Original subtitles

(tense music) - Yeah, keep looking.

- We have got to find something.

- What have we here? - What do you got, pal?

- Holy crap, what are you doing here?

Take a look at that.

- Holy (bleep)! (laughing)

What did I tell ya? Huh?

(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!

- But he only has eight weeks to do it.

- Are you okay?

- 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)

(narrator): Five weeks into an eight-week expedition,

- C'mon divers! - Let's do it!

- Jeff and his team of divers continue their search

for the lost Feversham convoy.

Four British that sank off the coast of Nova Scotia's

Scatarie Island in 1711.

Accompanying the Feversham were three transport ships:

The Mary, the Joseph and the Neptune,

each of which was believed to be carrying significant funds.

(narrator): Last week, while searching the seabed

west of the Feversham, the team made an intriguing discovery.

- Look at it right there! That's an "M".

- I see it, too.

- A bell fragment bearing the letter "M"

leads Jeff to suspect that he might have located

the final resting place of the Mary.

- I bet you right after "M", there's an "A".

(narrator): So Jeff is heading back to Scatarie Island,

to a new dive spot, hoping to find more evidence

of the transport ships, or their potential payloads.

- I think it's gonna be a great day.

- We are crossing the western breaker

into uncharted territory, way past the Feversham.

(narrator): Jeff's research indicates the three

support ships were pushed westward past the Feversham,

onto the rocks of Scatarie Island.

It's a particularly rough section of the coast,

where the shoals extend for hundreds of yards,

just under the surface of the water.

(waves crash)

- It's right in there, look.

You're gonna have to moor somewhere in here.

- Yup.

- This place here is destruction personified.

That rugged beauty'll bite ya.

- Alright!

- Here's the deal. Have a look around, and then what

I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go out to the outer reaches

of the Hatches rocks, and then we're gonna work our way in.

And hopefully, we find some trail of wreckage

between there and there. Let's go!

See if we can bang out four today, guys.

- Everything ready? Tanks up! G'bye!

Go find me something, for the love of God!

(dramatic music)

(tense music)

Comm check.

This is Topside, do you copy, over?

- Copy that.

(narrator): The team is working in shallow water,

which can be especially hazardous.

- Are you thinking you want to abort the dive?

Is that what you're saying?

(Bleep) groundswell.

(narrator): In shallow waters, the action of waves breaking

on the shoreline creates a surge,

a violent back and forth movement of the water,

making it almost impossible for the divers

to navigate under the surface, or hold their position.

- Well, do you want to come out in deeper water, a little bit?

- Alright, well move out. Out, out, out.

And the boys will follow you.

- Oh my ugh, sucky (bleep) (bleep).

Sucks on top, sucks on the bottom.

We've got a lot of groundswell here. And that wind come on

against the groundswell, and then you got

the tide on the ebb. Conditions in there, almost unworkable.

(narrator): After four hours of diving, the team has moved

100 feet along the rugged coastline.

So far, the search has come up empty.

- Are you guys still keeping on that sou'west trajectory?

Copy that. Take your time.

(narrator): Frustrated by the lack of progress,

diver Dan Griego moves back closer to shore.

Copy that, sand and gravel. Keep up the search.

(metal detector beeping)

What do you got?

(narrator): Despite the encouraging discovery,

time is running out for the divers.

- Mark it, please, and leave your buoy stuck to it.

(dramatic music)

Okay, we got a mark there. We got a mark.

Good, good, good, good, good, good job guys.

Good way to get that marked.

(narrator): As the team reset for the next dive, Jim, Jeff

and Dan review the underwater footage, hoping to identify

the object they've just found.

- So, Dan. What am I looking at here?

- When I initially got the hit,

uh, it's probably down about 10 inches into the sand.

And I cleared off about 8 inches,

and I could tell that it's wood.

- Yeah, I can see it. Plain as day.

That is a plank off of the side of a ship.

Yup. What do you think it is?

