Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

- Be careful down there now.

(metal detector beeping)

- What's uh, what's going on, pal?

- Keep digging, then. There must be more!

(waves crash)

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

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 crash)

(narrator): For the past week,

the team has been diving in the treacherous waters off

the coast of Scatarie Island.

Now Jeff MacKinnon gathers his team at base camp,

to reveal their most extraordinary find to date.

- We've located something that I certainly wasn't expecting

when we began to clean some of the concretion

you all brought up.

I've gotten used to a lot of things,

but I still haven't gotten used to these.

(laughter)

- I told ya!

- Jeff, what do you think?

- You got treasure, Jeff.

- Oh, yeah. Those are emeralds.

(narrator): The team has been on the hunt

for the Neptune,

one of four ships from a British convoy

to sink in these waters in 1711.

Of the four ships,

the Neptune became the priority target,

after discovering it had a powder magazine aboard.

(narrator): And a letter of marque, a royal decree

granting the ship the right to set upon

by force of arms other enemy vessels.

Together, these finds suggest

that the Neptune might have been carrying treasure

when it sank.

Then another discovery.

(narrator): Inside the concretion...

(tapping)

Jim uncovered a once in a lifetime find.

- Holy (bleep)! What are those?

(Jim): Emeralds.

(Jeff): Amazing. (Jim): Unreal.

- They're pretty, aren't they? - But that, that seals it.

- Just an FYI, guys.

Mike and I were down in Florida not too far back,

and we went to a museum that had emeralds from the Atocha,

and they were selling them, they had price tags on them.

Those stones down there,

that didn't look a whole lot different than these,

were going for anywhere between six, eight, ten,

12 thousand dollars.

- What? - For one little stone, yeah.

- How many is there, Jim?

12 thousand dollars for one of them?

- 14... 16...

- 16 x $12,000 is what?

- Quite a bit, I don't have my calculator!

(laughter)

- Okay, so if they're $10,000 a piece,

that's $160,000 worth of emeralds.

- There you go.

- You know, this is just a sign of things to come.

Who knows what else could be down there?

But that there, that's treasure.

That is a good sign. That's what we're here for,

and that's what we're gonna continue to find.

- Jeff, I've been diving 48 years

and I can count on one hand the number of guys

that found precious stones diving.

- Ah, you're just saying that

'cause you know you found them!

- That's right, now I know one more.

(laughter)

The wrecks we're having here,

you're not talking about treasure wrecks,

you're talking about payroll ships,

you're talking about warships,

you're talking about supply ships.

You're not finding emeralds in Canada,

you're not finding emeralds in the United States.

- Not in this period, anyway. - No, not at all.

So, the only place that was producing emeralds

in this time frame was the Spanish,

down in Central and South America.

- The Neptune, apparently,

was spending quite a bit of time down in the Caribbean.

- Yeah, probably doing some privateering.

- Yeah, you never know what they were up to.

(dramatic music)

(narrator): Privateers were private ships given permission

to attack enemy ships

and seize cargo during wartime.

In the early 1700s, to help pay for the expensive

War of Spanish Succession,

British privateers were encouraged to target

Spanish treasure ships in the Caribbean.

(canons firing)

- This is the product of one one-foot-long concretion

in a football field-sized area of concretions.

Jeff, if we can identify the actual shipwreck positively,

that changes the providence altogether of these stones,

and magnifies the value of them, monumentally.

- Alright, let's go and prove to the world

what ship these did come from.

(dramatic music)

(waves crash)

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

head straight back to Scatarie Island,

and the concretion field

where the emeralds were discovered.

- That hole is right frigging through there.

- No, I know. I can see it.

Oh, here we go again. Wind. Sou'west wind.

The southwest wind comes straight up the coastline.

It makes it sloppy with the waves.

And when the current picks up, it gets way worse.

Let's see what we can find. Keep digging.

- Ready to go, Chris? - Yeah, good to go.

(splashing)

- Alright, Pizzio, you're clear.

(splashing)

- If there's emeralds,

then what else could be in that concretion?

