VGLD 9/1 Boston Globe Article
By Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters, 09/01/99
HAVANA - A Canadian firm has begun exploring the Caribbean waters near Cuba in a hunt for a hidden bullion of enormous historic and financial value that sank with Spanish galleons hundreds of years ago.
'We've reached the exciting part,' said Doug Lewis, head of Visa Gold Exploration Inc., which has been preparing since 1993 for the in-depth search launched last week.
Visa Gold is one of three foreign companies working in a joint venture with the Cuban government in what experts say could be the most lucrative gold hunt in marine history.
While they have tempted bounty hunters over the years, the shipwrecks and their treasure, worth billions of dollars now, have never been systematically tracked down.
Lewis's firm has two concessions from President Fidel Castro's government to search a 44-mile stretch from Havana westward on the northern coast, and another area around the Isla de Juventud in Cuba's southern waters.
Visa Gold's ship, the Explorad'oro - specially designed and transported from Montreal - took to the waters off Havana at the end of last week, towing a magnetometer and other high-tech equipment to detect metal on the ocean floor.
After a feasibility study, Visa Gold will start sucking up sand and breaking coral to get at the treasures.
The most eagerly sought galleon is the Santissima Trinidad, which went down near Havana in a hurricane in 1711 with bounty worth several hundred million dollars.
Visa Gold's joint venture with Cuban state marine company Geomar means the local company automatically receives 50 percent of the value of any finds, after deduction of Visa Gold's costs.
Visa Gold has invested more than $500,000 in the project and 'would like to have $1 million in the bank' for future work.
While this was a business project, it also had important historical ramifications, Lewis stressed, and care would be taken to protect the marine environment.
This story ran on page A16 of the Boston Globe on 09/01/99.
¸ Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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