detector beeps)

- 15-foot-long cannon? Are you sure?

(narrator): Coming up...

the team looks for answers on their latest discovery.

(Jeff): Whoa, whoa, wait.

There. (Haas): Ooh,

if we're looking for a new shipwreck,

we could be very close.

- Our odds of finding one?

They're pretty good.

(waves crash)

(narrator): While diving off the coast of Nova Scotia,

Jeff MacKinnon's team of divers

have found what looks like a ship's cannon.

- Boys, get over there and give Pizzio a hand, please.

(narrator): Could the cannon be more evidence

of an American pay ship? And if so,

could its undiscovered treasure be close by?

- Pizzio, can you repeat the length of that cannon,

please?

- Thank you. Copy that.

That makes me happy.

(Jeff): I like seeing cannons

because cannons are where coins collect.

And if this cannon is American, it might mean some coins.

(narrator): At over 3,000 pounds,

there's no chance of moving the cannon,

so the divers must dig around it

in hopes of find artifacts trapped underneath.

(metal detector pinging)

- Thataboy, Pizzio.

You find me a coin and I'll buy you supper...

next year.

(Aaron chuckles)

(narrator): After nearly 40 minutes of searching

around the cannon, the team runs into an issue.

- What's the usual, 40?

- This depth, 55.

- 55? - But I would say

they're burning through some air down there.

(Jeff): Digging around a cannon like this,

the divers use their air up faster.

And when they use up their air,

that means they have to cut their dive short.

(Jeff): Copy that, Haas. This is topside.

Come on up.

(motor humming)

- Well, that's good. We're on the spot.

We're gonna do another dive there then we're gonna,

we're gonna see what else we can unearth here.

All right, change out the tanks.

Gotta go back.

(boat motor hums)

(diver splashes in water)

(narrator): After multiple dives to the cannon come up empty

for any treasure or coins.

(narrator): And with light fading fast.

- Divers, I want you guys to come to the surface.

(narrator): Jeff calls it a day.

- Copy that, Dan.

(Jeff): Even though we didn't find any coins

under this particular cannon, it's 15 feet long.

And if it's 15 feet long,

it definitely didn't come from the Chameau.

(gripping music plays)

(narrator): Later that evening,

Jeff and diver Mike Haas meet with Graham Christie

from the survey company McElhanney.

(Jeff): Let's see what our buddy has for us today.

(narrator): Jeff wants to get a better

look at the 15-foot cannon to see if they can decipher

any tell-tale features from the scan.

- Hey, Mr. Graham, good to see ya, pal.

- Great to see you, Jeff.

- The team at McElhanney,

they're going through mountains of data here.

But I've asked them to take some time and focus on the area

where we found the cannon.

We're into something pretty interesting here.

I think we have a, a cannon,

by what the divers are describing to me.

So, I sent you some coordinates

because we're dealing with a massive amount of kelp here

and that might make our job a little easier.

- Yeah, let me share my screen with you here.

Not seeing too, too much in this view.

(Jeff): Can you bring it in any tighter there?

- I can bring up all the data behind this surface

so we can see the raw points

that the multibeam SONAR collected.

Just grab a small area around the target for you.

- It's amazing, huh?

- Yeah, it gives us a whole different perspective.

As a diver, you don't comprehend

what's really going on down there.

- Oh, whoa, whoa, wait. There.

(Haas): Ooh.

(dramatic music builds)

(narrator): While trying to identify what the team believes

to be a large cannon.

(Jeff): Oh, whoa, whoa, wait. There.

(narrator): The data unveils something unexpected.

- Ooh.

(Graham) So, I'm seeing something here

that's about 15 feet long.

- Wow.

That's not a cannon, it's an anchor.

- Is that the target you were looking at?

(Jeff): Yeah, it is.

(Haas): That's an anchor, for sure.

Do you think this is a Chameau anchor, maybe?

I mean, it's huge.

- No, that is sitting, by the look of it, by itself.

And out in the middle of nowhere.

(Jeff): The two main anchors off the Chameau,

they're well documented. We know where those are at.

This anchor is entirely different.

- Well, most of the big stuff from Chameau

was right by the rock. - Exactly.

No, I've never seen that anchor before.

That's new.

- Well, that's pretty exciting.

- And look at the direction it's going on.

- That shaft is pointing right towards Cape Breton Point.