I can only imagine,

and I'm gonna find out what it is.

That's the treasure hunter inside of me.

That's what's talking now.

(air tank hissing)

I got you loud and clear, Haas.

Yeah, go find me a (bleep) coin!

(dramatic music)

(narrator): Divers are searching

the concretion field, looking for anything

that they can pry from the seafloor.

- It's gonna get worse.

(narrator): But, the combination

of the swell above,

the currents and the rocky bottom

make for a difficult dive.

- On this coastline,

you've gotta be on your game, because one mistake

and you're dead.

(oxygen tank hissing)

Copy that, Pizzio, copy that.

- Winds are picking up, just after lunch.

- Yeah.

My divers need to find something fast,

because this weather is not our friend.

(metal detector beeping)

- Oh, fantastic. What is it?

(dramatic music)

(narrator): Guided by the metal detector,

diver Mike Pizzio has to manually dig the item

out of the crevasse.

- Keep searching, pal.

(narrator): Coming up...

- The storm's heading our way, fellas.

(splashing)

(narrator): As the weather continues to get worse...

- And the diving more dangerous...

- Go get him before he hits those rocks!

(narrator): The team discovers

a collection of mysterious items.

- Holy moly!

Wow. That's definitely a ballast pile.

Attaboy!

There is one of these shipwrecks here.

(narrator): In the treacherous waters of the Death Coast, crash)

near the western breakers of Scatarie Island,

diver Mike Pizzio has made a discovery.

- Okay, I want you to bring that up.

Copy, copy. Pizzio's leaving bottom.

Let's see!

Where's my stern line?

You could have just handed it to me!

- Yeah. - Holy moly!

- I don't know what that is, look at that.

- I don't know. The size of that.

That is something.

That is incredible.

- I've seen nothing like it.

- Yeah, I wanna know what this is!

Between us, we have over 100 years of combined

experience treasure hunting.

But none of us have ever seen anything like this.

What the (bleep)?

- These were in two different holes.

- Two different sizes. - Mm-hmm.

- But that is fantastic, guys.

That being said, go get more!

I want it all.

(dramatic music)

- The winds are picking up.

Yeah, they may only be able to get a dive in today,

so if they're gonna find something,

they should get it done early.

- See, you had a calm condition this morning,

and now you got about 30 knots blowing here.

This is why it's dangerous to dive these waters.

(waves crashing)

(splashing)

(narrator): As the divers continue their search

for treasure near the western breakers,

the weather is fast closing in.

- This is the same reef that sunk the Feversham

and her convoy.

If there's a big swell,

even the most skilled divers can get tossed up onto the rocks.

This could really be a dangerous situation.

(narrator): Diver Mike Pizzio returns to the same spot

that he found the small metal triangle.

- Topside reads ya, get that thing dug up quick!

Bring it up. I repeat, bring it up.

You never know what's gonna turn up

when you're treasure hunting.

And you definitely don't know where it's gonna lead you.

- Diver up!

- Diver up!

(narrator): With the wind and waves picking up,

Mike Pizzio brings back a second triangle.

- Guys.

- Oh. What?

- I got his big brother! - What? What is this?

- I got his big brother, I don't know what it is,

but I got two of them now.

- There's writing on it, see it?

- Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

- Cause there obviously a set of these things.

- So that means there's probably much more in your spot there.

- I think we're really on to something.

(narrator): With the wind now too strong to dive again,

Jeff calls it a day.

- Alright, Johnnie, start her up.

Let's get outta here. - Ready to go.

- Yeah, that's disheartening.

This weather here, this is just a taste.

In a couple weeks time, this is gonna get real bad.

And that means that every dive counts,

and every day counts.

(waves crashing)

(narrator): That evening,

Jeff gathers the team

to discuss the mysterious triangles,

and talk about their next move.

- I don't know what they are.

I have no clue,

I've never seen anything like them.

- Been doing shipwrecks for a long time,

but I can't figure out what they are either.

