Controversy at the Naval Museum

For our last Tuesday outing before school starts, we went to the Naval Museum.

Here is my faithful group:  Mary from Bible study and Kirsten who is in my Spanish class.  

These cannons came from a shipwreck called Nuestra Senora de la Mercedes.  I heard a piece on the radio about it. American treasure hunters found it, but ¨Reason triumphed over exploitation,¨ as the exhibit stated over and over again, and Spain reclaimed its patrimony.  In other words, US courts made Odyssey Marine send it all to Spain.  Without rich American treasure hunters, who almost always lose in court, they would have nothing, so I found it all extremely annoying.

I was so busy being annoyed that I did not exploit my opportunity to take pictures of the treasure, which I was very keen to see.  They had a hunk the size of a football of crusty, corroded coins and then row upon row of pretty, cleaned up ´pieces of eight.´

Here we are watching a video of the heinous unprovoked action of the British against the neutral Spanish couriers that resulted in the ship being sunk.  If you have seen ¨Master and Commander,¨ you know that in 1800, they were all stealing each others´ ships and seamen and supplies and treasure.  The boys got their fill that day of swords and knives and treasure.