Another important tool, the magnetometer, detects metallic remains underwater, but since ships of this period used little metal in their construction, they can "hide very well" in a search, he adds. Even then, what remains would be hard to find.Īrchaeologists use side-scan sonar as a primary tool to find shipwrecks on the sea bottom, but if a wreck is buried under feet of sediment, sonar can be "simply blind" to it, says Cook. "That bay has changed so much," he observes. Anne's Bay, Jamaica, describes coring though 20 feet of sediment to find evidence of the historic landscape. Greg Cook, an archaeologist who has searched for the remains of ships from Columbus's Fourth Fleet in St. "Ships lost in cold, dark, deep water have a much better chance of staying intact and maintaining their 'time capsule' value." The landscape has radically changed since Columbus's time.Ĭenturies of tropical storms, changes in land use, and deforestation have significantly altered the coastlines Columbus once navigated. Also known as shipworms and "termites of the sea," these creatures can devour an exposed wooden wreck within a decade and are the arch-nemesis of underwater archaeologists working in the region.Īny wooden vessel that resisted the predations of shipworms would also have to survive five centuries of tropical storms and hurricanes in shallow waters, observes Donald Keith, an archaeologist who has searched for Gallega, a ship from Columbus's Fourth Fleet which disappeared in 1503.
The warm waters of the Caribbean are paradise for teredo worms, which are actually mollusks with a voracious appetite for wood. Here are some of the reasons why finding the remains of the First Fleet is so difficult: The conditions are lousy for ship preservation.
While generations of school children have sung of the adventures of the " Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria too," the remains of Columbus' history-making First Fleet-as well as those of his subsequent three expeditions-remain undiscovered, despite decades of dedicated searching by archaeologists and shipwreck hunters alike.
#Pinta nina santa maria series
Instead, his crew sighted land in the Caribbean on October 12, 1492, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to the European colonization of the New World. This year marks the 525th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first Transatlantic expedition, a voyage that the Italian explorer expected would take him to Asia.
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