Speaker 1: Now Really, Really, Now Really Hello and welcome to Really
Speaker 1: No Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who suggests
Speaker 1: that subscribing to the Really No Really podcast is like
Speaker 1: finding a hidden treasure to subscribe and claim that treasure
Speaker 1: is yours. And speaking of hidden treasures, did you know
Speaker 1: that we are in the golden age of finding and
Speaker 1: recovering trillion dollars shipwrecks. These high stakes, highly dangerous expeditions
Speaker 1: have been supercharged thanks to revolutionary deep ocean technologies. But
Speaker 1: it's not just the good guys searching through sunken Spanish
Speaker 1: galleons for gold to balloons. There are some pretty nefarious
Speaker 1: and fairly dangerous treasure hunters out there, and the rush
Speaker 1: to be first can sometimes get you killed.
Speaker 2: Really No Really.
Speaker 1: To help us salvage what's actually going on, we turned
Speaker 1: to the Indiana Jones of Underwater Archaeology, marine scientist and
Speaker 1: oceanographer David L. Merns, who's a fellow of the Ial
Speaker 1: Geographical Society and the Explorers Club. He's located twenty five
Speaker 1: major shipwrecks and holds five Guinness World records, including salvaging
Speaker 1: the deepest shipwreck ever found so let's welcome to you
Speaker 1: guys who are considered by some to be national treasures.
Speaker 1: And by some I mean themselves.
Speaker 2: Here's Jason and Peters. Let's talk about what we need
Speaker 2: to talk about today.
Speaker 3: Premise. Here's a premise. Give you a premise because you
Speaker 3: do it very well.
Speaker 2: To people that.
Speaker 4: Were on the antique road show and they're showing these
Speaker 4: gold ingots.
Speaker 2: The beautiful gold beautiful gingers.
Speaker 4: To this older couple who in the late seventies early
Speaker 4: eighties who were holding them from another guy friend who's
Speaker 4: gone from a friend.
Speaker 2: It turns out it wat to hold these gold ingots
Speaker 2: for me. I'll be back.
Speaker 4: That doesn't and they know the friend and he said,
Speaker 4: they know where it's from. He salvaged the ship.
Speaker 2: That's the trick.
Speaker 4: What they didn't realize was that that's illegal. And they
Speaker 4: went to change jail and.
Speaker 2: They're in jail going, why what did we do? I
Speaker 2: didn't do anything. A guy gave me a thing.
Speaker 4: So this is the golden age of finding shipwrecks, which
Speaker 4: are worth trillions of dollars because of sonar, submersibles.
Speaker 2: All this stuff. Sure, there are people are fighting over
Speaker 2: this stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one guy is in jail for five years because
Speaker 4: he refuses to give the.
Speaker 2: Gold back that's right to the country of origin. And
Speaker 2: I stand with that. Well, okay, and I do too.
Speaker 4: That's why we have one of the most renowned shipwreck hunters, yes,
Speaker 4: an archaeologist in the world coming on in a minute.
Speaker 2: That's my thought is this, And my question to you
Speaker 2: is how good could they bees? Coming on the wash?
Speaker 4: Not everybody vets so so they figure SIGNFD.
Speaker 2: What the hell? Who's the other guy? We know? Right?
Speaker 2: We don't know? All right? So radio, My.
Speaker 4: Question is this, if I leave a sweatshirt and a
Speaker 4: diner for two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I come back to the walk.
Speaker 3: Into the booth two hundred and fifty years later, they go, hey,
Speaker 3: look at this.
Speaker 2: I found a sweatshirt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you've had it for two and fifty I
Speaker 4: haven't gotten Hey, that's my shirt, but no, it's my
Speaker 4: shirt for two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2: What are you doing. I'm a treasure.
Speaker 3: Yes, when I was five years old. One of the
Speaker 3: golden rules. There are two golden rules. One is treat
Speaker 3: others as you would have them treat you. That is
Speaker 3: the golden rule.
Speaker 2: It's all because I don't know what the second one is.
Speaker 3: The second is the second rule isn't every kindergartener knows it? Finders, keepers, losers, weepers.
Speaker 2: I found it, you dropped it.
Speaker 3: We have a We had a thing over my son
Speaker 3: Noah's bed when he was little, to help my oldest son,
Speaker 3: Gab was called the Toddler's Rules of Ownership. It was
Speaker 3: a brilliant list. It was things like, if I think
Speaker 3: it's mine, it's mine. If it was yours and I
Speaker 3: now have it, it's mine. If I think it's mine
Speaker 3: and you have it, it's still mine.
Speaker 2: I mean, these were the top owner.
Speaker 4: We should tell this guy. We should Maybe this will
Speaker 4: solve the whole shipwreck problem. And the amazing thing now,
Speaker 4: if you if you're listening and you're wondering, should I
Speaker 4: stay with the shipwreck? The number one rip shipwreck of
Speaker 4: all times, the Columbia. They kind of know where it is,
Speaker 4: and everybody wants it because it's supposed to be billions
Speaker 4: and billions of dollars. But my question to the shipwreck
Speaker 4: expert is, so I now have risked my life, I've
Speaker 4: raised money to do this. I've gone down to the
Speaker 4: shelves down there, I got squids.
Speaker 2: God knows what's do.
