"Theres more sunken gold and silver in the waters of the philippines than anywhere else on earth" "Centuries of trade have littered the sea-bed with treasure" "And I can see at Ieast forty boxes of gold" "This is a story of tragedies of the past and one mans journey in search of his fortune" "Youve got to keep going and going you never quit" "If youre a quitter dont apply for a job in this game" "Steve Sargison a commercial diver from sheffield has packed in his business and put his house on the line" "Hes leaving behind a 25 year career as a salvage expert for a shot at the big time" "Hes going to the philippines to search for one of the greatest treasure ships that ever sailed" "Its a fair trek but it is a place where there is more opportunities to find sunken vessels old sailing ships clippers schooners manila gaIIeons - its all there" "Weve already found a couple of targets" "Were going straight - all the way from england" " straight onto a target then well be into the really enjoyable bit which is locating all the things and recovering all the artefacts" "Steves first destination is the tiny philippine atoII of the Panagatan Cays" "In this remote spot hell join a team on the hunt for the Esperanza a ship which sank in 1 806 on her way to Mexico" "Its believed she carried a cargo of almost unimaginable wealth" "Ten years ago the discovery of valuable porcelain by a seaweed fisherman came to the attention of ex-US Navy officer Dempsey Pagan" "His research suggested that forty-four manila gaIIeons had been lost in philippine waters during the time of the Spanish Empire and that the Esperanza had sunk near the island" "Oh weve got some more pieces here of the porcelain that weve been picking up for the Iast ten years off that reef" "And its amazing theres still a Iot of it left I tell you" "It was a major discovery to tell you the truth" "That told us now that definitely there was a big shipwreck here somewhere and the age of the porcelain is of the same era of the Esperanza" "which meant that this could be cargo from the Esperanza so I was excited Very excited" "Inspired by the discovery Dempsey has now gathered together an international team of adventurers determined to find the Esperanza" "Not far from where the porcelain" "lay a meticulous search is being led by oil man daniel Jason" "The Esperanza herself was carrying approximately we believe somewhere in the order of 450 to US$500 million worth of cargo and some of that was certainly spices and silks but the majority of it wouId have been bullion being shipped out to acapulco in Mexico" "A ship like this would have carried exquisite gold jewellery;" "huge amounts of fine Chinese porcelain;" "silver coins and the finest silver tableware" "It was the most lucrative trade in the world" "The team have hired the Vasco an old KGB spy ship from Vietnam" "Fitted to this relic of the cold War is some of the most advanced American scanning equipment" "This caesium gas magnetometer recently declassified by the Pentagon is only one of a handful in the world;" "and it will detect any iron debris on the sea-bed" "In a few weeks these waters will be among the best mapped in the world" "The magnetometer has found metal in a shallow site" "Two of the team decide to investigate" "5 metres down the sea-bed is strewn with dead coral" "Fishermen have dynamited it in the search for food" "Through the gloom the divers scour the debris for any sign of a wreck" "After a few minutes the first sign of something manmade" "A piece of metallic sheeting encrusted with coral" "A short distance away the divers find a massive iron anchor from a Iarge ship" "could it have been dropped by the" "Esperanza as she struggled on the reef 1 93 years ago" "A promising wreck site and just in time" "Now that Steve Sargisons finally arrived after a battering voyage" "ItII be his first priority" "This is the closest ship design and structure to the one were actually" "looking for at the moment" "The Esperanza started life as a Portuguese frigate before being bought by manila merchants in 1 806" "Steve is anxious that everyone knows what to look for" "Just to give you an idea on the huge area of sail that well be" "looking at even for a small vessel" "like this so youve got the masts there they would be huge I mean they would be made of several trees clamped and bolted together" "But Im just trying to work in comparative scale with the guys in the bottom Ieft-hand corner there" "Just look at the huge sail area" "AII that is down there somewhere" "And it just depends on whether youre lucky that its all sunk in one piece or whether shes been smashed and scattered" "But somewhere on the sea-bed whether its within 50 metres 1 00 metres or or miles its down there somewhere and it can be located" "At the nearby port of San Jose" "Steve is taking on a team of fifteen" "filipino divers" "For the next few weeks theyII work with him on an intensive archaeological excavation" "Apart from the anchors the wreck is entirely buried beneath sand and coral" "But before they can start digging up the sea-bed every inch of the site must be mapped" "If it is the Esperanza it could take years to excavate completely" "According to the archives it was a clear December night in 1 806 as the richly laden Esperanza began the yearly run across the Pacific across to Mexico" "unusually she had orders to detour through the poorly charted SuIu Sea" "At 3 oclock in the morning with a strong wind in her sails the watch sighted water breaking on a reef directly ahead" "The