- I think it's a plank off the side of a ship.

- So do I, there's no going around it.

This plank, what's it doing here, all by itself?

I have no idea.

Could you lift it up?

- We'd only had one end of it showing, so we hadn't cleared

the whole thing off and then see how long it goes.

- They gotta be careful with this, eh, because it's wood,

you know, and wood that's been underwater for hundreds of years

is rather fragile.

- One piece like that, on its own, erratic? Uh-uh.

That came from a bigger section of the ship.

(narrator): Coming up.

- It's right in there, look.

- As Jeff and his team push into uncharted waters,

a single artifact could pinpoint the location

of a lost convoy ship.

- This could potentially be munitions storage.

- Oh yeah, that's interesting.

- And an unexplored stretch of seabed...

- Yeah, I want it, Mike.

- ...starts to give up its treasure.

- Holy (bleep)! What are those?

- Kinda look like emeralds to me.

(suspenseful music)

(tense music)

(narrator): While searching for the Feversham convoy

in a new spot off the Death Coast's Scatarie Island,

salvage diver Dan Griego makes a discovery.

- One piece like that, on its own, erratic? Uh-uh.

That came from a bigger section of the ship.

(narrator): Eager to find more clues, Jeff sends the divers

back down to investigate.

- The good news is that this spot is sandy and has less kelp.

The bad news, is that it's right up on shore,

right up into the rocks, and the current is a monster.

(narrator): To aid in the search, diver Dan Griego

is taking the scooter down,

to help uncover more of the plank.

- Alright. Don't (bleep) this up. Find me something!

(splashing)

(narrator): Below the surface, the clock is ticking,

as high tide is fast approaching.

- We'll have less than an hour to dive close to the rocks,

because that's when the tide picks back up,

and when it does, I'm gonna have to pull them out.

Because then you're gonna have the tide going against the wind.

And that's gonna create swell and waves.

(narrator): So as not to damage the fragile wood, the divers use

the propellers of the underwater scooter to quickly and carefully

remove the sand and gravel,

revealing something underneath it.

(suspenseful music)

- That's a good sign.

- A thin layer of copper turned green by the salt in the water,

covers the face of the plank.

And as more sand is removed,

more hidden artifacts are revealed.

(dramatic music)

- Notice to divers, boat is going to retrieve Dan.

So keep your eyes to the sky.

(narrator): Because the plank is too big and too fragile,

the divers, once again, leave it behind.

- What do you got for me?

(narrator): But this time, they return with a handful

of artifacts found nearby.

A piece of loose cooper sheathing, and a copper nail.

- And the board that we're looking at, it's a board,

it's not a timber, it is a inch and a half thick,

by maybe eight feet long at the most.

- What about width?

- It's probably like a 2x8, but it is old and it is brittle,

and it's not a timber from a ship by any stretch.

- The plank looks way too small to be part of the hull.

What's this plank doing here? I have no idea.

Yeah, this is a mystery, alright.

- There was nothing around it.

- If somebody handed this to me from another shipwreck,

I'd certainly say that this is a copper sheathing nail.

- Normally, ships of that era were sheathed in lead.

That's another headscratcher.

Alright, we're gonna have to come back another day.

That's all we can do.

(narrator): The team is anxious to search for more clues,

but the tide is now at its highest,

and so is the level of risk.

(waves crash)

- When you're dealing with the ocean, every variable counts.

Tide is something you're always having to fight against.

When the tide changes, it makes the swell even bigger.

And, we're really closer to shore, I don't want

to lose any of my divers on the rocks.

(waves crash)

Let's go home, Johnnie, it's gonna pick up.

I don't have time to mess around here, every minute

of every single dive is precious to me.

But safety is always my top priority.

(tense music)

(narrator): Later that evening, Jim meets with

nautical archeologist Annaliese Dempsey

to help solve the mystery of the wooden plank.

And see if it has any connection to the convoy.

