San Pedro
Lost 1594 - Spanish merchant nao (New Spain fleet)
Image courtesy of the Government of Bermuda.
History
The San Pedro was a Spanish merchant ship of about 350 tons sailing home with the New Spain fleet in the mid-1590s. Caught by a storm and separated from her escort, she was torn open on Bermuda's outer reefs. A silver coin found on the site dates the loss to no earlier than 1592; most accounts give 1594 or 1595.
In 1951 Teddy Tucker followed up a fisherman's report of 'marble columns' on the reefs and found cannon lying in the sand. He could not work the site properly until 1955, and over several visits he raised ship's timbers, porcelain, around 200 silver coins, gold bars and a small gold cube, pearl buttons - and, lying face down in the sand about 30 feet down, a 22-carat gold cross set with seven emeralds. It became famous as the Tucker Cross and was hailed as the most important treasure find of its day in the western hemisphere.
Tucker sold the collection to the Bermuda Government in 1959. In 1975, as it was being readied for display to Queen Elizabeth II, the cross was found to have been swapped for a cheap replica. The real cross has never been recovered.
Diving the wreck today
The San Pedro is not a buoyed or publicised dive site, and its position is not published. Its story is told at the National Museum of Bermuda at Dockyard.