crew struggled to turn the ship away but it was too late and the Esperanza ran aground" "The survivors took refuge on the bleak volcanic island of Panagatan" "But when morning broke the Esperanza has vanished" "Using an air-Iift a basic tool of maritime archaeology Steve is now ready to start uncovering the wreck" "When youre air-Iifting youre always expecting that any second now somethings gonna produce and it could be absolutely packed with beautiful porcelain silverware gold jewellery its just completely the unknown" "This particular site we only got some basic indications as to what it may be we dont know whether its english Spanish Portuguese" "We dont know whats on it" "As they excavate fragments of charred pIanking begin to emerge from the site a suggestion of a violent end" "surprisingly even some of the rigging has survived" "Back on the Vasco each artefact will be painstakingly recorded" "So were logging everything in a digital photograph form" "Oh this is actually we believe part of a sail" "Yeah so what do you reckon it was all wine or" "Larry alba an archaeologist from the national Museum thinks there may be a clue in the glassware similar dark green glass bottles from an 1 8th Century" "english shipwreck" "So this is a heavy boom" "So this is obviously the wooden stock here theres the barrel its like" "Muskets military hardware will almost certainly help identify who was on this ship the underside and that may be the cleaner" "Then another tantalising clue" "Steve finds a piece of coral with an impression of a cannon-baII" "But theres no sign of a cannon" "Looks to be a rifle sight" "And on the other hand yeah looks like yeah looks like a badge of buckle buckIe-piece" "Yeah could always be the signature of some description" "The divers are now bringing up military badges and a variety of musket parts" "Evidence that this ship carried troops" "The question is were they Spanish" "Many of the artefacts have been bent by force again suggesting a violent wreck" "What tragedy befell these people" "And who exactly were they" "Right Were sending these pieces back now to the UK back to some experts so presumably weve got some interesting pieces that may bring information side-Iocks of the firearms weve got the trigger guards off the firearms they might be able to give us some glean of information" "But this is what Im most pleased about finding Were almost certain theyre gonna find information out about the wreck from this" "There must be somewhere information relating to the regiment that this cap badge was designed for" "On the other side of the world in London two leading authorities on military artefacts attempt to identify the wreck" "With so little to go on its quite a challenge for historians David" "Harding and Doctor DeWitt bailey" "David owns a collection of muskets originally used by the private armies of the British East India" "Company during the Iast century" "The pieces from the wreck match exactly" "This musket is one made specifically for the East India Company in London known as Bakers Pattern because the gun-maker most involved in developing the design was called IzikhiI Baker" "It was first manufactured for the East India Company in 1 81 9 and last in 1 839" "So this wreck cant be before 1 81 9" "So the wreck cant be the Esperanza" "The muskets were made at Ieast 1 3 years after she sank" "Its a disappointment for Steve and the team" "while the experts try to work out what the British were doing here the search for the Esperanza must now move to the next target" "But theres more bad news a typhoon is heading their way" "At the moment the divers are just tidying up the site" "The weathers on the turn" "Weve got a typhoon warning coming in" "This particular areas gonna get quite lively over the next few days and also weve been shown another site around to the north which looks extremely promising" "Site two is on the other side of the reef near the main island" "Its another intriguing target and fits in with the Esperanzas likely route from manila" "The typhoon rumbIes on" "A costly hoId-up for the project" "Back in the milder climate of england one mystery has at last been solved" "well the good news is that weve had a positive identification on these waist-beIt buckles that there have been several examples recovered from the wreck and it appears that they were worn by the Madras Native" "Infantry regiments just at the period of this wreck" "The British Empire in Asia depended on mercenary soldiers like these fighting for British interests" "And theres another clue on a tiny fragment of rifle butt the letters" "GR -short for grenadier and the top half of the number 37" "Its unmistakable" "And this ties in perfectly with the 37th Madras Native Infantry who were one of the regiments sent to China in 1 840" "The British Library archives reveal that the 37th Grenadiers sailed from" "Madras on the 20th August 1 840" "On board a ship called the GoIcondah 500 men were on their way to attack" "China to protect Britains highly profitable trade in opium" "It was a war the Empire would win easily" "But a shameful chapter in British history" "Before the GoIcondah reached China a fierce typhoon blew up and the ship was never seen again" "It now seems that she was blown off course and ended up on the remote" "Panagatan Cays" "Lost for 1 60 years the GoIcondah has finally been found" "Two weeks later the hunt for the" "Esperanza moves north to site two" "The new site is close to a much deeper target picked up by the survey" "They