Annaliese is a professional sailor, and studies the history

of wooden ships at Texas A&M University.

- So, Annaliese, I've got some video

that you might be interested in, we did find a plank with

what appears to be copper sheathing.

- Okay. - But we'll let you

take a look at it. - Yeah, let's take a look.

(dramatic music)

Yeah.

Well, look at that, okay.

So, it looks like it's at least four or five feet long.

- The thickness is pretty thin.

- Okay, it's pretty thin, and it's clearly covered

with some type of metal.

The sheet metal is a little bit interesting to me.

This could potentially be a powder locker,

a powder magazine, munitions storage.

- Oh yeah, that's interesting.

- And it's lined with metal, so it's lined with copper,

or it's lined with lead.

It's thin, so it's definitely not iron. You can't store

gunpowder in anything iron, because you don't want

your ship to explode!

(narrator): During the age of sail, ships stored gunpowder

and other explosives in a purpose-built room called

a powder locker, or magazine.

For safety, it was usually reinforced with a non-reactive

metal, like copper or lead, which would resist sparking.

Could any of the Feversham's convoy ships have contained

a powder locker?

- This was found away from the Feversham, so we believe that

this was one of the three transport ships.

So, why would have a merchant ship have a powder magazine?

Well, it could be protecting itself,

it could be transporting weapons,

or likely holding valuables.

(tense music)

(narrator): Building off the previous day's discovery,

the team heads back to Scatarie Island,

to continue searching for the Feversham's convoy.

- It's right in there, look.

I wanna go outside the ragged rocks there and pull in.

- The submerged wooden plank was uncovered

on the far side of the western breakers,

where powerful ocean currents meet the jagged edge

of the Death Coast.

(waves crash)

(splashing)

- The plan is to start where they found the plank,

then spread out moving west in search of more artifacts.

- The current naturally pushes down the southern side

of Scatarie. And it'll push anything and everything

in its wake all to the west.

(metal detector beeping)

- Dig it up, Mike. I wanna know what it is.

(narrator): While Mike Haas begins to investigate

a hit on his metal detector,

the other divers continue their search.

(metal detector beeping)

- Copy that, Griego. He's got a hit, too.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Talk to me here, fellas. What do you got?

Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

That's some good news.

(Jeff): Copy that. He's got concretion, too.

We're into something.

(narrator): Over decades, metals from the shipwreck

corrode in the salty ocean water,

forming oxides and rusts.

Sediments settle onto the material,

and calcium carbonate from the saltwater

binds the components together.

Barnacles and coral contribute to the mass of the object.

The result is a rock-like concretion,

that may encase artifacts,

often preserving them as time capsules beneath the sea.

(metal detector beeping)

- We have a massive field of concretion here, it is gigantic!

And you know what that means? It means shipwreck.

- As these objects form, small items like coins can

be fused together, and preserved in the cement-like crust.

- Break it off, can you break it off?

In my experience, concretion beds are often

the repositories for the valuables.

That concretion could hide treasure.

- While Jeff and the team try to surface the concretions,

back at base camp in Louisbourg,

team archeologist Jim Sinclair is meeting with

historian Jenna Lahey. Jim hopes Jenna may be able to connect

the copper plank, believed to be part of a powder room,

to one of the convoy ships.

- So what have you got for us, Jenna?

- Yeah, so we've been looking into the transport ships

that accompanied the Feversham in 1711,

The Mary, the Joseph and the Neptune.

And found the Neptune's letter of marque.

- Wow.

- This letter of Marque is an official warrant

from the Admiralty, authorizing the Neptune

to set upon by force of arms other enemy vessels.

And to seize their goods, monies and merchandises.

Essentially, giving it a license to steal from other ships.

So, if the Neptune could engage in privateering,

it likely carried an arsenal of weapons.

Could this copper plank be a remnant

of the Neptune's powder room,

where munitions and gunpowder were stored?

And was the Neptune seizing riches from enemy ships?

