>>244532This is true. You would however be surprised how many garbage wrecks there are out there. You have to know what you are looking at.
We had over 30 locations in the Bahamas that had artifacts of some sort, but most were not anything of substance.
However when the wreck I posted above was found, we knew it was so etching archaeologists needed to check out.
We brought up a few things that would mess anything up and then brought in a archaeologist. They determined that is might be the oldest weren't found in the new world, so all work was stopped on it and everything was covered back up with sand and the next two years the archaeologists worked the wreck.
The deal is it's actually rare to find unsalvaged wrecks that are not in deep water, because the Spanish would do anything to salvage anything of importance.
The sailors were expected to protect the Kings property with their lives. Meaning if they lost their ship and came back empty handed they could be executed.
