Original subtitles

(ominous music)

(diver breathing deeply)

- What is it?

Copy that.

What are you guys seeing under there?

(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.

(narrator): 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): After waiting 14 years

to return to Nova Scotia's Death Coast

to search for shipwrecks,

Jeff MacKinnon and his crew are in the final week

of their dive window.

- There's still so much treasure left to recover

and so little time to find it.

(narrator): Across the last eight weeks,

the team has found artifacts tied to multiple wrecks

all over Cape Breton.

Now, Jeff assembles his crew

to decide which of those locations

should be the focus

of their few remaining dive days.

- This is crunch time.

We only have a few dive days left.

Where do we go?

All right, gentlemen, we have a decision to make.

We've got a storm front heading our way

and we only have three days left of diving.

We could go to Feversham,

we could go to Chameau,

or we could go to the concretion bed

on the other side of the Western Breakers.

(narrator): Of the many shipwrecks

they've been on this season,

the team has found the most success

on three major wreck sites.

First, the Chameau, a French payroll ship

that was carrying 82,000 livres in 8 L écu coins,

worth an estimated $20 million,

when it sank off Cape Breton in 1725.

Jeff: Look at this! A (bleep) coin.

The Chameau has provided.

(narrator): The Feversham, a British warship,

which was carrying 500 pounds of rare New England coins

and wrecked off Scatarie Island in 1711.

And further west of Scatarie Island,

is the concretion field.

It may be the remains of the Neptune,

a ship believed to have engaged in privateering.

And possibly laden with stolen treasure.

- Holy (bleep). (Jim laughs)

What are those?

(Jim): Kinda look like emeralds, to me.

- What do you think?

- I'm leaning back towards Feversham, believe it or not.

The site on Feversham is set up.

We know the area, we know what's there,

we know how to dive it.

So, I'm leaning towards Feversham

'cause I think there's more there.

It will continue to produce.

- I know. There's a lot more there.

What about you? What do you think?

- This is a no-brainer, guys. Come on.

Concretion area, Western Breaker.

Hands down.

We've got an immense amount of cultured material

from that spot.

We've got an 8 Reals silver coin.

We've got the triangles.

And, oh, that's right, emeralds.

What part of emerald

aren't you guys gettin' here, okay?

What part of that word is not connecting

with treasure hunting, all right?

- I know.

- You don't leave productive areas.

- What do you think? - I'm with Mike.

Cobbs, Spanish coins.

We've got spots that we didn't finish digging up

because we couldn't reach them.

Now, we know we can go back and bring something up.

- Jim, what do you think?

- Well, I don't want to go against the tide here,

but I think that the Chameau is the best bet for us right now.

You've been looking for the stern of this ship

for a long time, personally.

People have been looking for this for hundreds of years.

You know, we've got some good indications

that the scatter that we're following is heading

in a direction that is going to be very productive for us.

And if that's the stern,

that's where the officers were, the captain was,

and probably a lot of the payroll was,

that that ship was carrying.

And then, to top that off,

it cuts off three hours of travel time.

(Jeff): Dan and Pizzio are all about the emeralds,

and I get that.

Haas has a soft spot for the Feversham.

But the Chameau is my girl.

I can hear her calling to me now.

I need to find that stern section,

so that's where I'm gonna go dive.

Well, I made up my mind.

I know, Feversham, I love it too.

Emeralds are beautiful, I love those too.

But Jim, I have to agree with you on this one,

we have to go back to Chameau.

If we keep moving to the west, we're going to find the stern.

That's what I truly believe.

Finding the stern section of the Chameau

is going to close up an over 300 year mystery.

Be a wonderful topping on my little cake.

Let's find the rest of her

and put it to bed, once and for all.

(gripping music)

(narrator): The next day,

the team heads out to the site of the Chameau.

- Well, all I can say is I hope the Chameau

gives us a gentle homecoming.

(narrator): In 1725,

the Chameau sets out from La Rochelle, France,

on its annual supply trip to Louisbourg.

It's carrying 200 soldiers

and 116 wealthy settlers.

In its stern, it holds a pay chest,

the equivalent of over $20 million today.

On August 17th,

with the rugged coast of Nova Scotia in sight,

a gale hurls the Chameau onto a massive on-shore rock.

No one survives the wreck.

When they searched here last,

Jeff had been following a map of the wreck site

drawn up in 1726

by French captain, Pierre du Morpain,

who had tried unsuccessfully to salvage the Chameau treasure.

It suggests a debris trail extending from Chameau Rock,

where the ship foundered,

westward along an underwater ridge.