- A really interesting part of this story is that

one year later, in 1712, a ship called the HMS Sapphire

was dispatched to Cape Breton, in order to conduct

a salvage operation. But not only the Feversham,

also the Neptune as well. - Wow.

- They knew all of the survivors from these shipwrecks

had already been sent back to New England,

so they certainly weren't there

to collect people. - Right.

- Right? So they were there to collect the valuables

from these ships. - Holy smokes!

- Meanwhile, back on the water, the dive team

continues to work the concretion field.

- We're into something.

- Copy that.

Unfortunately, a concretion can be very, very tough to recover.

- Dive after dive, the team struggles to extract

any of the heavy pieces embedded in the sea floor.

- It's really frustrating, for not only them,

but for me as well, because they spend a lot of time

digging out a hit, and they use their air up faster.

- Copy that.

That's a colossal pain in my ass.

(narrator): Coming up.

- Yeah, I want it, Mike.

- You never know what could be inside of a concretion.

Holy (bleep)! (laughing)

Looks like treasure.

(tense music)

(narrator): While searching the seabed near Scatarie Island,

Jeff MacKinnon's team has discovered a field of concretion

that might be hiding artifacts

from one of the Feversham's convoy ships.

But despite their efforts, the divers are unable to remove

anything small enough to bring to the surface.

- Copy that.

- As the sun sets on a warm day of diving,

the team must press pause

on their attempt to salvage any of the concretion.

If there's any treasure to be found inside,

it will have to wait another day.

Later that night,

Jeff and the team meet to discuss the situation.

- So we got ourselves into a pretty nice mess this time.

It is a huge concretion field.

Well, that's a gift if I've ever heard of one.

So we're right here on the other side.

And Dan, how far would you say that field extended?

- It's actually from close in, on the shore,

and then works it way all the way out.

- So that would be what, a 10-year project

if we were to set up right now?

Obviously, we don't have 10 years.

I wanna find loose pieces of concretion,

because I don't want to tamper with the bed

that's on the bottom of the ocean right now.

A bed this big could take, literally, years to do properly.

We know what the concretion from the Feversham looked like,

it was clumps of coins everywhere.

So, if that holds true,

then this site should be laden with goodies.

- Keep in mind, right up here on the Feversham,

just down the road a piece, is where that ring came from.

That nine-emerald, blue emerald ring in gold?

- In 1996, a team led by Jeff's father salvaged

remnants of the Feversham, including concretion that proved

to be hiding coins, jewellery and other treasure.

- And that was in a piece about the size of your fist,

nobody knew it was there, our conservator x-rayed everything

in the lab back in the day, and lo and behold, here's this

beautiful, perfect ring with nine blue emeralds in it.

Just-just a beautiful piece.

- That little tiny piece of concretion

you were working and found the gold earring inside.

- Yeah, back in 2010.

- Right. It's amazing what that stuff can hide.

- You never know what could be inside. It could be coins,

jewels, or some other treasure.

You gotta bring it up, and you gotta go through it.

There's tens of millions of dollars worth of treasure

that has never been discovered on this fleet.

And I really think that right here,

that's the start of our unraveling of this mystery.

(suspenseful music)

- The next day, the team returns to the location they hope

is the site of the Neptune.

Find me something good.

We need to find pieces that have broken loose from the bottom.

And that way, we can determine what's inside of it.

That way, we can see whether or not we can identify

the ship it came off of, or find some clue that might lead us

in the right direction as to what ship it came from.

This could possibly be from the Neptune. And just maybe,

we'll get lucky and find some treasure.

- Copy that.

(metal detector beeping)

- Copy that, Griego.

- The concretion forms around iron artifacts

deposited on the ocean floor.

It's this iron the detectors are picking up.

(metal detector beeping)

- What do you got?

- Copy that.

(metal detector beeping)

- There's no shortage of hits. But so far,

none of the pieces are small enough to bring to the surface.

(Jeff): That's what we're looking for!