Speaker 4: Not a lot and my wife you know you're going
Speaker 4: again and leaving the kids right, all of that stuff.
Speaker 4: I finally bring up a golden gut after twenty years
Speaker 4: and Spain goes, oh, that's ours. They go, why didn't
Speaker 4: you go get Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it just right to put it in the Yiddish phrase,
Speaker 3: kish mine took, it's yours.
Speaker 2: There you go, which I think was also on your list.
Speaker 3: That's written on the bar. Kish mind took this property
Speaker 3: of Spain.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating thing.
Speaker 4: And our guests, our guests as a Guinness World Book
Speaker 4: of Records for finding shipwreck and I'm on. But he's
Speaker 4: also a professor and an archaeologist, so that the Indiana
Speaker 4: Jones Yes shipwreck, yes, absolutely, and.
Speaker 2: One whip doesn't work as well underwater. I've known it's
Speaker 2: a lot say lower. If you see Jason Momoa, everything
Speaker 2: just just like so yeah, if I see yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's the problem with those films.
Speaker 4: You know what, he's a good actor. I just thought
Speaker 4: it's a decent actor. Underwork, he's even better. You sumers him.
Speaker 4: He's that much better of all.
Speaker 3: The underwater actors. He's probably the best so shipwrecks. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's say hello to our guest. Would you like to
Speaker 3: introduce David.
Speaker 4: David Mearns is what a fascinating man. He's one of
Speaker 4: the world's most experienced in successful deep sea shipwreck hunters,
Speaker 4: having located twenty five.
Speaker 2: I said, I don't We'll have to bleep that out.
Speaker 2: I think you said deep sea. It was a little
Speaker 2: flap of the lips.
Speaker 5: And I know you didn't mean it. If I didn't,
Speaker 5: Laura checked the tapes on that. I heard a K,
Speaker 5: but there should have been an H if I didn't
Speaker 5: say it, Laurie, he definitely everybody just roll back the
Speaker 5: tapes on that. Would you like to try that one
Speaker 5: more time? Take too?
Speaker 4: And I don't think I said that word, But here
Speaker 4: you go, one of the most successful deep sea shipwreck hunter.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 3: It was the K of reck and the h of
Speaker 3: hunters that melded in your previous take.
Speaker 4: We're twenty five. Yeah, of the major shipwrecks. He awarded
Speaker 4: five Guinness World records, including the deepest shipwreck ever found.
Speaker 4: So he is Indiana Jones. He's a marine scientist who
Speaker 4: in a National Geographic Explorer's won prizes, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And you'll love this.
Speaker 4: He's from Jersey, he's calling from he's reaching us from England,
Speaker 4: but he's from Weehawk in Jersey, you bet. And when
Speaker 4: I talked to him last week to say thanks for
Speaker 4: coming on the show, he was so thrilled.
Speaker 2: He didn't know you're in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: So let's welcome. It's the theme song, Laurie.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to imagine what the New Jersey Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame theme song would be.
Speaker 2: Big in Jersey. We gotta get out of this way,
Speaker 2: you know, something like that.
Speaker 3: David Mearns, let's say, hi, welcome to Really, no, really,
Speaker 3: what have you found for us today?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, thank you? Are you currently?
Speaker 3: I mean we're going to get into the whole, the
Speaker 3: whole everything that's going on in the in the world
Speaker 3: of this bounty hunter or archaeological explanation.
Speaker 2: But what do you.
Speaker 3: You are you engaged in a retrieval project or a
Speaker 3: discovery project right now as we speak.
Speaker 6: There's always something going on.
Speaker 7: These these projects that I do take sometimes many years
Speaker 7: to develop, so you always have some in various phases.
Speaker 6: It could be the beginning phase. Which is your sort
Speaker 6: of research.
Speaker 7: Then at some point you think you've got a project
Speaker 7: that's viable, and then you begin planning it, and then
Speaker 7: you begin raising money and and and then if you're
Speaker 7: lucky and you can or if you get hired, you
Speaker 7: go out to see and generally the ratio now is
Speaker 7: I probably spend six months for every one month.
Speaker 6: That I actually go out to see. Yeah, earlier in
Speaker 6: my career is a lot more often.
Speaker 2: But is that six months.
Speaker 3: Is that mostly research and development or is that fundraising
Speaker 3: or some combination.
Speaker 6: It's a combination.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I've spent in the past as much as two years
Speaker 7: researching something and then as much as four or five
Speaker 7: years raising the funds. That's kind of kind of the extreme,
Speaker 7: but they's sometimes it's gone even longer than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why does it require not having really watched this?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, Okay, if you think you know where something is, roughly,
Speaker 3: you need the equipment to find it, you need the boats,
Speaker 3: you need some guys to go down in there get it.
Speaker 2: But what makes it so ungodly expensive? What is the
Speaker 2: big cost of doing this?
Speaker 6: Two things? Really.
Speaker 7: First off, the majority of what I do is in
Speaker 7: deep water, and I mean deep water to the point
Speaker 7: you can't dive. You can't use scuba divers or technical
Speaker 7: divers or anything. In my career, I've only been involved
Speaker 7: with one or two projects that literally I could get
Speaker 7: in the water myself and work on. Everything else is deeper,
Speaker 7: so that means robotics, that means deep toe sonars, that's
Speaker 7: expensive ships. So you're looking at projects that go to
Speaker 7: the hundreds of thousands to the low millions to actually
Speaker 7: go out there and find something, So it's expensive.