Jeff believes that the debris trail

will lead to the stern and the treasure.

- All right,

you never thought you were going to be here again, did ya?

- No.

Now, I know our time is limited,

so I want to start up here on this northern quadrant,

and then I want to work kinda nor'west.

My intention today

is I really want to find Chameau cannons over there.

That's what I need to find.

The Chameau had 44 guns

and 13 of those guns were never found.

And those guns were located on the stern.

If we find the last Chameau cannons,

then we find the Chameau stern.

And if we find the Chameau stern,

we find the rest of the treasure.

(narrator): The Chameau's largest cannons

were 12-pounders,

which measured from 10 to 12 feet in length,

and had a distinctive flare around the muzzle end.

- They'll moor off and watch you guys.

Work in, work your way down.

You're not gonna be coming back to the anchor line,

so we'll keep a good eye on your bubbles.

- All right, cast us off. Cast us off, captain.

- Goodbye! You're wasting time! - Bye!

- Kick that thing in gear, boy! - Goodbye!

- Clear. - And go.

(eerie music)

(Jeff): Copy that, Griego. Have fun.

I love waiting for good things.

(nervous music)

- Copy.

My father was an exceptional treasure hunter.

And I always knew that I wanted to follow

in my father's footsteps, especially on the Chameau site.

And now, this is my chance.

(divers' regulators hissing)

(metal detector beeping)

- Dan, I'll take a cannon today.

That's all you need to find me, just one cannon. Over.

Keep searchin'.

(metal detector beeping)

(metal detector beeps)

That's always a good sign.

(Jeff): Copy that, Pizzio.

Continue your search.

(diver breathing through regulator)

Can you see any markings on the cannon, Mike?

Oh, two cannon.

- What?!

(narrator): Coming up.

Jeff: Okay, let's go!

(narrator): The Chameau starts to reveal its secrets.

- What? Where?!

The Chameau stern could be buried underneath it.

(narrator): ...And its treasure.

- What are you guys seeing under there?

- Did you say you got coin?

- They're 8 L écus!

(tense music)

(narrator): While searching for the cannons

from the missing stern section of the Chameau,

divers Mike Pizzio and Mike Haas

make an unexpected discovery.

- What?!

(narrator): In a muzzle loading cannon,

gunpowder is loaded by the touch hole

and ignited with a fuse.

When cannons were captured by the enemy,

it was common for them to be disabled

by driving a bronze spike into the touch hole,

so the cannon could no longer fire.

(Jeff): This doesn't make sense

based on what we know of the Chameau.

None of these cannons would have been spiked.

Whatever they found down there, could be from another ship.

(divers breathing through regulators)

(metal detector beeping)

- It's over six feet. - Copy that.

Continue your search.

Make sure to check it for markings.

Somehow, we've stumbled onto a cannon graveyard.

We've got broken cannons, spiked cannons,

cannons of different sizes.

But all the cannons are too small

to be Chameau cannons.

- Yeah, I don't know we'll have to--

Copy that, Haas. Keep searching then.

(narrator): After nearly an hour

searching the mysterious cannon graveyard,

the divers' air is nearly out.

(Jeff): Copy that, over.

Copy that.

We've got to figure out what's going on here.

What's up with all these cannons

and how does the Chameau fit into this?

I need to find out.

How far did you guys get?

- Covered a lot of ground.

All of them are down in like, gullies.

They're kinda halfway covered.

They're not easily moved.

If we wanted to bring those up, we'd have no chance.

They're just jammed in tight.

- All those cannons that are there,

from what I'm seeing, are either broken or disabled.

- Yeah, everything is broken about halfway down

the length of the cannon.

They're just kinda all of them are wrecks.

Doesn't seem like a ship would sink

with just a big pile of broken cannons.

- Any possibility they were using the cannon for ballast?

- I have no idea. That's a possibility.

(narrator): Ballast is weight placed in the hull of a ship

in order to lower its center of gravity

and give it greater stability.

Broken or spiked cannons had little value,

so they were often used alongside stones as ballast.

- The Chameau cannons were big. - Yeah.

These don't sound like what, what the Chameau had

on it at all, anyway.

If the Chameau is here, all of this wreckage

is going to make this search incredibly difficult

because the stern section

could be buried under another ship.

(tense music)

(narrator): With no time to spare,

the divers return to the water.

Jeff: All right, let's go diving.

Hey, it better be round!

(narrator): The plan is to continue northwest

along the debris trail marked on the 1726 map.

- Copy that. Start your search.