(Jeff): Yeah, I can tell.

(Haas): So, that's, if they were dumping it

to try to stop themselves from going into the rocks,

that would be facing the right direction.

- You've got that right.

(narrator): A ship in peril often drops its anchor

to stabilize itself.

If the ship sinks,

the chain pulls the anchor

so that the shank ends up pointing towards the shipwreck.

- If we're looking for a new shipwreck and,

and we just found that anchor,

we could be very close to it.

- Yeah. All right, pal,

looks like it's time for you to get back to work

and find me some more targets.

- Yeah, keep, keep searching.

(tense music plays)

- Boy, what a day.

- Beautiful.

We're almost there.

(narrator): The next morning,

the team sets out once again

to the location of the anchor.

- Hook them on there.

(narrator): This time, Jeff splits up the team

and sends them in the direction that the anchor is pointing,

in the hopes of discovering clues

to the ship it was attached to.

- The anchor's sitting here.

I want you to come down and get on the backside of it.

(boat rumbles away)

(narrator): While diver Dan Griego searches

the perimeter of the site...

...the two Mikes will work their way from the anchor,

in the direction that it is pointing.

(Dan splashes in water)

- Dan, do I got a copy? Over.

(metal detector beeping)

- Excellent.

(metal detector beeps)

(suspenseful music)

- Copy that.

This area seems to be littered

with a whole lot of modern wreckage,

and it slows our guys down

because they have to stop and investigate every target.

- Copy that. Move on.

Find something else other than a lobster trap, please.

(radio clunks)

(water rippling)

(narrator): After several dives with only one hit,

Jeff calls Dan back to the boat

and waits to see if the second dive team has better luck.

(narrator): Meanwhile, Jim Sinclair is meeting with

organic chemist Stephanie MacQuarrie

at Cape Breton University

to get a better sense of the pig iron's origins.

- So, we've brought you this little sample.

There is some question as to where it came from

because we've never found anything like this

on the Chameau in all the years that it's been worked.

If we can tell where this was extracted,

then it'll give us a, a clue

because each country was extracting its iron

from different mines.

With chemical or elemental analysis,

we should be able to tell where it came from,

and where it was mined.

- We can look for the presence

of a variety of different metals,

but then we'll look for composition of other components

as well, maybe some carbon, some organics.

Based on that, we'll have some evidence

about the country of origin.

(Jim): Perfect, that's very exciting.

(Stephanie): We'll take a little sample.

Just use a common file,

and we'll just shave a little bit off,

and that's probably enough sample for us.

(Jim): Perfect.

- So, this is a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer,

and it can tell us if there's, for example, carbon present,

or other metals present, aside from iron.

- Oh, that'll be exciting.

- We only need a very small amount of the sample.

Place it right on the crystal.

And just make sure the sample is flat for the FTIR beam.

So, we just press this button here

and you can see the spectrum appear.

- Wow. (Stephanie): And this peak here,

this is indicative of carbon.

Now, if we zoom into this area

that's a little bit more messy, the fingerprint region,

so what's really noticeable here is this

particular peak around 420.

- Right.

- That's indicative of copper oxide.

- Oh.

- Copper is pretty interesting

because copper was mined specifically out of Britain.

We also know that there's carbon present.

So, the carbon is likely due to the use of coke

in the production of this piece of material.

- The presence of the coke,

the copper, and of course, the iron,

tells us pretty much that this would have been made in Britain.

The only people that were using the coke and the copper

in their iron were the British.

The French when they were producing iron,

didn't use coke.

We were thinking that this was

an American ship, but the fact that this may

very well be from Britain, you know,

is a new direction for us to go in as far as research goes.

(waves crash)

(narrator): Back at the site located by the scan,

the second dive team is on their last dive of the day.

- This it topside to Haas, yes, we receive you loud and clear.

(beeping continues)

- A bell?

- Let's get that and put a retrieval line on it.

We're gonna pull that baby up.

- Get that bell back to me, boy.

- Go! (grunts)

(dramatic music plays)

- Pull!

- This is getting rough.

- Mike, don't lose that bell.

(narrator): While searching for a 19th-century

American pay ship,

diver Mike Haas makes a discovery.

- A bell?

- How big is it?

- Let's get that. Put a retrieval line on it.

We're gonna pull that baby up.

- Get that bell back to me, boys.