Speaker 6: The other part of it.
Speaker 7: Is you said, we know where it is, where it is, ok,
Speaker 7: we know where to search. So there's a high risk
Speaker 7: involved of you actually going out there looking for something
Speaker 7: and not finding it. You know, if you fail for
Speaker 7: some reason in my industry, you don't come back with
Speaker 7: a seventy percent or an eighty percent result.
Speaker 6: You come back with zero.
Speaker 7: So people are risking hundreds of thousands to millions on
Speaker 7: either all or nothing better, and that's just to find
Speaker 7: the wreck. Then you know, if your project is based
Speaker 7: on the financials of actually recovering something and selling something,
Speaker 7: then the risks are even higher.
Speaker 6: So it is a very risky, very speculative industry.
Speaker 4: Can you give us David before we get specific on
Speaker 4: some of them, like the Columbia, which is out there
Speaker 4: now that people are fighting over because there's so much
Speaker 4: a lad valuable cargo. Can you just give us a
Speaker 4: view of your world. How many guys are doing this?
Speaker 4: Who's the I saw a guy with an ipatch, He's
Speaker 4: got a TV show and he's raising money. It's like
Speaker 4: it's like swash buggling. There's pirates, there's people dying, there's
Speaker 4: people raising money, and then of course there's the countries
Speaker 4: that go, wait a minute, this is ours.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're right. It has a lot of different characters
Speaker 7: in it. I consider myself a professional at one end
Speaker 7: of the spectrum, and then it goes you know, you
Speaker 7: have archaeologists, you have treasure hunters, you have all sorts
Speaker 7: of characters, some who've never found anything in their careers,
Speaker 7: but they raise money off of it and tried to
Speaker 7: do it. And then you also have quite a lot
Speaker 7: of amateurs out there. And I think this is really
Speaker 7: the biggest change in the last twenty years. It's somewhat cool.
Speaker 7: I look at it as almost a democratization of wreck hunting.
Speaker 7: And what is really allowed that to happen is the
Speaker 7: availability of technology that is more affordable to amateur groups
Speaker 7: that can go out there as a group of individuals
Speaker 7: set their sights on a target, they either hire or
Speaker 7: get a.
Speaker 6: Sonar or an RV and go out and find things.
Speaker 7: And that is now happening almost on a weekly basis,
Speaker 7: and that's really quite exciting. I think that it's not
Speaker 7: just left to professionals like me.
Speaker 2: There's a whole history.
Speaker 4: Winnership goes down to why it went down, who the
Speaker 4: people were on that ship, how they lived, what they were,
Speaker 4: what they did. One of the people here as are
Speaker 4: their movie traps on the rooms that are where the
Speaker 4: gold is, like you see in every Indiana Jones movie
Speaker 4: where you move the one thing and you go, oh crap.
Speaker 4: I don't know what you find as an archaeologist when
Speaker 4: you dig this stuff up the cemetery of history.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, each shipwreck has a different story. You're referring
Speaker 7: to some of these Spanish ships, mainly Spanish vessels in
Speaker 7: the Atlantic that are coming back from the New World
Speaker 7: to Europe, like the off of Colombia, which is just
Speaker 7: loaded with with with.
Speaker 6: That is pure treasure, that is separate pressure.
Speaker 7: Now there's two points of views on that one is
Speaker 7: an economic view, which is the treasure hunting view, which
Speaker 7: is all about maximizing profit finding these things and being
Speaker 7: able to sell it. And then the other view with
Speaker 7: an archaeological view, which is that the monetary value of
Speaker 7: the treasure that could be literally gold coins or gold
Speaker 7: bars or silver bars or jewels or whatever, it's almost
Speaker 7: immaterial to the important of the historical importance archaeological importance
Speaker 7: of of the rex side itself. So you know, one
Speaker 7: pile of gold is no more important than say some
Speaker 7: spices that it was carrying, because those spices organic materials,
Speaker 7: if they survive, they tell more about the cultural history
Speaker 7: of society.
Speaker 6: At that time than the goal does.
Speaker 7: Arguably so, and there's a battle between the archaeological community
Speaker 7: and what I would call the treasure hunting community over
Speaker 7: who has the rights to it, who controls it. And
Speaker 7: the San Jose is a good example because that wreck
Speaker 7: was initially found by people who had a treasure hunting mentality,
Speaker 7: but now it's actually been controlled by the government and
Speaker 7: they're trying to do it on a pure archaeological basis,
Speaker 7: where no monetary value is extracted out of the billions
Speaker 7: and billions of cargo that may ultimately be lifted from
Speaker 7: the wreck site.
Speaker 2: But I think I may just be missing it.
Speaker 3: I don't understand it from a historical point of view,
Speaker 3: because I mean I do understand, Oh my god, there's
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollars worth of valuable goods down there
Speaker 3: if we can retrieve them. But without trying to sound snarky,
Speaker 3: how am I advanced by knowing? In sixteen ninety one
Speaker 3: the Spaniards used cilantro? I mean, is it something that
Speaker 3: only physically understanding the wreck itself is going to reveal
Speaker 3: what could be part of that site itself that would
Speaker 3: educate me in a way that knowing where it left from,
Speaker 3: what it was carrying, what the conditions were that sunk it.