- Like Jim, I've been in the water for

50 years diving shipwrecks.

We used to have a joke, saying,

I don't know what it is,

but it's a very nice example of one, okay?

So we don't know what they are.

So what I try to determine at that point,

I go, okay, well, what have you got?

This is from a shipwreck, we're assuming,

so are they part of the nautical part of the ship,

or are they part of cargo?

They're made out of bronze, or some sort of brass/bronze.

Very indicative of maritime stuff, okay,

because it doesn't rust. - Mmm.

- I'm thinking, well, maybe more part of the ship,

or something used on the ship.

Triangles are used in navigational terms,

we're using it on met mast.

But these edges are rounded,

they're not sharp and flat like you would use

on a nautical chart to draw a line.

- 300 years ago, they might have been sharper.

- The other thing is they're not even equilateral triangles.

- They're isosceles triangles. - They're isosceles.

- Yeah, two equal sides.

- Yeah, two sides are equal, why?

- So why? What would be the function of that?

- Maybe some sort of distance measurement,

like, I put one here, and the other one's there.

- On many ships,

there was a compass that was in what they call

the binnacle box.

And down in the bottom of the compass,

there was a counterweight that they would often put in.

Could these be a counterweight for a compass?

I don't know, but you know, it's just another,

another theory right now.

- You know, you got 250 years worth of diving

standing at this table right now,

and nobody here has seen anything like this.

So, it's an enigma, to say the least.

- I'm searching for treasure,

and we find these weird triangles.

As a treasure hunter, you never turn your nose up

at what you find,

because you never know what it's trying to tell you.

Anyway you can get those tested

and see if you can get talk to some people

and figure out what they are?

- Yup.

- These triangles were found

where we're finding other treasure,

and I don't believe in coincidences.

I don't know what they are, but I mean to find out.

(dramatic music)

(narrator): The next day, as the winds die back down...

- Boy, what a day.

(narrator): Jeff and the team return to yesterday's site,

where diver Mike Pizzio

recovered the mystery triangles.

- Okay, let's go!

This is like a brand new day here.

But it is a race against time, and weather, so, g'bye!

It takes hard work, moderately good weather,

and a little bit of luck,

and that's what treasure hunting is all about.

Go make yourselves useful!

(splashing)

(suspenseful music)

(oxygen tank hissing)

- I know that there are more coins and artifacts down there,

and with this break in the weather,

I'm going to make hay while the sun shines.

Let's make this dive worth something.

- Find me something, please.

(gentle music)

(narrator): While the team looks for new artifacts,

archeologist Jim Sinclair is looking for answers.

- I have a hunch that these triangles are weights,

but I've never seen anything like them before.

So we need someone who has.

(narrator): So Jim has reached out to Jan Gyllenbok.

Jan is an expert in the science of measurement,

and the author of the Encyclopedia

of Historical Metrology, Weights and Measures.

- We've got two triangular pieces,

one of them weighed seven ounces,

that's the smaller of the two.

And then we also have this piece,

which is a 32-ounce triangle.

- Yeah, I can see that.

There are types of weights, likely used as commercial use,

for trades and calibration.

It was very common indeed

to have that kind of equipment on the ships.

- I have never seen these triangular pieces like this

used as weights before,

so they're, they're new to me.

(Jan): The design is quite rare. Usually they are rectangular,

was very common. It's a design thing,

it has nothing to do with the use of it.

- If you were to conjecture

as to what country of origin these would be from,

what would you think?

- It's definitely not Spanish, it's not Portuguese,

'cause it's not the weight they used.

The 32 ounces,

it fits very well with the avoirdupois system

used when Britain went around the world

during the late 17th century, and beyond.

(narrator): Since the Middle Ages,

the avoirdupois system had been used to measure weights,

including units of ounces and pounds

in the 16th century.

Queen Elizabeth the First made it the imperial system

of measurement for England and its empire,

until the year 1965,

when it adopted the metric system.

- So it's definitely British, and the small one is probably

used for precious metals.

- That's fascinating to me,

and if you were going to be weighing something

that was extremely valuable.

