The 1715 Treasure Fleet and the Treasure Coast

Eleven Spanish ships heavy with gold and silver from the New World went down in a hurricane off this coast in July 1715 and drowned a thousand men. The survivors’ salvage camp gave the beach its name at Sebastian, and three hundred years later the coins still wash up: a family working the wreck line pulled 350 gold coins worth four and a half million dollars out of the surf here in 2015. This is the Treasure Coast, and it means it. Beachcombing the wash after a storm is legal, and real.