Speaker 3: Why do I need to go down there for a
Speaker 3: salvage or an exploration? What would I get from an
Speaker 3: archaeological point of view.
Speaker 7: Well, it'll tell you about It'll tell you about all
Speaker 7: sorts of things.
Speaker 6: It'll tell you about shipbuilding.
Speaker 7: Archaeologists loved to study the ship structures itself to be
Speaker 7: able to understand how they were built, how the Spanish
Speaker 7: ships different from the Dutch ships, different from the English ships,
Speaker 7: where the wood came from, how it was financed, how
Speaker 7: it was maintained. All of this stuff adds to our
Speaker 7: knowledge of history about how people operated four or five
Speaker 7: hundred years ago. If you look at the cargo, what
Speaker 7: trade relationships were happening at the time. This most of
Speaker 7: what would be carried on as San Jose came from
Speaker 7: originated from other countries, not Columbia. Maybe it came from Peru.
Speaker 7: And ultimately we're trying to learn about human history four
Speaker 7: or five hundred years ago, and these ships are literally
Speaker 7: time capsules. There is nowhere in the world that you're
Speaker 7: going to find that accumulation of objects that can tell
Speaker 7: this history other than at the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 7: in these shipwrecks. And that's why they're so rare and
Speaker 7: so important, and that's why they're fought over to a
Speaker 7: very high degree between various constituencies that practice in this field.
Speaker 3: So speaking of those fights, I would really love to
Speaker 3: get your take on this, because we were Peter and
Speaker 3: I were.
Speaker 2: Having fun with this notion in our introduction.
Speaker 3: But if if you get the investors, and you do
Speaker 3: the work, and you make the discovery, and you make
Speaker 3: the salvage, and you reclaim these goods and.
Speaker 2: Somebody goes uh uh uh, that's ours.
Speaker 4: No, you know what, why didn't you diving next to me?
Speaker 2: What I have was raising? What is your take on?
Speaker 2: Who's these things.
Speaker 3: Really do belong to our who should benefit from them?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 7: Well, the difference and why you find it hard to
Speaker 7: understand is becoming it because it all comes down to
Speaker 7: the law of the sea, which is a different field
Speaker 7: of law, different history to it.
Speaker 3: Laurie, you're the recorder and the pan flute. We're going
Speaker 3: to get a sea story, okay.
Speaker 6: And the law, the law of the sea is unique.
Speaker 7: Just because the ship sinks, you don't lose the rights
Speaker 7: of ownership. And as long as you can trace back
Speaker 7: the rights of ownership through history, even succeeding going from
Speaker 7: one family to the next, those rights remain with the
Speaker 7: original owner. So if somebody comes along and finds it
Speaker 7: and tries the salvage it, they have to operate under
Speaker 7: what we call the law of salvage, not the law
Speaker 7: of finds.
Speaker 6: The law of finds is losers. How do we used
Speaker 6: to say when.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that doesn't work in the ocean, it's you have
Speaker 7: to go back to the original owner.
Speaker 6: So for example, again it's a very good shipwreck. To
Speaker 6: look at this.
Speaker 7: San Jose in Columbia. The Spanish government will make a
Speaker 7: claim on that because at that time the country was
Speaker 7: controlled by Spain. But on the other hand, where did
Speaker 7: all the gold and silver and the jewels come from,
Speaker 7: Not from Columbia, that came from different countries in South America.
Speaker 7: And that's where you have this patrimonial aspect of it.
Speaker 7: Where did it originate? So there will be various arguments,
Speaker 7: and these things have on different shipwrecks have been tested
Speaker 7: out in court and argued, and then things get really
Speaker 7: complicated because every country almost has a different set of
Speaker 7: rules despite their being an international basis. And this understanding
Speaker 7: of the law of sea and salvage law, which by
Speaker 7: the way dates back five thousand years five thousand years
Speaker 7: to Rodean times. That's when this concept that something that
Speaker 7: is lost in the ocean that has an original owner,
Speaker 7: you don't lose those ownership rights. They extend in perpetuity
Speaker 7: and if somebody comes along to salvage it, well, they
Speaker 7: have a claim against it. It's not a claim of ownership,
Speaker 7: it's a claim of salvage that they will be rewarded
Speaker 7: reimbursed for their efforts.
Speaker 6: For recovering and salvaging that material.
Speaker 3: I've learned two things, Peter. One, no statue of the
Speaker 3: limitations if it's in the water. Two anything you and
Speaker 3: I discard from now on, just freg it in the
Speaker 3: world in the water in case it comes up. One
Speaker 3: hundred years of my parts, those are my pedroid genes.
Speaker 3: We're out of style. But you know what, if they're back,
Speaker 3: those are mine.
Speaker 2: So yeah, who was so in your world? Are there pirates?