- Yeah, I want it, Mike.

- You know concretion, it's almost like

a little wrapped gift.

You know, you don't know what's inside till you open it up.

And it could have anything in it.

(suspenseful music)

(metal detector beeping)

(narrator): While searching for the wreck of the Neptune...

- Copy that.

- ...the dive team finally succeeds

in extracting a piece

of concretion small enough to bring back.

The sample is still too heavy for the divers

to carry on their own, so they place it in an inflatable bag,

to float to the surface.

(Haas): Chris and Jason are gonna haul the bag.

(splashing)

(dramatic music)

- This is heavy. - Yeah, how heavy is it?

- Heavy! 40 lbs?

- You ready, pass it up? Drop it off from the buoy.

- Alright.

- Hohoho, would you look at you!

Beautiful. - Wow, it's huge.

- That's pretty cool. - Mm-hmm.

- What's cool is how concretion holds things.

How this was inside the concretion,

- Yup. - And this holds on to it.

That's why you gotta dig through

all that to find out if it's holding anything.

- Oh, there could be all kinds of stuff in here.

We have no idea what could be in this thing.

This is big. This could have, 10, 15, 20 different items

in there, for all we know.

- That weighed a ton.

- That's concretion. - That's a rock.

- I'm sure there's a bunch of rocks.

- It's kind of arced, like it might be--

- This is what I thought was the iron, yeah.

- Ah. - That's iron.

- Is it? - Yeah, it is. Absolutely.

It's big.

But what would it be? What would that iron piece be?

- It's up to you to figure it out in the lab.

- I don't know, it's kind of arced, like a cannon.

See how it arcs here?

Can see it kind of arcs around.

So could that be a piece of the cannon?

- Anything's possible.

- I think we're really on to something here.

- Yeah, me too.

That's something interesting for the lab.

(narrator): As night falls, team archeologist Jim Sinclair

takes the first pieces of concretion

to the diagnostics lab to examine them.

Jim is looking for clues to see if the samples

are from the site of the Neptune.

To protect whatever artifacts may have been

fused together inside, he has to carefully chip away

at the cement-like concrete.

- I generally just do tapping with a small hammer.

Sometimes, like if I see what the artifact is,

I'll have pneumatic chisels

and stuff like that to take everything off, but you know.

Mechanical cleaning is about the fastest way to do that.

- Wow. That's cool.

- Buried in the concretion is what appears to be

a musket ball. A piece of evidence consistent

with the theory that the metal-clad plank

may have come from a ship's powder magazine.

- Ooh! What is that?

- After an hour of slow and steady hammering,

Jim's patience pays off.

- Sometimes when you're working on concretion,

it's a lot of work and effort, and you come up empty.

But sometimes, you hit the jackpot.

Holy smokes!

Ah, that's a nice little cannon ball!

It's a really big deal.

If you're finding cannonballs from a shipwreck, it's probably

a good bet that they're from a privateer.

- Encouraged by the cannonball, Jim calls Jeff into the lab.

- How you doing, man?

- Good, pal. What do you got for me?

Oh, look at that.

- Let me just wash it off a bit,

see if there's any markings or recognizable stuff on it.

What are you seeing there, Jeff?

- Well I guarantee you this isn't off the Feversham

because there's no broad arrow on it.

- Ah.

- The broad arrow is a stylized symbol of an arrowhead

used for centuries by the British Government,

to mark guns and ammunition used by the Royal Navy.

And it was a capital offense for it to be used

by non-military ships.

- This is probably from one of the transports.

And that, and you've got a musket ball here,

- Yup. - Leads me to believe that

they were protecting something.

Finding a cannonball like this fits with the theory that

this ship was armed. Therefore, it had a powder magazine.

And if that's the case, it could possibly be the Neptune.

In my mind, what would you protect? Not barrels of pig fat.

(dramatic music)

- With more evidence they may be on to the Neptune,

Jeff leads the team back to the concretion field once again.

