Treasures lure divers to waters of Puget Sound

SEATTLE -- Bits of gold and diamond are part of the sunken treasure floating around in the Puget Sound where ghosts of more than 150 shipwrecks loom.

For the first time, area divers pooled their resources to showcase the shipwrecks of the Sound, and I joined them.

Only truly brave explorers plunge deep into the darkness to unlock the mysteries entombed in these wrecks, lured by the chance to explore what few have seen at the cold, murky bottom of Puget Sound.

"Wrecks are very alluring. They almost call to you and say, 'Come inside and explore me,'" said diver Cindy Ross. 

For some, it's the history that's down there. For others, it's what they may discover.

"So there's that lure of, you know, finding treasure on a deep, dark shipwreck," said Dan Warter.
  
There are wrecks like the SS Governor, a 417-foot luxury liner.

"There are, I believe three safes still on board," said Warter.

There was a captain's safe, a purser's safe and a casino safe said to be filled with gold coins.

The Governor went down in the dead of night back in 1921 when a ship rammed her at Port Townsend. Eight souls went down with her, 240 feet to the ocean floor. 
 
"The Governor's a real tricky dive," said Warter.

You have to fight the current, Warter said, which comes from three or four directions, creating a whirlpool of sorts.

"So there's only two, maybe three times a year when you can actually dive this wreck when the waters are still," he said.

But the sight of the treasures are worth the trouble.

For instance, "the crew's mess where all the plates, the china, the wine glasses, the wine bottles were all kept in wooden storage bins," Warter said.

From the bathrooms you see the toilets, even the tile from the showers. Tiles, yes, but no safe in sight.

"We're still trying to figure out if the safe is still inside," said Warter.
 
Chances are it's quite disguised by now with almost 90 years of sea life covering it -- life that flourishes on these wrecks.
    
I went down with local deep water technical divers Laura James, Cindy Ross and Mike Hooley who are working to build a cooperative of sorts to document these wrecks. We weaved our way through old metal parts and were watched by those who make their homes in the sea water. The anemones - the anemones! - were absolutely huge and fascinating.

"And that's what kept me in diving. I hated open water," said Ross. "And when I saw all the anemones on dive number five, covering all the pilings at Titlow, I thought, 'Disney can't do this."'

"I mean, you'll see fish down there that have made a home on the Governor that are three times as big as the normal fish you would see out in the Puget Sound," said Warter.

"They're 100 plus pounds. There are ling cods that are just massive.  Rockfish that are something that you'd never see up shallow," said James.

The tales of the treasure troves seem larger than life, but they're taken from history.
   
It took Warter more than seven minutes to descend 320 feet through pitch black waters to reach the SS Admiral Sampson. He said his highlight was finding the frame of a cabin.

"You're sitting in this cabin, looking at that porthole, looking at the walls and just wondering to yourself, 'Who was the last person in this room?  Did they open that porthole to scream for help?"' he said.

The purser's safe on board the Sampson is rumored to contain diamonds, but excursions to find it have failed.

 "I love the idea of wrecks because the Sound has so much history," said Hooley.

There is one shipwreck in the Sound where the treasure was found and brought up.

"It probably was one of the biggest treasures the Pacific Northwest could pull up from the deep depths," said Warter.

Were they doubloons, pearls, gold, maybe diamonds? No. When the M/S Diamond Knot sank in 1947, she was loaded with more than seven million cans of salmon!

"Three million dollars worth of salmon at that time was huge!" said Warter.

It took almost three months, but crews brought up more than five million cans that were re-packaged for people to eat. The rest were already corroded, which is what salt water does, and why these divers and others work to document what's there before it disappears.
 
"I just want to share it," said Hooley. "There's so few of us diving, that I just want to shoot and pass it to everybody."

They're preserving it for all to see, both water rats and land lubbers.