- Yeah.

- You know, precious metals, gems, things of that sort,

you'd probably want, you know,

at least the smaller weight,

and possibly smaller than this, yes?

- Yeah, they wanted to be very precise

with those small weights.

- Well, that's very encouraging.

(dramatic music)

(narrator): Back at the site,

where the strange triangles were found.

- You boys being productive down there?

(narrator): The divers continue their search

in the rocky crevasses,

hoping to locate the Neptune's bounty.

- More iron, huh?

(dramatic music)

(metal detector beeping)

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

(music tings)

Fantastic, Mike. Can you mark that area?

Now they're getting excited down there now, see?

They're into stuff and they know it.

(oxygen tank hissing)

- You got lead sheathing too?

Okay, pal. Bring it to Daddy.

Dan's on his way up there, fellas.

- Copy.

- Mike Haas and Pizzio, that's time.

I want you guys out of the water.

Pizzio surfacing.

(oxygen tank hissing)

Well, well, well. Let's see what we got here.

See that there? Look. Lead patches?

There is one of these shipwrecks here.

- Yeah.

(narrator): Coming up...

(splashing)

- Diver up! Go get him before he hits those rocks!

(oxygen tank hissing)

Did you say a coin?

(laughter)

Holy frig, another one!

(waves crashing)

(narrator): While searching off the coast of Cape Breton,

Nova Scotia for the convoy ship Neptune,

the team discovers a possible clue.

- Well, well, well. Let's see what we got here.

Lead patches?

There is one of these shipwrecks here.

(narrator): Wooden ships were prone to ship rot

caused by marine mollusks,

eating away at the wooden structure of the hull.

In an effort to prevent a ship from becoming unseaworthy,

pieces of sheathing,

which in the early 18th century

were often made of lead,

were used to patch up the hulls of ships

that were badly in need of repair.

- So you still got stuff there?

- They're still there. Material there.

- We're getting closer to something.

I'm not gonna be satisfied until I get some answers here

as to which ship these came from.

Okay, let's get retanked, and get the (bleep) out of here.

(narrator): As Jeff sends the divers back out to the site,

the winds begin to pick up.

- Oh, here we go again.

Wind.

The storm's heading our way, fellas.

(splashing)

(narrator): As the divers descend back down,

they face new obstacles.

The current has stirred up the sediment,

and the visibility is low.

(metal detector beeping)

(waves crashing)

- Yeah, Dan, copy that. Make sure you take it slow.

- He's right near the rocks.

- It's a rugged piece of coastline, that's for sure.

(ominous music)

- Been in 22 minutes.

(metal detector beeping)

- Copy that, copy that. Good luck.

(oxygen tank hissing)

Here I am looking for treasure,

and Mike Pizzio is finding rocks.

I'm not looking for rocks.

- Find me a coin!

(muffled radio): Greigo to topside.

They're on their way, Dan. On their way.

Haas is surfacing.

You're good, Pizzio, they're coming to get you.

Slow, slow, slow. We've still got one more guy.

Do you see where Pizzio's at?

Pizzio, do you copy?

Copy that, copy that.

(narrator): Finally, with his tank almost empty,

Pizzio surfaces.

The divers come back safe, but empty-handed.

- Nothing?

- Nothing.

- It kills me to have to leave,

but it's getting late in the day,

we have no choice.

(tense music)

(narrator): That evening,

Jeff and Jim get back in touch with Graham Christie,

an underwater surveyor with Mechleny.

Earlier in the season,

Graham did a survey of the area for Jeff,

using Norbit's cutting-edge sonar technology

to map the surface of the seafloor,

in an attempt to find any anomalies.

Now Jeff wants to see if the data Graham got

can provide any further insights

into the area they just dove.

- Alright, I think I found something

pretty interesting to show you.

- Well, let's have a look.

- Well, we've got this sort of large area of sandy,

sort of flat bottom,

and there's a pretty big pile of rocks here.