could both be part of the same wreck" "The position of the anchors fits with the theory that the Esperanza first hit the reef then drifted out and sank in deep water" "Dempsey is checking the data again" "There appears to be a trail of debris leading out from the site to a Iarge object 1 20 metres down" "In the wake of the typhoon the sea is still rough and work is slow adding to the projects mounting costs" "Every single man dive at the moment is costing US $700 per man per dive" "So at the moment every time you guys put a bottle on your back thats 700 bucks down the blue" "We have to get that figure down" "It should be more like US 200/250 per dive Yeah" "And at the end of the day if we don't become more efficient then obviously as you already heard the whole thing will be off" "So its in your own interests weve got to make the effort" "Desperate for new evidence the team decide to investigate a report that the locals have already found artefacts from the site" "Its not very much at all actually" "Whats the first letter" " C" "G G G" "G G G" "A A" "I think this is a Z for zebra" "Zebra" "Its cast in one single piece with definitely some gear wheel relief here" "Okay Weve got something called" "GaIbraith and something that looks like Dundee So its not Portuguese" "These look suspiciously like maybe boiler doors" "In which case maybe weve got an iron-cIad vessel or certainly after the Esperanza Interesting" "And another mystery" "Its a mystery" "When they return from the island the divers have some interesting news" "alright anything new" "surprisingly we found a plank of wood near where the encrusted with" "Evidence of a wooden ship could mean there are wrecks from two different periods on the same site" "How wide did you get to work so far" "We did somehow about roughly 75 centimetres" "Oh fantastic" "Cos Im gonna get my outfit and Im gonna go diving" "Okay Good" "Have I still got my dive gear there" "Oh they dont have my dive gear" "Anyway you guys go ahead" "The philippines leading maritime archaeologist Doctor Eusabio Dezon has now joined the project and is keen to see the new find" "He is here to safeguard the interests of the philippine government and to check that the work is done correctly" "That pIanking is about 3 to 4 metres long and about 2 metresabout 1 metres wide" "It could be a part of a keeIson" "Sure enough there is a sizeable section of planking" "It seems possible that this could be part of the Esperanzas keel the area which would have been struck first as she smashed onto the reef" "Theres a Iarge wooden structure about that wide and about 3 metres long something like that" "That is the keelson" "I think you might be right" "She broke her back do you remember" "Yeah" "She broke her back" "That could beand that one curves in so that could be like a bow part that comes in" "I am 95% now its Esperanza" "No longer 90% now its 95%" "Its a promising sight with the woods and now some metals" "Yeah We were disappointed when we saw the rivets in a steal plate but then" "That could be from another boat I think" "Yeah Yes" "It may not be a part of these wooden parts" "No No" "They must now follow the debris trail into the deep But in order to excavate at a depth of 1 20 metres theyII need a sophisticated Remote Operated vehicle at a cost of $1 5000 a day" "We are now first week of August the projects been running since the Iast week of March effectively so a Iong long haul into the project" "Weve expended to date about US $800000 out of a total budget of 1 85 million for this phase" "At the moment we have two vessels here both of which are operating at an efficiency of less than 50% and some fairly serious decisions have got to be made" "Were going to probably end up downsizing the diving operations" "As I say the money to bring in the ROV to do the deep water excavation" "The financial situation doesnt improve" "In September the entire operation is suspended" "Steve and all of the divers are released" "daniel and Dempsey will go back to their day jobs and try to raise the $800000 needed to investigate the deep targets" "But what of Steve Sargison" "Far from home he must now try to find a lucrative wreck of his own" "We actually packed our entire business in as a commercial diving company and everything to come here" "We have no other income" "We have to be successful of what we do because moneys draining arteriaIIy from my account and we need to find something to keep my bank managers sense of humour" "Steve has information about a wrecked manila gaIIeon on the other side of the philippines" "But the search permit wont be available for four months" "He urgently needs to find something now" "locals tell of an unusual wreck from world War II" "In the early 1 940s as war engulfed the philippines the Japanese were transporting huge amounts of stolen allied gold to the islands" "One of these ships - the Cudamaru was bombed by American planes and sank in deep water off the island of Cebu" "There were no survivors" "A few years ago three local divers were killed as they tried to recover the gold from the wreck" "Steve needs more information so" "Henry Kamara a friend of the dead divers is taking him to visit a man who saw the ship sink" "As a little boy Damshu KoIonya stood petrified on this beach while the fierce battle raged overhead" "So Henry your friend was actually here and saw everything happen" "Yeah" "So if you can just ask him just to explain in his own words the story of what he saw and how the ship came down and everything" "The