It is even possible that when Drake asked some of his crew to stay behind and attempt to get back to England through the North West passage that he had to offer them some kind of inducement. After all, there was a good chance they would never see Drake or England again. When he got back, Drake shared ₤10,000 with the crew he brought home. He had taken 26,000 tons of silver from the Cacafuego off Panama, and the crew of Tello’s bark testified that he had 1,800 bars of silver when he was careening the Golden Hind in Costa Rica. What easier than to give the crew he was leaving behind a few of these bars? A drop in the ocean to Drake, but a lot of treasure to them. Silver bars would have been of no practical use to the local people, so it is likely that the bars sank with the ship. If so, and if one of these can be recovered, it will be easily identified. The silver being carried on the Cacafuego had come from the Potosi silver mine via Lima, and would have contained markings showing the weight, the source, and perhaps the date. Silver is non-magnetic, and the Salmon River surveys show a series of 6 or 8 non-magnetic metal items buried at the wreck site. Just what you might expect if this is indeed the remains of Tello’s bark. We may have located the remains of the bark during a preliminary archaeological survey of the site, but we were unable to bring up any of the materials for examination and have had to defer any further activity there for the moment.

One word of caution. It is not possible to get to the wreck site by land, because that involves going through private property. We urge people not to try to visit this site, because we do not want the local residents, who have chosen to live in that area because of its beauty and isolation, to be disturbed. Besides, there is nothing to see. The ship is buried ten feet below the surface of the mud flat, and that is often covered by several feet of water. You cannot even detect the wreck or the remains of its cargo except by very expensive geophysical equipment, as we did. We are planning that if we find evidence of the ship, and even better show that it is Tello’s bark, then we will include all that in an exhibit about Drake’s voyage at the North Lincoln County Historical Museum , in the Taft area of Lincoln City. That is the way to get information about the buried ship and its identity, not by trying to work out the location of the site and going there.

Please, please respect the privacy of the people who live in the area of the buried ship !!