Famous Chincoteague pony swim this week

Ponies said to descend from those shipwrecked from a Spanish galleon graze on Assateague.

Everyone who is familiar with this event and Marguerite Henry's book 'Misty of Chincoteague' knows of the legend that the wild horses on Assateague descended from those left by a Spanish galleon. This year also marks the 260th anniversary of the Spanish shipwreck remembered in that legend.

On September 5, 1750 the Spanish warship La Galga ran ashore on Assateague Island, Virginia.

Fortunately, everyone survived, except for those who foolishly burdened themselves with valuables as they tried to swim ashore.

In 1983, John Amrhein, Jr. located what he believes to be the remains of that warship buried beneath the wet sands of Assateague in a former inlet. At that time, he reported to the federal government that the wreck was buried in the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. The federal authorities did nothing, Amrhein says.

Today that is a different story. Rather than go to the site with an archaeological team to verify the site and plan for an excavation, Amrhein says the authorities "have colluded with Spain to prevent any verification of the site by an archaeological firm", hired by Amrhein.

"The US Justice Department is also colluding with Spain to help them recover a $US500 million treasure that was discovered and retrieved by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida. That treasure came from the ocean bottom in over 3,000 feet of water off of Portugal in 2007," Amrhein said.

"La Galga has become a pawn in that battle. In 2000, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals erroneously awarded La Galga and another Spanish ship called the Juno to Spain. In 1998, a company called Sea Hunt, Inc. had claimed discovery of these ships before they could even verify what they had. The Juno actually sank about 250 miles off of Assateague in 1802 according to Spanish records, not 1500 feet from shore that Sea Hunt wanted to believe. As for La Galga, Sea Hunt claimed a site sitting within a hundred yards of the beach and known for years to other treasure hunters and dismissed previously by the Commonwealth of Virginia, as the wreck of La Galga."

Amrhein says the Sea Hunt is considered by both the United States and Spain an important legal precedent "to be used against treasure hunters and they do not want it disturbed. And it is for that reason that they have agreed with Spain to prevent any verification of the wreck site which lies two miles from site 'awarded' to Spain in 2000. This includes the non-intrusive magnetic survey proposed by Amrhein at no expense to either the federal government or Spain."

Amrhein now says that the United States has waived its sovereignty over part of a federal wildlife refuge.

In October 2007, Amrhein published The Hidden Galleon which takes the reader on his fascinating hunt for the wreck where he was guided not only by detailed archival research, but by testimony from the great-nephew of Grandpa Beebe, a main character in Misty of Chincoteague.

The nephew recounted to Amrhein his ancestral memories of the galleon being lost in a former inlet. Amrhein found the tell-tale magnetic readings he was looking for at the site in 1983.

Today, Scientists recognize that there was such an inlet at the wreck site indicated in his book. Amrhein's award winning documentary gives the most complete account ever written, of not only the Spanish ship, but of the wild horses.