Speaker 2: Is their murder? Is their deception? Is there all kinds
Speaker 2: of because I mean, who has those rights? Because Jason
Speaker 2: I thought.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure there are people who plunder these
Speaker 4: some of these wrecks and just take the gold and
Speaker 4: don't tell anybody. I don't know how hard it is
Speaker 4: to sell it on eBay or anywhere, because then people
Speaker 4: can identify it and go, oh, that's from the SSS
Speaker 4: sch Minitser or whatever it is, and you go, who's
Speaker 4: the guy who did it? And they track it back,
Speaker 4: which is how the people from Antiques Roadshow got in trouble,
Speaker 4: because they traced it to who had it, who got it,
Speaker 4: where it went, and then all of a sudden you're
Speaker 4: in jail.
Speaker 2: Is that world. Have you run across that?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, I've I've I've been through it all?
Speaker 2: Is that world? Have you run across that?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, I've, I've been through it all.
Speaker 7: I mean one of the I remember one of the
Speaker 7: first jobs I did off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia,
Speaker 7: and I went out to see looking with these guys.
Speaker 7: I was the sona operator and they were looking for
Speaker 7: some Spanish ship I did.
Speaker 6: They didn't tell us what it was, but.
Speaker 7: I remember that they they were all joining the ship
Speaker 7: at the last moment, and it turned out we went
Speaker 7: out in a very bad storm.
Speaker 6: So half of them were seasick.
Speaker 7: But they all were wearing Rolexes and one had a
Speaker 7: plane rolex, one had one with diamonds, one had one
Speaker 7: with rubies. And we didn't even know these guys' names.
Speaker 7: We'd just say which one is that with the rubies
Speaker 7: with the diamonds, And they were just useless at sea,
Speaker 7: and they all got sick, and.
Speaker 6: I don't think they ever found anything.
Speaker 7: But I've I've had those pipes, and so yes, we
Speaker 7: do have still today, even though there's been crackdowns and
Speaker 7: the laws are changing, the archeological community has been very
Speaker 7: good about getting an international agreement for the protection of
Speaker 7: underwater cultural heritage in place that across the world, in
Speaker 7: about sixty countries or more, that is the law of
Speaker 7: the day. There are people still finding shipwrecks, secretly recovering
Speaker 7: the cargoes and selling it on the black market. And
Speaker 7: mainly that's happening in the Far East. It happens a
Speaker 7: lot in the Philippines, it happens in China. When that happens,
Speaker 7: nothing is learned by society. A ship with say a
Speaker 7: huge cargo of ming porcelain, thousands of pieces, would all
Speaker 7: be dispersed around the world, never recorded, never photographed, never,
Speaker 7: We don't learn anything.
Speaker 6: It's just dispersed and sold on the black market.
Speaker 7: In terms of piracy, the piracy we have today is
Speaker 7: just the basic piracy of going to see are there
Speaker 7: a couple of hotspots around the world where you have
Speaker 7: to be prepared for pirates. So I've had personal bodyguards,
Speaker 7: I've been transferred to whole ships are covered with razor
Speaker 7: wire and you're getting on board and they say to you,
Speaker 7: if anybody attacks us, you go down into the citadel
Speaker 7: of the ship, and then they have armed people on board.
Speaker 7: So I've been through all of that, but I've never,
Speaker 7: luckily it never had an incident.
Speaker 3: Wow, Peter, watch his face. I'm going to say something.
Speaker 3: Watch his face. See if he reacts.
Speaker 2: Look at me. Look at me. I am the captain.
Speaker 2: Now I am thet He's looking at you with pathetically.
Speaker 3: You went there, Yeah, they hey, get on the boat
Speaker 3: with the razor wire.
Speaker 8: That told the razor Paul Allen. The Paul Allen boat
Speaker 8: you were on, Was that with the razor wire? No, Christ, No,
Speaker 8: they wouldn't. They wouldn't dare put razor wire on octopus.
Speaker 7: But I when I was with all one time we
Speaker 7: were in the Philippines in an area that was a
Speaker 7: bit questionable, and I had my own I had to
Speaker 7: go on land to actually interview somebody who we were
Speaker 7: searching for a World War two shipwreck, and there was
Speaker 7: somebody who's still alive who was actually alive when he
Speaker 7: saw this shipping attack, so he may have had some information.
Speaker 7: So I was verried asured to actually interview him. And
Speaker 7: I had my own personal bodyguard on that trip.
Speaker 2: So I like that.
Speaker 6: But again nothing happened.
Speaker 4: The guy by the way that he interviewed. The bigger
Speaker 4: memory from him was I met what is it like
Speaker 4: hanging with the guy who created Microsoft.
Speaker 7: Well, Paul was a you know, a great person in
Speaker 7: our industry because he did so much in a short
Speaker 7: period of time, and sadly he's left a fantastic legacy.
Speaker 7: But sadly, you know, he didn't get to see the
Speaker 7: fruits of what would have gone on for a very
Speaker 7: long time at a time he was passionately interested in
Speaker 7: the sea. He was very interested in World War two specifically,
Speaker 7: he found so many, so many wrecks and very important ones.
Speaker 7: It was a real privilege to work for him, work
Speaker 7: with his team of people and to go to see
Speaker 7: One of the highlights of working with Octopus was that
Speaker 7: we were able to recover the bell of HMS Hood.
