Home page

About Alan Riebe, the author

My interests in the maritime past began nearly 37 years ago, when living on the island of Puerto Rico, I began diving at the age of 13. Starting first as a lobster and shell diver, I naturally became intrigued with shipwrecks and sunken treasure. Then one day while spear-fishing, I accidentally discovered the worm-eaten remains of a long lost ship, and from that time the course of my life, although leading in winding paths that would take me far from the sea, eventually led back again in 1978.

In that year, my inborn love of adventure was inspired by news of recoveries of extraordinary sunken treasures by a daring new breed of undersea explorers, chiefly the late world-famous treasure hunters Mel Fisher and Fay Feild.

From the beginning, having learned that any good "hunt" first needed historical research, I zealously began searching archival institutions for documentation on Spanish treasure fleets. It wasn’t long before I discovered that one such fleet had encountered a hurricane in the year 1750, and that several ships traveling to Spain with it, had wrecked on the Virginia coast. Meanwhile others, including the treasure laden El Salvador, had perished on the remote storm-beaten shores of North Carolina.

In 1980, by then having unearthed compelling research information from various archives, I began mobilizing an expedition to search for a Spanish man-of-war named the La Galga. This ship had served as an armed escort for the now famous 1750 fleet. However, after two years of hassling with government red-tape, my efforts were squashed by career bureaucrats. At that time I turned my attention to the El Salvador which I had continued researching, for I knew from information contained in American colonial records, that its cargo was immensely rare and valuable.*

After moving to North Carolina to begin my exploration for the El Salvador off the shores of Cape Lookout, I found little time to continue adding to my shipwreck files. Although, later in 1989, I was able to catch up on old notes and my personal archival collection gradually grew in size. In the outgrowth, four books were produced and of the ship’s presented therein, it’s impossible to know the full extent of treasures and rich merchandise laying lost in their sunken hulls. Certainly however, the sediments of the Seven Seas will surely remain richly bejeweled with unclaimed fortunes for many centuries to come.

"Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men." Moral Essays