(metal detector beeps)

Dig it up!

(Jeff): We call them hot rocks, but they're ferrous rich rocks,

iron rich rocks.

They drive the detectors nuts.

Okay, well keep searchin'. Find me somethin' good.

(metal detector beeping)

- Yeah, read ya loud and clear there, Danny boy.

Dig that thing up.

(gripping music)

- Copy that.

Now stop talking to me and go find something.

(metal detector beeping)

Dig up that hit, Mike Haas.

- They are at 21 minutes.

- He has a what? Can you please repeat?

(gripping music)

(metal detector beeps)

(narrator): While on the hunt for the missing stern section

of the Chameau, diver Mike Haas

comes across an unidentified object.

- Bring it up. Let me take a look at it.

Don't lose it!

(Jeff): A-ha! What is it? What'd you find?

What the hell is this?

- I'm not sure what the function of that is or what it is.

(Jeff): Like a washer,

but it makes no sense why this looks like this.

- The speckles on it, you mean? - Yeah, the speckles.

- It's the way they poured it, whatever the alloy was.

- Yeah, but I want to know what it is.

Every artifact tells a story, but with this one,

I have no idea what it's telling me.

(light anxious music)

(narrator): With the dive day coming to an end,

Jeff returns to base camp

to find out more about the mysterious ring.

So, that evening,

team archaeologist, Jim Sinclair,

contacts nautical archaeologist, Annaliese Dempsey,

a professional sailor at Texas A&M University.

- So, Annaliese, we found an object

that we would love to get your opinion on.

- Yeah, me take a look at that.

This is obviously just a component piece

of something else.

This is really cool.

So, this is a great example of why we,

even the smallest artifacts are important in archaeology,

because this could potentially be part of an astrolabe.

- Really? - Yeah.

- That's just really exciting for me.

(narrator): Suspended from a ring,

in order to counteract the movement of the ship,

an astrolabe was an astronomical instrument.

By aligning the sliding arm toward a celestial body,

navigators could determine their latitude.

The measured angle,

compared with astronomical tables,

revealed their position at sea.

It was used for navigation by the helmsman,

who steered the ship from its stern.

- So, a pilot's responsibility

was to know how to navigate those coastlines,

to know where hidden shoals were,

to know where very dangerous currents were.

- Well, what could they tell from using an astrolabe?

- So, something like this, if you know what time it is,

and you have a known celestial body in the sky,

like the sun, it tells you your distance

from either the North or the South Pole.

So, this helps sailors essentially know where they are

on the ocean when they don't really have any other landmarks.

- That's an important piece of information for us.

I appreciate you telling us that.

This may give us a clue.

It could very well lead us to the rest of the Chameau,

which is the stern section.

(gentle mysterious music)

(narrator): The next morning,

before heading out for their second to last dive day,

Jeff is looking for information.

(Jeff): It'll take a couple of weeks

to properly search the area

where we found the broken cannons,

and I don't have that kind of time.

I'm going to have to find a shortcut.

(narrator): So, Jeff is consulting Graham Christie,

an underwater surveyor with engineering firm McElhanney,

who've already conducted a bathymetric survey

to make a detailed map of the seafloor.

(Jeff): Hold on, just keep that course. Just like that.

All right, mark that now.

(narrator): While the survey's focus has previously been

in a different area,

Jeff is hoping they can identify

potential targets in this new spot.

- Hey, there he is. Man, it's good to see you.

I hope you've got some good information for me.

- Got some... some interesting things to look at here.

This is the data you asked for off of Cape Breton Point,

looking sort of into the cove a little bit.

- All right, bring 'em up.

Keep bringing it up.

Bring it up closer, if you don't mind.

- Yeah, for sure.

- You see that? - Yeah, I see a straight line.

(Jeff): Stop. Right there. Cannon.

(Jim): A cannon, right there.

- Got my (bleep) cannons, eh? There's another cannon.

(Jim): That's two.

(Jeff): And there's three.

Four, five.

(Jim): Wow.

- Six. Look, over here, seven, eight, nine.

- It's certainly a lot of cannons spread around here.

(Jeff): That is quite a few cannons.

- I make 13 here.

- Thirteen would pretty well make up for the cannons

that were never found from the Chameau.

- Right?

(Jeff): This is a really, really good find.

What I'm seeing here looks like a trail of wreckage,

jamming right into that cove.

That whole trail of cannons

heading right into the west there like that,

I always looked at that map from Morpain,

he said the line of debris

was heading down around Cape Breton Point

and down in between the two islands.

