What does a boy from Glen park,Indiana, have to do with a Spanish galleon? the Atocha was a Spanish treasure ship that sank in 1622 after a storm, just two days after leaving a port in Cuba. As a young boy, Mel Fisher used to spend hours reading books about pirates and the sea, such as Treasure Island and Moby Dick. He wanted to conquer the ocean. So Mel learned to dive, and he opened a scuba store inCalifornia. He started searching for treasure off Florida, and in 1964, he found over 1,000 gold coins from ships that had sunk in 1715. But the lost Atocha fascinated him. Then he discovered the Margarita, the Atocha's sister ship that had also sunk. That find gave him and his team more than a million dollars. But Mel's goal was still to find the Atocha.