Japanese ship was disguised as an island with trees on its deck" "But the American plane saw it and dropped a bomb" "There was a huge explosion" "Then two other American planes started machine-gunning" "The ship began to sink as it made for the shore" "Japanese soldiers tried to escape but the Americans shot them all down" "The sea turned red with blood" "In less than twenty minutes the ship had sunk" "But this is the philippines" "And Steve cant dive on any wreck that he wants to" "He must now travel to manila to begin the Iong process of obtaining permits" "Its January 2000" "After months of waiting Discovery is at last under way" "Steve and a new band of hopefuls now have the go ahead to dive on what they believe to be the Cudamaru" "But if there is gold on the wreck why did the locals share the secret with Steve" "well although the locals are quite good divers and quite tenacious this one is just a little bit too deep for them to get at and the story is that a Chinese man financed an operation here and they got fifty bars of gold off" "And the day before one of the local guys died on this wreck he turned round to all of them and he said were all millionaires Ive just opened the door and its full of boxes" "And he smashed a box open and inside out of one box came ten 65 kilo bars" "Its US $650000 a box" "And they can see at Ieast forty boxes of gold" "One bar would just do nicely now" "And the rest like a millionaire friend of mine said" "The first couple of millions are okay the rest is just for show" "Henry will help Steve to manoeuvre" "Discovery directly over the wreck" "Steve has all the government paperwork he needs" "But before he starts bringing up gold bars he must ensure that the local police are on his side" "Otherwise he could lose the lot" "Armed with his permit he must convince them everything is legitimate" "Perhaps a little grudgingly the paperwork is accepted" "Later at a local bar Steve takes the opportunity to grill the policeman for more information about the Cudamaru" "then he draw the name of the boat" "Cudamaru" "This boat was loaded with hundred boxes of gold" "It would be a fantastic haul if its true" "But theres another reason why the locals are frightened of the wreck divers or superstition about the ghosts of the Japanese soldiers" "Yes yes yes" "The Japanese soldiers told us that because there are many people there are many ghosts watching them that is why they are making request because there are many ghosts of the Japanese because that boat there were many all Japanese crew was" "The locals are terrified of the ghosts of the Cudamaru" "Either way with the wreck lying over 70 metres below them diving will be dangerous" "So first Steve must send down a Remote Operated vehicle or ROV" "Its camera should send back the first pictures of the Cudamaru for 58 years" "So lets see whats down the rope shall we chaps" "Oh see the wreck down below" "See it Okay slack on the umbilical" "The final resting place of the" "Cudamaru is a forbidding one" "The ships mangled remains graphically reteII a violent end" "Oooh big explosion" "slack away AII stop" "The bomb from the American aircraft has left a gaping hole behind the bridge blown off the ships funnel and burnt out the entire rear end of the wreck leaving just a frame" "But most sinister were the ropes and rubber tubes festooning the wreck it seems they belonged to the filipino divers that died here a few years ago" "So one pipe goes to the bow and the other pipe goes to the stern" "The divers who died were never recovered so it is quite possible that at the end of this you might find the remains of the divers" "Steve is using the ROV to search for a box or a bag left here by the divers" "If the story is true it could contain ten gold bars" "With great precision Steve attempts to get the ROV inside a doorway" "One wrong move could leave it trapped in the wreck" "The slit here is like talcum powder even the gentlest touch" "Once the slit is cleared plates and bottles suggest hes found the ships galley" "But there are no boxes" "Steve is now forced to explore deeper into the sunken hulk" "In the dark of the hold the ROV drops below 80 metres" "Ah its looking very boxy to me boys" "What say you" "Looks like a box" "Now I can go on here only once" "would you believe that" "Its been lashed on and tied on ready to be sent up so its a box that the other people who recovered the fifty bars have obviously deemed worthy enough to lash up to send up" "An exciting discovery" "But at a depth of 84 metres they now face a real challenge to bring the mystery box to the surface" "Tomorrow Steve himself will attempt to retrieve the box" "But tonight he must be vigilant" "In the part of the world were in there is a considerable problem with pirates and all the people along this area know that this ship that were sat on has got gold on it" "So they have no idea whether weve recovered anything or not at the moment but just the thoughts of the fact that we possibly have got a bar of gold or a dozen bars of gold or a thousand bars of gold is enough to cause us a problem" "So we have to take these preventative measures to defend ourselves" "After a troubIe-free night the team prepare to dive down to the wreck" "The plan is that Steve will attempt to reach the bottom of the hold roll the box into a sack and send it to the surface using an inflatable Iift-bag" "The other divers will work from above the hold" "They will try to do the whole job breathing just air" "Even for an experienced commercial