But what really is happening here,

we can see that the cannons all heading in west,

down around that big cove.

If that stern section drove in there

and that top gun deck drove down like that,

man, oh man, that's where we're heading.

We are at the 11th hour here and time is running out.

I need to focus on those Chameau cannons, the last ones.

I need to find them and find the rest of the Chameau.

So, if we find some cannons, we could find some treasure.

(narrator): Coming up.

- Three, two, one.

- What are you guys seeing under there?

(Haas): Hey, hey, you were right.

Look what I got.

- Did you say you got a coin?

- They're 8 L écus!

(light mysterious music)

(narrator): Armed with the new targets

identified in the survey...

- Great day to be at Chameau.

(narrator): ...Jeff and the team

head straight out to the cove indicated by the scan.

- So, we've got some good news.

The bathymetric guys, they came through again.

It looks like on the edge of their survey here

on the Chameau site, we've got some more cannons.

But what cannons are they?

And we never, ever, ever

came close to where these cannons are.

What I'm thinking here is that we could possibly

have the stern section of the Chameau.

That's big. - Oh, that'll be... that's huge.

- Nobody else ever found that. - That would be good.

- Yeah, so, what I want you to do

is find something that identifies Chameau.

I need a visual confirmation on what these are.

That's what I need.

Where are we at there, Johnnie?

- Just coming up on the Chameau Rock.

(Jeff): Okay, let's go!

My father developed a method for recovering shipwrecks

that far surpasses anybody I know.

You have to be specialized in order to do this.

I watched that my entire life with him

and...

I think that's what impacted me the most.

I'm gonna show ya where I want you to go.

Hopefully you can pull it off in this current.

You guys,

I'd like you to come through the cut on the ridge

and work right into that cove.

Just go out and have a look around.

I need to see those cannons.

I need to get a good picture of them,

and that way I can tell what we're dealing with.

(narrator): On this dive,

the team are being equipped with underwater cameras

so they can document the cannons for Jeff to see.

(regulators hissing)

- This is topside to Griego. I got you. Copy that, over.

Commence your searching.

(narrator): On the far side of the ridge

they find a familiar foe.

- Pizzio, how big is the cannon? What are the dimensions?

- This cannon is way too short.

The cannons that would have been on the stern section

of the Chameau would have been 10 to 12 feet long.

- Copy that, thank you.

- Yeah, keep your search going there, Mike.

I'm going to want to get a count on all them cannons.

(Pizzio): Copy.

- Copy that, Griego.

(narrator): After nearly an hour's search,

the team have documented several cannons covered in kelp,

and hidden within the ridges.

- That's an awful lot of cannons down there, Pizzio.

(narrator): As the day comes to an end,

the team returns to shore

to try to piece together the clues.

(Jeff): Man, I don't know.

It's confusing to me because I've almost lost count

how many cannons you're telling me.

- When I was coming back out, there's a stack of five cannons,

and then there were three cannons in a row

that were smooth

and a little bit fat on the ends, and they were short.

I'll show you. So, take a look at that.

(Jeff): That's the stack where the five are?

(Dan): Yeah.

- That's not like the other cannons

that you were describing to me.

- No, it's not. - That is impressive.

This is entirely new.

You've just opened up a whole new area of the site.

Fellas, I'll tell ya,

the Chameau site just got a whole lot more interesting.

(gulls squawking)

(narrator): On the night before their final dive day,

Jeff is meeting with Jim at their Louisbourg base camp

to see if any of the cannons they found earlier in the day

could be from the Chameau.

- We have way more cannons here.

Way more than could have possibly come from the Chameau.

Our problem now is to make sense of this mess

and find the Chameau.

So, here we are. We have a pile of cannons here.

- To take a little closer look at that material, do you think?

- Yeah, just watch what the divers are seeing here.

(Jeff): Now, obviously right there,

that is not a Chameau gun.

- No.

Again, the feeling of a shorter,

heavier, stubbier sort of a gun.

- You think it's more modern?

(Jim): Yeah, I think it's a lot more modern.

Probably maybe 100 years. - Yeah.

- You know what it looks like to me?

Looks like a carronade.

- Yeah, that's my thoughts, too.

(narrator): A carronade is a smooth bore cast iron cannon.

The lighter weight and size, typically five feet in length,

was the result of advances in naval military design

that occurred in the mid-18th century,

long after the sinking of the Chameau.

- It's unfortunate. - Uh-huh.

(Jeff): All of these carronades are too modern and too short.

We may have two, maybe three wrecks

sitting on top of each other here.