Speaker 7: And Hood was the battle cruiser, the British battle cruiser
Speaker 7: that was sunk by the Bismarck in nineteen forty one
Speaker 7: during the war. It's the largest single loss in British
Speaker 7: maritime history. Four hundred and fifteen men were killed, only
Speaker 7: three survived. And so everybody in England, if you talk
Speaker 7: to families, almost invariably you'll meet somebody, Oh, I had
Speaker 7: a great uncle on Hood, I had a relative on Hood.
Speaker 7: So it is the most important, probably single British casualty
Speaker 7: during the war. It's the one time people say of
Speaker 7: that age, I was really frightened that we could lose
Speaker 7: the war when Hood was sunk. It was a very
Speaker 7: bad month in forty one. And after I found the
Speaker 7: wreck in two thousand and one and then hooked up
Speaker 7: with Paul Allen, he said, you know, we'd like to
Speaker 7: if we can, like to be able to recover the bell.
Speaker 7: It was a very very unique opportunity where we were
Speaker 7: given special permission because this is a massive war grave,
Speaker 7: the biggest of all time massive war grave from the
Speaker 7: British perspective, that we were allowed to go down and
Speaker 7: on very special permission recover that bell, not from where
Speaker 7: anybody was entombed. We don't see any bodies, there's nothing
Speaker 7: like that. The bell was outside the main wreckage in
Speaker 7: an open area, but we saw it, we recovered it.
Speaker 7: It's now been conserved. It's in a memorial here in
Speaker 7: Portsmouth at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and
Speaker 7: it's literally a touchdowne. For the first years that it
Speaker 7: was on display, people would come and touch it and
Speaker 7: connect themselves to their relative in some tangible physical way.
Speaker 7: And I've seen that happen many many times, and people
Speaker 7: still write to me about how important that was, so
Speaker 7: gorgeous and for Paul to have been able to do
Speaker 7: that for my country here was a very special thing
Speaker 7: that's gorgeous.
Speaker 4: As we wrap up, can I ask you about the
Speaker 4: Titan submersible, because there's new information, for instance, about we
Speaker 4: heard it when immediately we didn't know what happened, Then
Speaker 4: we heard it went it was an immediate event, then
Speaker 4: we heard maybe not. The latest is maybe it wasn't
Speaker 4: an immediate event. Do you have a take on that
Speaker 4: since you've worked with some mercibles and I know if
Speaker 4: you know the people who were doing it tight.
Speaker 7: To the people on board were friends of mine, Phnrsala
Speaker 7: and Hamish Harding. So that was one of the worst
Speaker 7: weeks ever last year when when we found out what
Speaker 7: was going on.
Speaker 6: And listen, that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 7: At that depth of water, when you have a catastrophic
Speaker 7: implosion like what happened based on what you could see
Speaker 7: of the wreckage, it happens instantaneously, in microseconds. Now, this
Speaker 7: submersible was built in a way that it had sensors
Speaker 7: in the hull that could actually tell you it had
Speaker 7: some problems. Also, apparently, based on previous eyes, the hull
Speaker 7: actually made noise. All of these things, frankly, are ridiculously
Speaker 7: bad things to know that your hull is making this noise,
Speaker 7: or that it has to be built with sensors in
Speaker 7: it to give you an idea of when it's going
Speaker 7: to implode. These things should be built that there's never
Speaker 7: ever a chance of imploding. And that's the way, up
Speaker 7: until this incident, our industry is practiced because for fact,
Speaker 7: no other submersible, deep diving submersible has ever felt like
Speaker 7: this in history, because this one was built completely against
Speaker 7: all rules.
Speaker 6: So while they.
Speaker 7: May have been aware that maybe they heard this cracking,
Speaker 7: maybe these sensors did sound an alarm, nobody's ever going
Speaker 7: to know that because the only people whould know that
Speaker 7: are the five people who are on board who are
Speaker 7: now dead. And I can assure you when that moment came,
Speaker 7: it was so instantaneous they would have never known about it.
Speaker 7: And for me personally, who knowing two of these people,
Speaker 7: I'm relieved by that, and I and I hope the
Speaker 7: families realize that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah are our condolences.
Speaker 3: We're so sorry, for the loss of everyone on the
Speaker 3: Titan submersible, including your friends. I want to ask you
Speaker 3: what's still out.
Speaker 2: There that you dream about.
Speaker 3: What's what's what's the great white whale that you love
Speaker 3: to find?
Speaker 7: My children say, Daddy, you can't stop until you find
Speaker 7: this ship. It's called the Empire Windrush. It's a British
Speaker 7: vessel that was used by the Department for Transport. It
Speaker 7: sank in nineteen fifty four because of a fire while
Speaker 7: it was transiting the Western Mediterranean, with very large passengers
Speaker 7: of British servicemen and their families coming home favaris to England.
Speaker 7: But the real historical importance of the wind Rush was
Speaker 7: that it was the first ship that brought the first
Speaker 7: wave of Afro Caribbean immigrants from Jamaica and the Caribbean
Speaker 7: to the UK in nineteen forty eight, and from that
Speaker 7: moment all the way up until the early seventies, about
Speaker 7: a half a million Afro Caribbean immigrants came to England,
Speaker 7: and frankly, they weren't even immigrants. They were Commonwealth citizens
Speaker 7: that were encouraged to repatriate back or come to England
Speaker 7: to rebuild the country after the war.
