AMAZING LIVES


We went out to photograph this an- chor, and we couldn’t find it. Navi- gation was not one of Mel’s highly honed skills plus there was no GPS at that time. When I went down to photograph the anchor which they couldn’t find, I didn’t know it was gold, but after poking around for a while, I went into the hole they dug and saw these little links of gold chain sticking outside of this man- made object and thought it might be a clue to the identity of the wreck. I took it up to the surface and the closer I got to the surface the color changed to gold instead of green. Everybody on deck went ab- solutely crazy. Tere were people swimming around with one fin on, a tank under their arm and no mask. I was in my Speedo practi- cally naked because everybody had borrowed my equipment. Every- body had gold fever. Tey were all determined to find gold, but there was no more found that day.


VL You were taken on board to film what was happening, right? DK I was doing motion picture and still photography because my train- ing was in both. I had my own 16 mm underwater camera and docu- mented and tried to interpret it as best I could. National Geographic and other magazines would send


people down and would say they were going to make the definitive photograph, but everything was found before they got there or after they left. I was the guy that was there all the time, so I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills.


VL Your last discovery was in the last month and on display at the Mel Fisher Museum, right? DKTe Fisher Museum owns the building but the Fisher family rents space from the museum for the ma- terial they sell. Te museum doesn’t sell anything. Tey have the coins and things that they find for sale there and have it on display. Hope- fully the museum will end up with that at some point down the future and have it where everybody can appreciate it.


VLWas life challenging during the many months you spent onboard? DK It was mostly boys, although we did have several female crew members but it was like the Boys Club. We worked together, we all hunted and fished together and we found stuff or we didn’t find things. It was a lot of hard work and was very dangerous and uncomfortable and that sort of thing builds a bond that many people never


Highlights lIntroduced to Water World on diving/exploration by his father. lFamily originated from the Bahamas, Caymans and Cuba — generations of fisherman, turtlers and boaters. lWorked at Coon’s Camera Shop owned by Ed Swift and first met Mel Fisher there. (Mel only allowed workers who owned shares in the company, Kincaid brought $100 to the Yacht Club where the search ship Holly’s Folly was docked.) lBy May 1971 at $60 a week, “possibly the only person on the planet” with a job description of treasurer diving photographer.” lUnderwater photograper for the National Geographic, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Fatal Treasures, Days at the Beach, Dream Weaver, Emerald City, Vandenberg Sinking documentary, to name a few. lOwned Stars & Stripes sailing catamaran in Key West.


Don Kincaid | Sheel Sheelman


experience ever in their lives. I’m still very, very close with the guys that we spent that time with back in the ’70s.


VL I understand money was hard to come by and Mel Fisher was try- ing in every way but couldn’t pay you for a while, right? DK Because he was working down here and we’re working so far off- shore, it was a far greater distance then than he had ever worked off shore before. Consequently your expenses were greater, you had to stay out for days or weeks at a time, where at the other wrecks that Mel worked on, and you could go home at night. It was just a constant stream of money that had to go out and it was beyond his ability at that time to raise the money to do it. Plus the facts that it’s a treasure hunt. Tere had been some inci- dents with other hunters that had salted things and as it became more complicated he had to raise


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bigger and bigger amounts of money and it became a very sophis- ticated business. He really heartily dove on Atocha again after the early ’70s. He was pretty much cosigned consigned to the office where he spent most of his time either put- ting out fires or raising money. He always missed that and he dove when he could but he just got to do it less and less. I think the longest time we went without a paycheck was 26 weeks but that was no prob- lem for the guys who were living on the boat. We would poll our money, spear a couple of fish, and bring them back to whoever actually had an apartment. Somebody would bring a head of lettuce, somebody else would bring a bunch of toma- toes and we had all of this lobster and fish and we’d have a big feed and there was still enough stuff for everybody to go home with a few days’ supply of food afterwards. We called them hard times parties and threw a lot of them but it was a wonderful way to build commodore and it was of course great food. Tere was nothing quite like being out there for a week or so. You could get things on the radio but all you had was Mother Nature out there. As a bunch of young men it was really an idyllic existence in many ways. We worked very hard and slept very well at night.


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