PORTO DE GALINHAS, Brazil -- Weighed down by more than five tons of gold, the galleon Santa Rosa, the mightiest ship in colonial Portugal's fleet, set sail for Europe from the Brazilian port of Salvador in late August 1726.
But on Sept. 6, just as the ship passed Recife, the gunpowder in its hold blew up and it sank, killing all but seven of the 700 men, women and children aboard. The explosion probably was an accident, but it could have been sabotage. No one knows for sure.
Historians, however, have known for years that the galleon and her cargo, which could be worth as much as $500 million, still lie on the bottom of the South Atlantic, somewhere off Recife's coast. But only now have the technology, the money and -- maybe -- the political conditions come together to find the Santa Rosa.
In a costly, controversial and, until recently, secret undertaking financed by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, corporate treasure-hunters have spent the last two years trying to find the Santa Rosa, as well as at least two Dutch ships with valuable cargoes that may lie nearby.
They may have found the Santa Rosa already, but they're not saying. Odyssey officials also won't reveal how much they've invested in the treasure hunt. All that is clear is that the search for the Santa Rosa has become a big business.
Treasure hunting now demands huge investments of time and money, and with U.S. and European coasts almost picked clean, treasure-hunters are turning to deeper waters and more exotic locales.
Lots of sunken ships
Brazil is especially tempting. In colonial times, groaning galleons frequently left its northeast coast laden with gold and gems. Hundreds sank in offshore battles, but most remain unexplored, mostly for lack of venture capital.
The search for the Santa Rosa, which may lie in as much as 4,500 feet of water, is Brazil's first deep-water expedition and its most technologically advanced ocean search.
In its first phase in 1996, the hunters rented a $40 million low-frequency sonar used by the U.S. Navy to hunt for lost missiles. The sonar can search up to 100 square miles of ocean bottom each day and, under ideal conditions, it can detect items as small as wine bottles.
In two weeks, with the sonar lowered by crane from a 240-foot boat, the crew found close to 100 ``anomalies,'' which could be anything from piles of rocks to colonial wrecks.
Since then, when the weather permits, Scott Stemm, 36, an Odyssey technician, has been heading to sea on a smaller boat from his base in this fishing village 40 miles south of Recife. Equipped with a camera-carrying robot and a magnetometer, which detects metal, he's been homing in on several ``points'' worthy of more investigation.
Odyssey officials won't say whether any of the points are shipwrecks.
``This is a scientific expedition,'' said founder and vice president Greg Stemm, Scott's older brother, in a telephone interview from Tampa. ``We'll hand in our reports to Brazil's Navy before we make anything public.''
Some obstacles
Even if the hunters have found the Santa Rosa, two obstacles could prevent Odyssey and its more than 300,000 shareholders from reaping a profit from the find.
The first is global. Worldwide pressure to regulate the salvage business is increasing. In June, underwater archaeologists from around the world will meet at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization to debate a draft of a proposed global treaty to protect artifacts in international waters.
The other potential problem is Brazil's 1988 Constitution, under which Odyssey and its Brazilian associate, the Underwater Archaeology Research Consortium, known by its Portuguese acronym Conpas, have permits only to explore and are forbidden to recover anything unless they negotiate a separate salvage agreement with the Brazilian Navy.
``What that means is we could do all this research and end up with nothing,'' complained Conpas director Domingos Castello Branco.
In Tampa, Greg Stemm said he's confident the troubles are temporary. The UNESCO draft treaty is a long way from becoming international law and in Brasilia, Brazil's capital, a powerful political lobby that includes retired naval officers is trying to amend the constitution.
Little love lost
But Stemm knows political currents can be as dangerous as marine ones. Throughout the world, treasure-hunters are viewed with deep suspicion by marine archaeologists, who charge that they loot the rich time capsules hidden in the holds of sunken ships. The suspicion is particularly strong in Brazil, where historic jealousies combine with resentment of U.S. financial and technological prowess.
``This smells of piracy,'' Sao Paulo marine archaeologist Marcello De Ferrari said of the Odyssey venture. ``They're out there looking around with their underwater robot; it would be very easy for them to find something and just take it, and that's our cultural patrimony.''
``De Ferrari hasn't been close enough to smell it,'' countered Gregg Stemm. Odyssey, he said, is adhering to all Brazilian Navy regulations, including taking a Navy representative along on all explorations.
Stemm, who prefers to call himself a ``commercial nautical archaeologist,'' claims his preservationist credentials were proven by the careful 1991 excavation of an unidentified Spanish colonial ship found off the Dry Tortugas, west of the Florida Keys. Cargo recovered from the ship was sold intact to a museum for $3 million.
Neither politics nor finance has dimmed the lure of sunken treasure, however. Scott Stemm, a lanky, bearded ambulance driver and paramedic turned underwater robot pilot, now plies his trade from one of Brazil's most beautiful tropical beaches, a few miles from the village of Porto Galinhas, or Port of the Chickens.
``Going into fires and saving people's lives is a little more stressful than this,'' he said, sipping a Coke on his poolside terrace.
Searching for sunken treasure is not without drama, though. Once, Stemm was trapped in a submarine 1,000 feet underwater while a confused shark batted his craft backwards. While riding in another sub, he had to be towed to shore after it hit a boat.
The palm-lined sands of Porto de Galinhas haven't been entirely peaceful, either. Stemm has been buffeted by waves of greed, envy and nationalist suspicion ever since the local newspapers discovered the search for the Santa Rosa a few weeks ago. Within days, strangers were knocking at Stemm's door at all hours, seeking details or jobs.
At sea, he was followed by convoys of fishermen looking for a chance to trawl for treasure. Finally, he simply left town for a few days, hoping the fuss would calm down.
So far, it hasn't.
© 1998, Miami Herald