diver this is very risky" "I quite like deep diving because of the challenge but you know sometimes when you get narcosis bad it dont matter who you are how experienced you are how many thousands of youve done once you get gripped by a narcosis thats it its game over and up you come" "Air consists mainly of oxygen and nitrogen" "below 40 metres nitrogen becomes a narcotic and can send the mind into a trance" "below 66 metres oxygen becomes poisonous and can disable the body" "To most divers the idea of going to 84 metres on air is madness" "But for Steve its a calculated risk" "Back on Discovery the stand-by diver uses the ROV camera to watch for any sign of Steve" "Limited by the amount of air they can carry the divers will have only 1 2 minutes on the bottom" "So they must work fast" "while Steve approaches the hold the other divers must prepare the Iift-bag above the wreck" "But somethings gone wrong" "visibility has deteriorated badly and the Iift-bag has been abandoned" "It looks like the mission has been aborted" "After two long hours waiting for the divers to decompress they will soon find out what went wrong" "If the divers were to come up too quickly they could get the bends" "classic nightmare dive Too dangerous really" "My torch jacked which is just what you want when youve got blackness and zero visibility I put me torch on and nothing" "The bad visibility has led to one of Steves worst nightmares coming true" "Ive now started having problems cos I was speeding around everywhere breathing really heavily the narcosis effect started to come on and which is especially like prone to zero visibility and then I started having trouble with me hands" "I couldnt actually press me inflation and I tried to get off the bottom and I couldnt get off the bottom cos I was over-heavy and I couldnt grip the rope to haul myself back up" "So in the end I had to sort of just use both hands to press the infIation-button to get myself off the bottom" "Steves narcosis is a chilling reminder to the team of the men who died 5 years before" "He decides to call for a group of filipino technical divers who worked with him on the wreck of the GoIcondah" "TheyII be using helium to reduce the risks of deep water diving" "Steve runs over the plan Because they cant rely on the old rope thats already round the box theyII have to push it into a sack and attach that to a Iift-bag" "Heather Steves wife has now joined the boat" "If they find the gold today their house in Devon will at last be secure" "Mixing the helium with oxygen and nitrogen should give the divers up to 25 minutes on the wreck" "Despite the helium the dive is extremely dangerous" "They hope the prize will be worth the risk" "In the light of the ROV two divers prepare to venture deep into the hold of the Cudamaru" "Theyre following the string right down so thats good" "From above the wreck all the can be seen through the haunting blackness is the faint glow of the divers torches" "Theyre now slowly ascending out of the hold so it looks like theyve" "done it Thats the rope that theyve got for the actual box in their hands see" "Thats the one" "If this turns out to be a machinery part thisII be the most expensive machinery part ever lifted" "Its now time to inflate the Iift-bag" "Thats the first sniff of air going in there" "Has it gone" "Oh its going Somethings happening" "Thats a bIueI cant see" "Im going up very fa Oh stop oh stop on everything" "The ROV is climbing rapidly Steve has lost control" "Now why am I still going up I think Im stuck to the Iift-bag" "The Iift-bag has shot straight to the surface but has it brought the box with it" "Come on Come on double double double quick on everything we do Knife Come on double quick" "Everything" "Steve needs to secure the box but the stand-by divers already in the water and out of contact" "Where the fhas DaryI got to" "The box that were after is there Suspended" "Its not in the bag And the support divers in the water and I cant tell him what the hells happening" "The operation has gone badly wrong" "Steves fortune now hangs on the end of an old piece of rope that could break at any moment" "The only diver available to bring in the box had taken the day off sick But now duty calls" "Together the divers bundle the box into the sack" "remarkably the old rope has held" "This is the bit where nobody dares" "look in in case its a Iarge bar of Cadburys Dairy milk" "What we need is that sack" "Im gonna pick it up with this but whilst its on the fast craft okay" "With all the divers safely back on board its time to open the box" "Choose your weapon sir" "What we need to do is to try and separate maybe down there" "If you see there look see the steel and then wood on the outside" "Its a reinforced banding all the way round it so we presume that it was you know something thats well protected" "and a public valuable because the box is quite unusual being metal and timber" "No gold" "well it certainly looks like its a lighting unit of some description" "But thats the only penetration into the top of the lid" "So maybe it was some sort of paraffin lamp" "There you go" "That may be one copper lamp each for the collection" "For now the ghosts of the Cudamaru will hang on to their riches" "As for Steve Sargison after five months of waiting he was at last awarded a permit to dive on a manila gaIIeon twice the size of the Esperanza" "Hes also planning a second more intensive search of the Cudamaru" "Perhaps the genie of the Japanese" "lamps will finally grant him his wish"