PORTOBELO (dpa) – The sea off the fishing village of Portobelo has swallowed up many a ship.
In a broad circle around the town on Panama’s northern coast, divers are constantly finding ship cannon and anchors, rotting planks, shards, tools and sometimes even some silver and gold coins from the period of Spain’s colonial conquest of the region.Portobelo, about 35 kilometres northeast of the Atlantic Ocean entry to the Panama Canal, recalls this past with its historic customs house and fortress ruins. It was a time when the town was an important Spanish base where the treasures taken from Peru were stored before being shipped to Spain.Not far from Portobelo, in the Nombre de Dios Bay, a wreck is now being examined which, according to the National Culture Institute of Panama (INAC), is in all probability a ship which once was that of explorer Christopher Columbus himself.The man who in 1492 had discovered the New World made his fourth and last voyage to the region in 1502 and gave the coastline its name “Portobelo” – beautiful port.But it was not far from this site that he had to abandon one of his ships, the 25-metre-long galleon “Vizcaina”, because worms had eaten into the wooden hull. So far, divers have recovered three cannons and a number of wooden planks.The galleon’s wreckage is located only 50 metres from the shore and is buried in a sandy bottom in waters only five metres deep. It was discovered four years ago by American hobby marine archaeologist Warren White. When he first saw it, he knew it was a very old ship.“The cannons were from the 15th Century and the planks were held together by wooden pegs instead of nails made from iron. The cannon balls were made of stone,” White, 55, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.When White told Panamanian archaelogists of his discovery, he got the same kind of response which Columbus once had gotten from the king of Portugal when he broached the idea of sailing westwards to try to find a better route to India: the cold shoulder.But just as Columbus persisted and finally persuaded Spanish Queen Isabella to support his quest, White found assistance in Nilda Vazquez, owner of diving equipment store in Portobelo. When White told her of his discovery, he finally had found the right person.The 52-year-old widow, who for years herself had been searching for the “Vizcaina”, is an honourary envoy for underwater operations for the INAC.She began pulling all the strings she knew, and now INAC general director Rafael Ruiloba is speaking about the most important discovery in Panama’s history.According to White, who now also proudly bears the title of honourary INAC consultant, the vessel was intentionally grounded. Everything which was of any use was taken off beforehand, only the cannons were left behind.“This also points to this being the ‘Vizcaina’, since Columbus, who sailed on to Jamaica with two other ships, had no further use for the cannons,” he argues.Nilda Vazquez now says that all the cannons are to be recovered as quickly as possible so that the ocean currents will not be able to push them and inflict any damage to the wreck which has now been partially excavated from the sand.The salvage work comes after years in which archaeologists and politicians have been complaining about the certain carelessness which many treasure-seekers had shown in digging up wrecks in the Caribbean.The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has in the meantime drafted plans to offer better protection for wrecked ships.Vazquez now wants to study how the wreck near Portobelo can be raised from the water and put on exhibit. But one problem is the mistrust of people living at Nombre de Dios Bay.“They are accusing us of secretly trying to sneak off with a treasure of gold,” she says.
