Who’s Mel Fisher? Why is Key West celebrating? What to know about the treasure hunter

Every September, Key West puts on a festival honoring treasure hunter Mel Fisher.

That’s the man who said, “Today’s the day!” until his crew found $400 million of gold, silver and jewels beneath the sea in 1985.

Fisher would have turned 100 this year. He was born on Aug. 21, 1922.

Mel Fisher Days runs Friday, Sept. 2 through Tuesday, Sept. 6 in Key West, with parties, speakers, fundraisers and a lifetime achievement award ceremony on the schedule.

This year, the festival falls on the 400th anniversary of the shipwreck that Fisher’s crew, which included his family, uncovered about 40 miles off Key West after a 16-year search.

In September 1622, a hurricane took down the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, part of a fleet that sank in the Florida Straits. On the Atocha alone, 260 passengers and crew members died.

Fisher, who died at 76 in 1998 from cancer was one of Key West’s most colorful characters — on an island with no shortage. Fisher liked to carry a scepter topped with a conch shell around town, the Miami Herald reported in 1998. He would tap visitors on the shoulder with it, “conching” them as royalty in his realm.

Fisher’s namesake company still combs through the waters for gold.

Who was Mel Fisher?

Mel Fisher was the treasure hunter who discovered $450 million worth of gold, silver and other precious loot at the site of the shipwrecked galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sank in a 1622 hurricane.

After 16 years combing through the sea off Key West, Fisher’s salvage crew, nicknamed the “Golden Crew,” uncovered the Atocha site about 35 miles southwest of Key West on July 20, 1985.

That crew included his wife Dolores and their children Dirk, Taffi, Kim and Kane.

The Fishers dealt with tragedy during the tenacious search.

In 1975, Fisher’s son Dirk, 21, his daughter-in-law Angel, 25, and diver Rick Gage drowned after the 60-foot anchored salvage boat they were on capsized before dawn, according to a 1975 story by The New York Times. A bilge pump failed, allowing one side of the boat to fill with water, the report said.

On an island filled with larger-than-life personalities, Mel Fisher stood out, making a name for himself and keeping a high-profile presence on the island after the famous shipwreck discovery.

How did Mel Fisher wind up in the Keys?

Born on Aug, 21, 1922 in Hobart, Indiana, Fisher grew up reading books about adventure and pirates. He studied engineering at Purdue University and joined the Army during World War II, serving in the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the 1950s, Fisher worked on his family’s chicken ranch in California until he opened a dive shop. After meeting a Florida treasure hunter, Fisher moved his family to the Sunshine State to start searching for sunken fortune full time.

In the late 1960s, the Fishers headed south to the Keys, looking for weather that would suit year-round diving.

Fisher died at his home in Key West in 1998 at age 76.

Fisher’s life as a treasure hunter saw him both flush with cash and hard-up, sued by the government and triumphant before the U.S. Supreme Court.

His family-run company Mel Fisher Treasures still searches the Atocha shipwreck for sunken treasure and sells jewelry online and at a Duval Street shop.

Key West has a Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, 200 Greene St., but this nonprofit is an independent organization that is unrelated to the treasure company.

The museum has historical exhibits about the shipwreck discoveries, along with other cases such as sunken slave ships. It is also a research and archaeology institute documenting maritime history of Florida and the Caribbean.

What is the shipwreck Mel Fisher found?

The shipwreck Fisher’s crew found on July 18, 1985, was the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon named for a holy shrine in Madrid.

The Atocha was part of the Tierre Firme fleet that left Spain on March 23, 1622.

By Sept. 4, 1622, the Atocha was part of a fleet of 28 vessels that sailed from Havana, according to the 1986 book Treasure of the Atocha by Duncan Mathewson, the archaeologist Mel Fisher hired in 1973.

The Atocha, built in a Havana shipyard, was armed with 20 bronze cannons and meant “to sail last to protect the slow, lumbering merchant ships that followed in the rear,” according to Mathewson.

The day after departing from Cuba, the ship was in the grip of a hurricane, which swept the Atocha and at least three others into the Keys, Mathewson said.

“The frenzied crew dropped anchors into the reef face, hoping to hold the groaning galleon off the jagged coral,” Mathewson wrote. “A wave lifted the ship, and, in the next instant, flung it directly onto the reef.”

Of 265 people onboard, only five survived by clinging to the mast.

What happens at Mel Fisher Days?

Mel Fisher Days is a festival held over several days in Key West every year to honor the famous treasure hunter and his “golden crew” that discovered the legendary shipwreck in 1985. It also doubles as a fundraiser for local charities.

This year’s festival coincides with the 400th anniversary of the shipwreck of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sank in September 1622 near the Keys during a relentless hurricane.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday at Mallory Square, organizers said they will unveil a memorial plaque to honor the lives lost on the 1622 fleet shipwrecks, Fisher and his “Golden Crew” whose work led to the discovery.

The five-day festival offers a series of events: parties, a film screening, a symposium, a scavenger hunt, book signings and a symposium with eight academics discussing the history, salvage and archaeology of the 1622 fleet that includes the shipwrecked Spanish galleon Fisher and his crew found after a 16-year search.

On Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m., at the waterfront Schooner Wharf Bar, the “Golden Crew” that helped Fisher find the $450 million of treasure in 1985 will hold a reunion. The party includes a trivia contest, raffle, live music and the presentation of the Mel Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award.

Also at the Schooner Wharf party Saturday, veteran Keys journalist Wendy Tucker will debut and sign copies of her book “Today’s the Day — The Mel Fisher Story.”