Now, taking a look around surrounding area,

there's not really any other piles of rocks,

so it looks a bit unusual.

- Well, I mean, you know, having lived in Florida

for as long as I have,

in a place that had virtually no rocks,

when we rocks in the sandy bottom,

you know, that made us think right away

that we're looking at part of the ballast of a ship.

- Yeah.

- So, same sort of thing here.

If we've got nothing but a sandy bottom,

and then you got suddenly a pile of rocks showing up,

it could be part of a ship.

(narrator): Ballast is heavy material that's stored in

the bottom of a ship to increase stability

by lowering its center of gravity,

and preventing it from toppling over.

The most common type of ballast are stones

cut into similar sizes so they can be easily stacked.

- Yeah, can you zoom right in there,

and give me a measurement on one of the rocks?

- Yeah, for sure.

- Should be roughly around eight inches, nine inches.

- Yeah, that's right about what they are.

They sort of range from about eight inches to about a foot.

- Wow. Yeah, they're stackable. - Yeah.

- That's definitely a ballast pile.

If this is ballast,

it means that we could be on the site of one

of the transport ships.

We just need to find out what shipwreck it is.

(tense music)

(narrator): The next day starts out with bad news,

as Jeff and the team head back out

to where the possible ballast pile is.

Weather reports indicate Hurricane Ernesto

is on a crash course with the Death Coast.

- Time is running out.

Hurricane season is coming,

and when hurricane season starts,

we're basically shut down.

(waves crashing)

Alright so, if we come down here

and we make our way down around these breakers,

I think we're gonna be into something.

I know there's more there, let's have a look.

Careful of that rock, Chris! It's a big one.

(narrator): Their search area

is moving ever closer to shore,

and Scatarie Island's jagged rocks.

(waves crashing)

(splashing)

(narrator): While the team looks for new artifacts,

Jim Sinclair is looking for answers.

He's taking the mysterious triangles for analysis

in the lab.

- So Lucas, we'd like you to test these.

- Brilliant.

(narrator): Lucas Evans is an XRF technician

with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

at Acadia University.

- Wow.

- We're going to have to do some tests

to get the elemental analysis of what makes up

these two triangles, and perhaps that way,

we can figure out what these triangles are actually used for.

- Those look pretty alien.

- They do, don't they?

- This is a great application for the XRF.

I'll bring it over and let's give it a go.

- Yeah, oh, that'd be great.

(narrator): The XRF detector

sends an electromagnetic beam onto the triangle.

- And we'll start with the big one?

- Yeah, sure.

- This is a reminder, when the red light comes on,

it's X-rays and our distance is good here, so.

- Alright. - Off we go.

X-ray's on.

(narrator): This causes the molecules in the triangle

to release fluorescent X-rays.

These are like chemical fingerprints,

which allow Lucas to determine precisely

which chemical elements are present.

- So, for that one,

34% lead, 24% iron, 20% copper,

and some other small,

that are still significant amounts of tin and antimony.

- Typical of brass and bronze.

Finding iron on these triangles

that appeared to be brass or bronze

really isn't all that surprising.

(narrator): The triangles were found on top of a bed

of concretion, which is made up of iron that corrodes

in the salty ocean water.

As it corrodes, traces of iron are deposited

on nearby objects.

- Let's try the small one.

- Brilliant. Alright, let's give it a go.

And X-ray's on.

Alright. So...

On the small triangle,

we're looking at 44% lead, 33% copper,

9% tin, 4% antinomy and...

there's some silver in here.

Definitely silver.

- Well. Well, that's, that's interesting.

Is it penetrating this piece to any degree,

or is it just really what's on the surface?

- The way that the beam works,

is that only a little bit of penetration,

so it could just be absolutely surface contamination.

I think it's well within the realm of possibility

that you've got silver sitting out there

and that it was sitting like that in situ.

(narrator): When exposed to sea water,

silver corrodes due to a process called ionization.

Tiny ions of silver dissolve in the water,

and can leave an almost undetectable residue

of silver sulfide on any surrounding objects.

