Lucky Breaks continued...

Byron and I never made any films, but we had one heck of a good time trying to. He was primarily a writer and was able to research several stories and come up with some great scripts. They made the circuit in H land but no one took the bait. Through Byron though, I met the man that brought up the first gold off the Atocha
shipwreck. As part of his settlement with Fisher he received 11 treasure maps as part of his pay for his efforts in the operation. Byron had spoken with him about the possibilities of making a series on the recovery of the bounty from the wrecks. I met Byron in Hilton Head S.C. and we drove to Florida to meet with Rick, the mapman. While there he showed us a video that had been taken of his crew plotting and mapping an area that gave readings to the location of some metal under the sand. As expected as they dug below the waterline on the island the hole started to fill and they had to bring in sump pump to remove the water as the digging continued.Soon the pump quit and the digging had to stop so the pump could be taken in for repairs. The hole was filled up and all parties sworn to secrecy and a date was made to reconvene to start the dig again.Before the pump was returned Rick got a letter from the owner of the island telling him his lease was up and not to return to the island under the threat of arrest. Rick didn't go back, but through the Salvage rumor mill, the story was that one of the men went back and left the island with 10 "milk crates" full of silver. Byron and I were teething at the bit.

We then went outside to try to see what one of the metal locator instruments looked like and how it worked. It looked like a raygun from a zzzz grade 1950's Space Flick. I had never seen such a dumb looking device in my life. I was skeptical to say the least as Rick gave it to Byron to try out. He explained that it would "bump" when aimed in the direction of the metal showing the holder the location of the source. My BS O Meter was pegged out. Byron couldn't seem to feel any bump so he handed it to me.Gripping it I slowly waved it across Ricks backyard and just passing a tree I FELT A BUMP ! Tried it again and the same thing happened. We all walked to the tree and behind it was a pile of silver bars. The hook was set.

To fund the exploratory work on the series we needed money. We came up with the idea of having an auction in Atlantic City of Bounty taken from past sunken ships as there was great interest at the time due to the recovery of the Atocha. Byron lined it up and Rick got the other salvage people involved. We were to take a percentage of the total for our efforts. The night before the event a cocktail meet and greet was held at the casino for the prospective buyers and the salvage people with displays of coins and other bounty. The next afternoon people were milling around but as the auction started the crowd thinned. The sales were a bust and we barely made enough to cover the hospitality the night before. Byron called and told me the news....we had forgotten one small thing....we were dealing with PIRATES !! While the auction was going on in the Casino, the largest amount of booty was being sold out of car trunks in the parking lot !!! Live and learn...