Speaker 6: They were needed.
Speaker 7: They were needed as nurses, they were needed as bus drivers,
Speaker 7: they were needed mainly working class jobs to rebuild the country.
Speaker 7: You could look at that day in the summer of
Speaker 7: nineteen forty eight when that ship arrived and literally that
Speaker 7: is a milestone.
Speaker 6: It's a historical marker.
Speaker 7: That changed England for it to becoming a true multicultural society.
Speaker 7: If any of your listeners type into Google Empire wind Rush,
Speaker 7: a picture will appear. I can guarantee it.
Speaker 6: It's the first picture.
Speaker 7: It's of the ship. It's the stern of the ship.
Speaker 7: It says Empire wind Rush, it says London underneath, and
Speaker 7: you have a bunch of men on the railings, all
Speaker 7: with their hands up. And what that symbolizes these people
Speaker 7: coming to a new country, starting a new life. And
Speaker 7: in the center of that image is an anchor. What
Speaker 7: we plan on doing is finding the wind Rush recovery,
Speaker 7: bring that anchor, conserving it and making it the centerpiece
Speaker 7: of a national monument to the contributions that Windrush generation
Speaker 7: have made to this country. Because they have been overlooked,
Speaker 7: they have been treated very poorly, and that historical milestone
Speaker 7: needs to be recognized and acknowledged and celebrated.
Speaker 2: And give it relevance.
Speaker 7: And if I can do anything else in my career,
Speaker 7: I've found twenty nine major shipwrecks.
Speaker 6: If that's the thirtieth and I find no more, I'm happy.
Speaker 2: Bravo. We well hopefully you find it all right.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much. Thanks for what you're doing, David.
Speaker 4: What a fascinating world. Man.
Speaker 2: Be safe and we'll talk to you when you find
Speaker 2: that shipwreck. When you find that would be thrilling. If
Speaker 2: you find it with the first stop, first stop, right, first.
Speaker 6: Stop in Los Angeles, I'll tell you that Jersey.
Speaker 2: I'll meet you back in Jersey. So much. Hey, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us. What a pleasure. Take care. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was I knew it would be interesting. I didn't
Speaker 2: know if that movement.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's the difference between what you
Speaker 3: think of as as a bounty hunter, you know, which
Speaker 3: doesn't really have an emotional component to it, to.
Speaker 2: A guy like that who goes I want to I want.
Speaker 3: I got very moved when he said people come to
Speaker 3: touch that bell because that is their connection to people
Speaker 3: that they loved and lost. That is extraordinary to give
Speaker 3: somebody the gift of that connection.
Speaker 4: And this thing, this thing that we do, which is
Speaker 4: pretty interesting. You and I talked about this a lot.
Speaker 4: Why do we do it? Why are we doing this whatever?
Speaker 4: It always sneaks up on it a lot of times. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the guy who had the Forgiveness Institute and and things
Speaker 4: that guy bringing back to Williams and.
Speaker 3: Why and even things that we think are going to
Speaker 3: be relatively silly, like you know, the teaching the dogs
Speaker 3: to push the push buttons, but then hearing at least
Speaker 3: what seems to be the.
Speaker 2: Expression of emotions and feelings the dog that new twelve
Speaker 2: hundred different works in this one.
Speaker 3: It just makes you if anything we do just makes
Speaker 3: you look at these things with a little more of
Speaker 3: a oh, you know my assumption of what this was,
Speaker 3: it's different, isn't right? Even if it just makes us
Speaker 3: think from now and again, we're not that smart.
Speaker 4: Also, that's the really no really for me where you
Speaker 4: go wow, really no really. As I started researching this,
Speaker 4: I got to the ha and pirates and submercibles and stuff,
Speaker 4: and then you go to the point that it's a
Speaker 4: graveyard that thousands of people are down there. They have
Speaker 4: families and this is their final resting place. And there
Speaker 4: was one event and they knew it was happening, and
Speaker 4: then they went down with their stuff. And when he says,
Speaker 4: you can find out from what they carried in their pockets,
Speaker 4: they found jars with urine specimens. They found the Titanic
Speaker 4: has a museum. They found jars with your jars with
Speaker 4: your encamples. And I don't know how bad was ahead.
Speaker 4: I think they call it. I don't think there was
Speaker 4: a hatch. I don't think there was a head. And
Speaker 4: we never asked why it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't a sample it was. I don't want to. I
Speaker 2: think be on the floor. I'll go in this jar.
Speaker 4: I'm guessing four hundred years ago there were no flush toilets.
Speaker 4: I think you guess you hung here, you know what,
Speaker 4: over the railing or whatever. So so yeah, all right,
Speaker 4: so yeah, David, So let's go to what your thoughts,
Speaker 4: mister googen Hut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before we go in, before we find it. By
Speaker 2: the way, you're in Florida.
Speaker 3: If there's gotta beam, it's good stuff around you.
Speaker 2: Yes, take take it.
Speaker 3: Take a shovel and a and a pail and get
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: Shovel and a pail.
Speaker 4: He takes its good swimming every week it gets hit
Speaker 4: by a piece of driftbood from a shipwreck.
Speaker 2: He's getting hit. He's got to hit with a capitalisting.
