The Legend of Waterhole Branch

By 6:00 a.m. the following day, Hunter was again underwater with a new oxygen tank and making his way towards the large rock that covered the entrance into the cavern. Hunter followed the same path as the day before, only this time; he rose to the surface of the cavern only seconds after crossing the forty foot threshold needed to reach larger spring basin. Hunter could tell when he was no longer in the brackish water of the river and into the spring as the temperature around his wetsuit got much colder. Hunter broke the surface of the water and studied the narrow cavern walls. He contemplated taking off his mask and removing his breathing apparatus, but he wasn’t sure if there was even oxygen in the cave. Hunter was not a cave expert by any stretch of the imagination, but he had read enough to know that bad air in caves could lead to death, so he kept breathing from the oxygen tank and swam along the surface of the water determined to study every inch of the cavern. After about 500 yards, Hunter noticed that ledges began to protrude from the side of the cavern, and he would be able to exit the water and walk along the spring if he desired. Because he was going to breath the oxygen form the tank, and swimming was faster than walking, he chose to stay in the water He swam another two thirds of a mile before reaching the end of the cavern. He noticed only two areas, one on either side of the waterway that appeared to lead to tunnels off the main straightway. Hunter made a mental note to check out those entrances later also noting that he didn’t scan every inch of the walls, so additional corridors could be present. Finally, nearly exhausted from swimming upwards of a mile, Hunter reached the end of the cavern. He aimed his light towards the bottom of the cavern realizing the water was crystal clear. He dove to the bottom gathering that is was about 15 feet deep. The cavern was 30 feet wide with a seven foot ledge on the left side and five foot ledge on the right side. As Hunter was about to get out of the water and walk along the right-side ledge, he noticed a dark corridor against the far wall on the left side of the cavern. He swam over to the ledge, placed his lantern on the rock ground and pulled himself out of the water. He removed his flippers and picked up the lantern before walking towards the entrance to the corridor. Hunter speculated that the cavern was massive and it would take him several weeks to search the entire space, so he wasn’t real anxious as he aimed his light into the corridor along the back wall to his left. Immediately he realized the corridor was fairly large. He walked about 15 feet down the dark tunnel when his light landed on a small wooden object on the ground. He shifted his light past the small box to find many other boxes. His heart began to race. On the ground next to the one of the larger wooden boxes a shiny coin reflected in the glare of his lantern.

Hunter stood in the narrow corridor and held his lantern over the crates and chests. His heart was racing. He had found it. He slowly walked over to the first wooden chest. It was fairly small and the wood was rotten and damp. He reached down and placed both hands on the lid expecting it to be difficult to open, but the soft wood collapsed as he pried open the container. With minimal effort, he opened the first chest and tossed the remainder of the lid on the ground. He could make out the contents of the container as metallic coins filled to the top of the box. Hunter tried to contain his excitement as he adjusted the lantern to place the light directly over the box. It was filled with gold. Hundreds and hundreds of gold coins were piled on top of each other with no room to spare. Hunter walked to the second box, this one a little larger. He snatched the lid open and saw it was filled with gold as well. The third box contained gold as well. He went from container to container kicking open the lids and confirming the contents before moving to the next. There were 12 containers in total. Nine contained gold and three contained pearls, a popular Spanish treasure collected between Panama, Peru and Columbia in the early 16th century. Each chest varied in size, but collectively they averaged 35 centimeters in length and width and 35 centimeters high. Hunter pried open each chest, and everyone was filled to the brim with gold or pearls. He felt dizzy staring at the treasure. His mind went blank. He was having trouble processing the sight in front of him.

Hunter took a knee to catch his breath. He quickly estimated that the average volume of the chests was roughly .45 cubic meters. Gold has a density of 19,300 kilograms per meter cubed. The numbers were staggering. He double checked his math. If he was right, he was standing on top of nearly 16 thousand pounds of gold, and he knew his math was right. Quickly, he performed some more multiplication in his head. If there was 16 thousand pounds of gold in front of him and gold was trading at 1800 dollars an ounce, the Spanish hoard that he had just discovered was worth north of 450 million dollars. And that was based on pure gold density. The historic coins would likely fetch much more than the average gold price based on their rarity and prestige. Collectively, the hoard could easily be worth over a billion dollars.