But look at that one there, look.

Look!

That's got to be a 12 foot gun!

- Yes, sir.

(Jeff): Now, you see that?

That one's got a little bit of a flare.

That is not a carronade style gun.

- Right. - That's a Chameau gun.

See the flare on it? - Wow.

(narrator): The cannons on the Chameau

were 12-pounders and measured up to 12 feet in length.

They were typical French guns of the early 18th century,

and have a recognizable flare around the front muzzle.

- Here's the problem, is we've got all those

more recent cannons.

The Chameau stern could be buried underneath it.

- Yeah, you're (bleep) right, it could.

We'll find out tomorrow.

We're definitely gonna find something out.

(tense music)

(narrator): After eight weeks of searching for treasure

off the Death Coast, it's the last dive day.

The team is hoping they have located

the final resting place

of the Chameau's missing stern section.

Now they're returning to the site

to see what treasures might be hidden among the cannons.

- If we're really lucky, these are Chameau guns

that are unaccounted for.

If they're Chameau guns,

then that means it's the stern section.

So, if we're lucky enough, you're gonna find something

that's Chameau related and...

Bob's your uncle.

(narrator): To save air and time,

they're using a dive propulsion vehicle

to cover more ground, more quickly.

- All-righty, when you locate a cannon,

I want you to thoroughly search

where the cannon meets the bottom.

Goodbye!

Get me a coin!

This location is the end of the debris trail

on Morpain's map,

and it's right up against the coastline.

If the stern section isn't here,

then we're back to square one.

(tense music builds)

(regulators hissing)

- Pizzio, this is topside. Go to work.

(breath hissing through regulator)

(tense music)

- Copy that. They're on their way right now.

(narrator): In the final hours of their final dive day,

the team is now in a race against the clock.

- My lead diver, Dan Griego, he's a retired recon Marine.

I mean, that guy, you send him in a direction

and tell him to find something, he'll find it.

The anticipation is killing me.

- What are you guys seeing under there? Did you move it?

(music building)

(narrator): On their last day

beneath the waters of the Death Coast,

while searching for the missing stern section

of the Chameau...

- What are you guys seeing under there?

(narrator): ...divers Dan Griego and Mike Haas

make a discovery.

- Did... is it a coin?

- That a boy. That a boy.

(anxious music)

- I know that if there are coins under this cannon

like Dan thinks they are,

then this is most likely the stern section,

part of the Chameau.

The stern on this vessel has been missing for 300 years.

And if this is it, boy, we're into something.

- Did you say you got more than one coin?

This could be the stern section of the Chameau.

The boys are surfacing and they got some good news.

- My man Dan.

Dan: I told you that'd be worth it.

- Next time you tell me you felt a coin, I'll believe it.

(all laugh)

- Good job. - That took a lot of air.

(Jeff): Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

You are my hero!

- See these?

- I know. I know.

- Magic.

- Did I doubt you?

- So, when Griego says he can feel a coin, he can feel a coin.

- Yeah. - Holy crap.

- Let me see. Come on, man.

- Not only one coin...

- They're 8 L écus. - Yeah.

- That's Chameau!

Louis XV, there's his signature thing there, look.

L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L. It's got 8 L's on them.

- That was worth moving the cannon.

(Jeff): That is Chameau.

- Chameau, it is. - Yeah, that is Chameau.

This, right here, is what the Chameau was transporting,

8 L écus.

- It was coming over to the fortress.

That was the pay that they hadn't had in, like,

eight years or something, right?

- Yeah, that's it, pal. That's these babies.

You know what this means?

I really think we're on the stern section here

of the Chameau, that is huge.

It's frustrating for me that on the last day on Chameau,

it looks like we may have found the stern section

and we've essentially just run out of time.

But the stern section has been here for 300 years,

it's not going anywhere.

It'll be here next year, and so will I.

We're going to leave on a good note, and here we are.

This is the best note.

(narrator): Over the last eight weeks,

Jeff and the team have taken the worst

the Death Coast could throw at them.

(narrator): And emerged with evidence of six historic wrecks.

Jeff: Holy (bleep).

That's what we're lookin' for!

Holy (bleep).

- Looks like treasure. - What did I tell ya?

- Yeah. - Huh?

(dramatic music)

(narrator): As the team packs up for the off season,

questions still remain.

Where is the rest

of the Chameau's missing payload?

What are the mystery ships they found along the way?

And could they, too, be hiding valuable cargo?

And what other treasures

might still be out there, hidden beneath the surface?

Subtitling: difuze