Speaker 3: If you let it wash up on the sand, yeah,
Speaker 3: all is well, let it dry off, Let it dry off.
Speaker 3: It's your right if it's if it's my feet in
Speaker 3: the water, you know, if somebody walks by in trips
Speaker 3: and it falls in the water, all kinds of international
Speaker 3: trips Spain.
Speaker 9: I actually have a closet I've written on it by
Speaker 9: Benendez and that's where I put all the bars.
Speaker 2: I got it. I got it.
Speaker 4: And by the way, Hoovers does not have gold bars
Speaker 4: in the clothes. I know for the gold exactly. They're
Speaker 4: just so heavy.
Speaker 9: Yes, the genesis and the date on the head on
Speaker 9: a ship.
Speaker 2: Really all right?
Speaker 3: So just what was the genesis of the head, ladies
Speaker 3: and gentlemen here on?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 3: No, really the genesis and there's probably a stone in
Speaker 3: the head, is my guess.
Speaker 2: Because you say one.
Speaker 4: We're talking if you suck hard, not say it one
Speaker 4: more time, clearly, because this is going viral.
Speaker 9: The term head, of course, refers to a ship's toilet.
Speaker 2: It dates backed with least seventeen oh eight.
Speaker 9: So when you were on a ship back then, what
Speaker 9: would you have to do to use that set head?
Speaker 9: It was typically placed at the head of the ship.
Speaker 2: Sure, near the base of the bow spread.
Speaker 9: Sure, we're splashing waters to naturally clean the toilet area.
Speaker 2: Oh that's lovey.
Speaker 3: So why isn't it called the bow spit equally grotesque?
Speaker 2: And yeah, I don't know, get to point something out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so if you're going to the bathroom in the bows, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's cleansed by the splashing of water.
Speaker 2: I'm just now going back. I'm also guessing why you're
Speaker 2: sitting there doing your business. You're also being cleansed by whatever.
Speaker 3: By the way, it also means someone in the rear
Speaker 3: of the boat is going Is someone in the head?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Did you see it floated by the window?
Speaker 2: Someone's in the head? How it is soaking wet? What happened?
Speaker 2: Went to the bath it's a natural bedett it is?
Speaker 2: You're with the ocean.
Speaker 3: Well, thank god we got that out of the beautiful
Speaker 3: I saved the bell.
Speaker 2: People have closure. We now know we lost out. He went,
Speaker 2: I went to the bathroom. Happened? Rogue ware? All right,
Speaker 2: thank you, David.
Speaker 4: So as a piece of trivia BEFO where we go out.
Speaker 4: The elderly couple that was arrested is also famous because
Speaker 4: they were on the first cruise ship to be quarantined
Speaker 4: for COVID and several thousand people got second next ship
Speaker 4: and several hundred died, So they were on that ship too,
Speaker 4: and and and.
Speaker 2: I think they would learn to stay away from the water.
Speaker 4: No more inland, Let's go inland. Well, thank you for
Speaker 4: being with us here for another episode of Really No Really,
Speaker 4: and we will see you next time with God's help hopefully.
Speaker 2: Hello, No really, Hello, and.
Speaker 4: There nothing fone boy.
Speaker 1: That's another episode of Really No Really.
Speaker 2: He comes to a close.
Speaker 1: I know you're wondering, what are the most lucrative shipwrecks
Speaker 1: ever discovered? Well, that treasure will be revealed in a moment,
Speaker 1: but first, thank our guest David Mearns. You can follow
Speaker 1: David on x where he is at David L. Merns,
Speaker 1: or check in on him at his website Bluewater Recoveries
Speaker 1: or Bluewater dot uk dot com. Find all pertinent links
Speaker 1: in our show notes, our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and threads at Really No Really Podcasts and of course
Speaker 1: you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online
Speaker 1: at reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some
Speaker 1: amazing factor story that boggles your mind, share it with
Speaker 1: us and if we use it, we will send you
Speaker 1: a little gift. Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the
Speaker 1: thought that counts. Check out our full episodes on YouTube,
Speaker 1: hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're
Speaker 1: updated when we release new videos and episodes.
Speaker 2: Which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 1: So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 1: podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: And now the answer to the question what are.
Speaker 1: The most lucrative shipwrecks ever discovered? Easily the most famous
Speaker 1: the RMS Tight the recoverable items from the Titanic netted
Speaker 1: a worth of two hundred and eighteen million dollars. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, German submarines torpedoed the SS Gersappa, a
Speaker 1: British merchant vessel transporting seven million ounces of silver from
Speaker 1: Kolkatta to London. In twenty thirteen, the ship was salvaged
Speaker 1: and its valuable cargo netted two hundred and ten million
Speaker 1: dollars and topping them all the San Jose.
Speaker 2: As discussed on this episode.
Speaker 1: This ship is the subject of international controversy. The ship
Speaker 1: lies nearly two thousand feet under the surface, but research
Speaker 1: shows that its bounty remains in pristine condition. It is
Speaker 1: easy to see why the vessel's ownership rights are in dispute,
Speaker 1: as the contents of the wreck are estimated to be
Speaker 1: valued at seventeen to twenty billion dollars, all of which
Speaker 1: makes me think maybe a boat and some sonar are
Speaker 1: a good investment. Actually, so I'm setting sail really. Noreally's
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