- Alright. So what I wanna do, is go from there and crosscut

it on the way in. There's lots more down there.

(splashing)

And I'm gonna find out what it is. That's the treasure hunter

inside of me, that's what's talking now.

(metal detector beeping)

- Attaboy! Bring it to Daddy.

(narrator): Coming up.

- What have we here? Holy crap! I was not expecting to find

emeralds off the coast of Scatarie Island.

- Holy (bleep)! (laughing)

(tense music)

(narrator): With just two weeks left in their search

for shipwrecks along the Death Coast...

- ...Jeff and the team have returned to the site

they believe could be the final resting place of the Neptune.

And the treasure it may have been carrying.

- You gonna bring that up, is it detached? What do you think?

- Copy that. Move on, find something else.

Please do. Bring a chunk anyway.

Copy that. Well, I want that spot marked, Dan, I want it

M-A-R-K-E-D.

(suspenseful music)

(narrator): Over the next six hours, the divers continue

marking and lifting any loose pieces.

With daylight dwindling,

they make a last-minute push to secure all they can.

- Divers, you got five minutes left.

I know it doesn't look like much now,

but who knows what could be in that concretion?

(laughing)

Holy frig!

(narrator): That evening, Jim inspects the day's haul

to see what, if anything, it might contain.

- Every shipwreck that we worked on has a story to tell.

The remnants of those stories, those little pieces of the past,

are sitting on the bottom of the ocean.

(tense music)

What have we here?

That's a...

What are you doing here? Holy crap!

Beautiful. I'm gonna give Jeff a call. I was not expecting

to find emeralds off the coast of Scatarie Island.

Jeff! - What do you got, pal?

- Take a look at that.

- Holy (bleep)! (laughing)

What are those?

- They kind of look like emeralds to me.

- They come out of this? - They came out of this.

What did I tell ya? Huh?

- There's treasure everywhere!

- In Cape Breton, there is! - Yeah.

(narrator): Emeralds are 20 times rarer than diamonds.

A single emerald smaller than a pea can be worth over $10,000.

In the early 18th century,

up to 95% of the world's emeralds were mined

in Colombia, and were regularly shipped back to Europe

on Spanish treasure ships.

Making them prime targets for piracy and privateering.

- I know Dad took diamonds off of the Feversham,

but this is so far down the coastline,

this is something absolutely new.

I told you there was all kinds of treasure here.

- Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. That to me,

looks like treasure. - Is there anymore in there?

- Well, I mean we're gonna have to look.

- That's a rock. (laughing)

That's a rock.

When a ship breaks apart, it dumps all of its contents

to the bottom of the sea.

And whatever treasure she had aboard of her.

Yeah, keep looking.

That, look. Right there. - Yup.

- There's another one there.

- Oh yeah, sure is! - See?

I'm a treasure hunter, and I've just found treasure!

- We found five emeralds so far, and we just started doing this.

- I knew this site was gonna talk to us,

and now she's talking. Look, there's another one there, look.

- Yup, sure is.

- Six.

That, look, right there. - Yup!

- Is this one?

- Sure looks like it. - Yeah, it is. That is seven.

(laughing)

Those are beautiful.

This right here,

this is what we're looking for. - Oh yeah.

- If there's emeralds in there, there's other things in there.

Coins, and lots of them. And more emeralds,

and more jewels, and more everything.

And I'm gonna get it.

(narrator): Are the emeralds from the long lost Neptune?

The team could be on the cusp of a ground-breaking discovery.

But they'll have to work quickly.

The door to the Death Coast is closing, and with it,

the chance to find anymore of the privateer's plunder

that might be hidden on the sea floor.

(narrator): Next, on The Death Coast.

- The storm's heading our way, fellas.

(splashing)

- As the weather continues to get worse,

- The team discovers a collection of mysterious items.

- Holy moly.

- Wow.

- Attaboy! There is one of these shipwrecks here.

(dramatic music)