1715 Treasure Fleet

The account

Eleven ships, a year's treasure of an empire, and one July hurricane. By dawn the Florida shore was a graveyard of masts and a thousand drowned sailors, and Spain's silver lay strewn along fifty miles of surf. Three hundred years on, a good storm still peels back the sand and leaves doubloons shining in the wrack line. They call it the Treasure Coast for a reason. The reason keeps washing up.

Leads, where the trail points now

• A Spanish fleet of eleven ships wrecked in a 1715 hurricane along Florida's Treasure Coast; coins still wash onto the beaches after storms.
• The wreck sites are leased salvage zones held under state permit, so in-water searching is restricted; but finds on the public beach from Sebastian to Fort Pierce after a nor'easter are the realistic, legal lead.
• Galleon scatter from the fleet runs for miles offshore; storms keep re-exposing it, so timing a beach walk to the weather is the whole game.