For Love and Treasure: The Life and Times of the World's Most Successful Treasure Hunting Family

by Monty Joynes

Overview

Mel Fisher was known as “The World’s Greatest Treasure Hunter.” He and his family established the Mel Fisher's Treasure Museum located in Sebastian, Florida and the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida. In addition to being a showcase for newly-found treasure, the Maritime Museum is a nationally recognized research and archaeology institution.  And although Mel passed away in 1998, today this legend lives on in his son, Kim Fisher. For the past 25 years, Kim and his wife Lee continued the quest for treasure through their family business, Mel Fisher’s Treasures. Here is a fascinating look inside the business and personal lives of the most famous treasure hunting family of all times.

Mel Fisher's discovery of the Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, and its over $400 million treasure, off the Florida Keys made Mel and his family worldwide celebrities. Through the National Geographic DVD exclusive, Atocha: Quest for Treasure, the National Geographic Explorer series, “Quest for the Atocha” (Season 2, Episode 16), a spot on The Johnny Carson Show, six books, a feature film, and intensive ongoing press coverage, the Atocha's fame has been established over the past three decades spanning multiple generations. Even today the search for the Atocha sterncastle continues. The find of a single chest of Muzo emeralds purported to be contents of the Atocha sterncastle alone would raise her bounty into the billions. Is it any wonder why 30 years later the search continues? As a leader in the field of oceanic survey technology, confidence is high that Mel Fisher’s Treasures will continue the tradition of discovering untold riches from beneath the sea.

Treasure hunters have a different genome than most of their fellow human beings. They are programmed to “go where no one has gone before.” They possess an indomitable drive to explore and to solve mysteries. They are risk takers extraordinaire. For Love and Treasure is about such individuals who lead a legendary treasure salvage company into the ocean depths of the next great discovery. Meeting these unique characters on the page is a kind of treasure, too.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780692399316
Publisher:	Seaside Books
Publication date:	07/16/2015
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Monty Joynes is the author of more than twenty books. The five novels in his Booker Series are celebrated as pioneer books in the Visionary Fiction genre. He is the author of The Celestine Prophecy: The Making of the Movie, and Conversations with God: The Making of the Movie. His previous biography was Journey for the One: The Biography of Jeanne White Eagle and John Pehrson. He has won a national award for his war genre short fiction, and is an established poet. Raised on the Chesapeake Bay, his interest in maritime adventures began with crew service on boats and ships before becoming a magazine journalist and book author. He lives in Boone, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

1 First Adventure Together 1

2 Who Owns Abandoned Shipwrecks? 7

3 Kim's Childhood 13

4 Poetic Vulnerability 15

5 Kim's Teenage Years 19

6 The Key West State of Mind 29

7 Doctor Juanita Lee Wiegand 33

8 A Formal Education Detour 37

9 A Liberated Woman 41

10 The Missing Man 47

11 The Avoidance of Boredom 53

12 The Aww Factor 55

13 The Bond of Great Loss 59

14 The Proposal 69

15 The Underwater Wedding 75

16 The Admiral 81

17 Touring with the Atocha Treasures 83

18 The Beale Treasure 89

19 The Treasure Catalog 93

20 The Bridge Between Eras 103

21 Travels with the Children 109

22 An Amazing Energy Couple 115

23 The Quiet Man 125

24 The Other Lee Fisher 129

25 Kim in the Classroom 135

26 The Untold Stories 139

27 Kim on Television 143

28 The Complex Business of Treasure Hunting 147

29 The Technology of Treasure Hunting 151

30 Shawn Redding - Chief Engineer 157

31 A Taste of Fame 161

32 Dr. Eugene Lyon. Most Valuable Historian 163

33 Andy Matroci. The Man Who Saw It All 171

34 The Atocha Mother Lode Golden Crew Ring 187

35 Curtis White. Member of the Atocha Golden Crew 191

36 Don Kincaid. Adventurer with a Camera 197

37 How to Join Kim and Lee 207

38 Documenting Treasure Artifacts 211

39 Jim Sinclair. Primary Archaeologist 217

40 Follow the Coin 223

41 From Conservation to Sale 227

42 The Atocha Coin Market 237

43 The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum 239

44 Adjudication Day 243

45 Keys to the Treasure 247

46 Division Week 253

47 The Consolation Prize 257

48 Feeling Part of It 261

49 The Cigar Box 265

50 A Pocket Emerald 269

51 The Golden Girl 271

52 Into the Blue, Secrets of the Deep 275

53 José "Papo" Garcia. Captain of the M/V Dare 283

54 Headed Back to Sea 289

About the Author 301

Fisher Company Contacts 303

Editorial Reviews

"A riveting investigation into the nature of humans to seek, to search, and to understand by discovery . . . a compelling biography of an amazing family, the Fishers, combining technical content and personal anecdotes, against a larger historical and geographical backdrop. If you've ever wanted to hunt for treasure, or you wish to vicariously embark on a daring adventure beneath the surface of the sea, For Love and Treasure: The Life and Times of the World's Most Successful Treasure Hunting Family awaits . . . with plentiful captioned photos, [the book] is almost like reading a personal narrative and family album simultaneously . . . also a story of self-discovery, and the awareness needed to understand one's own self and to live the life one has imagined, which is itself a treasure." 

Foreword Reviews