- Well, so this could have been sitting in the middle

of a pile of silver coins,

picked up a little bit of silver sulfide,

and that's what's showing up on the machine?

- Absolutely. Having silver nearby

and sitting on top and coating that small triangle,

100% within the realm of possibility.

- Our small triangle showed a trace element of silver

as part of its makeup.

Could mean there's a whole lot more silver down there

yet to be found.

(narrator): Back at Scatarie Island,

the divers are getting closer

to the hazards of the rocky shoreline.

(tense music)

(metal detector beeping)

- This is topside, dig it up!

Keep searching, pal.

(metal detector beeping)

What do you got?

(tense music)

Did you say a coin?

(waves crashing)

(narrator): On the last dive day before Hurricane Ernesto

is expected to impact Cape Breton...

- Diver Mike Haas uncovers an artifact.

- Good job, Haas.

Okay, I want you to bring that up.

Divers are returning to surface.

Just pay attention when you guys are coming up,

because the wind's picking up a little.

(splashing)

(narrator): With all the divers accounted for...

- What do we have, Mr. Haas?

(narrator): Mike Haas can show Jeff what he's found.

- Check this out.

- Cool. (laughter)

- It's a one real.

The smallest nomination they made,

that the Spanish made. - It's the find of the day.

- One reals are very rare.

- Get out of here. - I'm serious.

(narrator): The real is the unit of currency used by

the Spanish empire from the 14th century

until its replacement by the peso.

In 1868, the real was minted in half,

one, two, four, and eight real denominations.

- You see the cross there. - Yeah, I see it.

- The other side's a shield, so one real.

- Don't sneeze, 'cause you'll lose it!

- And there's fairly few of them.

- Okay. That's, that's great.

This coin, it's a really good find.

Let's get one more dive in.

Because, believe me when I tell you,

where there's one, there's many, many more.

So, we know where we're at, we know what we're looking for.

Coin definitely.

- Yeah, I'll be back. - G'bye!

(dramatic music)

(splashing)

(oxygen tanks hissing)

(metal detector chirping)

- Excellent.

(metal detector beeping)

(bubbling)

What's, uh, what's going on, pal?

Attaboy!

Keep digging, then. There must be more!

- I told ya we'd find more!

(waves crashing)

Wind.

Current's pushing in such a way,

I'm a little worried about that ridge right there.

Even the seagulls getting further away from it.

(narrator): With the wind picking up,

so too is the current that runs along

the southern coast of the island.

- Making it difficult for the divers to surface safely.

- Hey Chris! Get that (bleep) boat moving!

Diver up!

Go get him before he hits those rocks!

Careful you don't run through your divers.

Pizzio's up there behind you guys, you see him?

- Oh my darling dear!

Alright. Now, what do we have?

(laughter)

Holy frig, another one!

- That's a nice coin.

- Yeah, it's a Spanish eight real.

- That is an eight real, yeah.

It's a clipped coin, just like the other one.

- It's the largest coin they minted.

- And this is in nice shape.

It is a nice coin.

Eight reals like this have been known to fetch up to

$30,000 on the open market.

This is the same stuff

that we were getting on the Feversham.

But this ain't the Feversham, it's too far up the coast.

So this could very easily be the Neptune.

All I can say is, this was a really good day, fellas.

You don't even know how good, I don't think,

but this was a good day.

(narrator): Is this part of the long lost

treasure hoard from the Neptune?

And if so, what other treasures remain to be found?

Jeff is about to face some tough decisions,

as hurricane season approaches and threatens to shut down

any chance of finding more of the privateer's plunder

hidden on the seafloor.

(narrator): Next on The Death Coast.

(waves crash)

- With a powerful hurricane

barreling down on the Death Coast...

- It's a groundswell!

(narrator): The team pivots to a long lost shipwreck.

What are you seeing?

(narrator): With time running out on the mission.

- I'm just not seeing what I should be.

(narrator): A major find...

May end a 300-year-old mystery.

- Oh boy!

That's what we're looking for!

Subtitling: difuze