A bell is one of the most important finds

that you can have on a shipwreck site

because it can tell you the age of the ship,

it can tell you the origin of the ship,

and if you're lucky, the name.

Because every bell for every ship

was stamped with the name of that ship.

- All right. Good job, good job.

(Jeff): Look at this, boy!

- Oh! (chuckling)

(Jeff): That is just amazing.

- Very cool. Very, very cool.

- I wanna know if there's a name on it.

Are there any markings on it?

- I didn't see any.

A lot of times, the upper part of the bell

is where they would have put the name of the ship.

- Yeah, that's right.

(Jeff): Finding this bell is exciting.

Whoa, it's got a bit of weight to it.

Because if this bell is from another ship,

who knows what could be in this site.

This could have massive potential.

(finger clangs on bell)

- Ooh, listen to that, huh? Hear it?

(Jeff): Let me see your knife there.

(bell dings) Oh, oh, oh!

- Yeah. - That's a ship's bell.

- That hasn't rung in what, 200 years?

- 200 years. - Wow.

- Listen to the noise on that. - That's the thing.

- That sound is music to my ears.

You did a good job, Mike.

You did a very, very good job.

But if I get this to the lab, I'll get to clean it up a bit,

have a good look at it.

(bell dings) Ain't that a beautiful sound.

(narrator): Jeff and Aaron return to base camp

to inspect the bell more closely

for any clues that might help them decipher its origin.

- Wow. - What do you think of that?

(Aaron): That's beautiful.

See how green it is?

That's where the cooper, you're seeing the copper.

And then there's little flecks of tin.

Prior to 1840, bells were made out of copper and tin.

Gives it that really rich tone.

So, it's a pretty safe bet that this is prior to 1840.

Yeah, it's badly worn. (Jeff): Yeah, is it ever.

(Aaron): There's a lot of pitting on this.

- Yeah, there is, and what I'm seeing there,

that looks... see, that's a very deep pit.

(Aaron): Pitting is when an artifact,

usually a piece of metal, starts to degrade,

and you get these tiny, little pits where salt gets in,

and that's when the artifacts really start to degrade quickly.

(Aaron): Are there any markings on it?

- No. There's all kinds of, of pitting on this.

However...

you never know, one of them could be a...

could be a symbol or a name.

Let's flip this over.

Ooh, the weight of this.

(bell clunks on table)

(tense music plays)

(Jeff): Look at that. Can you see that?

(Aaron): Mm-hmm, oh yeah.

- That could be something.

(Aaron): Yeah, that...

those grooves seem a lot deeper than the other ones.

- See, look.

It looks like a line and then a line.

- Yeah, I agree. (paper rips)

(Jeff): Sometimes you can't identify

every marking on an artifact.

Right there.

(pastel rasps on paper)

But a paper rubbing might be able to give us

an idea what those markings are.

(Jeff): You see that right there?

- Yeah, I see that.

- Up, down, there.

You know what that could be, that could be a broad arrow.

- Yeah.

- You see that? - Yeah.

(Jeff): Finding a broad arrow on this bell means

it was a top tier British ship.

And a top tier British ship

usually had something valuable on it.

It definitely looks like an arrow to me,

and if that's an arrow,

that's going to change everything about this site.

(narrator): The discovery of this bell adds yet

another mystery for Jeff and his team.

Could an English military vessel be among the wrecks

along this section of the Death Coast?

And if so, could the American coin

have been part of a larger payment to the British?

Or is there yet another American ship waiting to be uncovered?

- That is a thing of beauty.

(narrator): With only a few weeks remaining

in the short dive season,

Jeff faces critical decisions.

Is the bell compelling enough evidence

to continue diving at the bathymetric scan site?

- Right up in there, Johnnie.

(narrator): Or would his time be better spent returning

to the debris field, now seemingly cold,

in search of the Chameau's elusive stern?

(narrator): And with five shipwrecks

still awaiting exploration,

could it be time to move on

and pursue those other treasures?

(narrator): Next on The Death Coast.

(diver splashes in water)

(narrator): As the divers endure

the conditions off the Death Coast...

- What the hell happened out there?

(narrator): ...they unearth a significant find.

- Did you say a coin?

- You're talking tens of thousands of dollars

for one of these. - Wow.

(narrator): And discovers artifacts

for a whole new target.

- See this, Aaron? That's Feversham.

Subtitling: difuze

(chiming music)