THE LEGEND: Two sunken
ships, the Espiritu Santo and the San Esteban, along with a
companion ship the Santa Maria de Yciar, which also sank after
being run aground, carried a small fortune in gold and goods
enroute from Vanuatu.
Legend has it that one man and one man only survived to tell the
story. By the time salvage ships arrived, much of the valuable
cargo was gone however, washed away by the rising tides or
swallowed by the shifting sands.
Then, in the 1940s, a dredging crew ran right over one of the
wrecks, the Santa Maria De Yciar, throwing coins along both sides
of a several hundred foot section of channel while working on the
Mansfield Cut project.
From time to
time, beachcombers turn up old Spanish artifacts or relics. But the
larger cache of the lost Spanish treasure remains aloof and hidden.
Occasionally a treasure hunter will report finding a wooden bow or
rusted anchor rising out of the great sand dunes, only to fail at
returning to the exact point of discovery because the sands have
recovered their hidden secrets once again.
One such treasure,
said to be cursed found it's way to Australia carried by an antique
collector. Then, without a trace, both disappeared... well most of
it's true.