Spain - 1622 - 8 Reals (Silver from the Atocha Shipwreck) - Nuestra Señora de Atocha had been delayed in Veracruz before she could rendezvous in Havana with the vessels of the Tierra Firme (Mainland) Fleet. The treasure, which arrived by mule in Panama City, was so immense that it took two months to record and load it onto the Atocha.  After still more delays in Havana, what was ultimately a 28-ship convoy did not manage to depart for Spain until 4 September 1622, six weeks late. Each ship in the convoy carried crew, soldiers, passengers, provisions, and treasures from all over South America. The Atocha alone carried cargo whose estimates range between $250 and $500 million, including silver from Bolivia, Peru and Mexico, gold and emeralds from Colombia, and pearls from Venezuela, as well as more common goods including worked silverware, tobacco, and bronze cannons.[3][2][4]In the second day of its voyage from Havana, the convoy was overtaken by a hurricane in the Florida Straits. By the morning of 6 September, eight of the ships had sunk and their remains lay scattered from Marquesas Key to the Dry Tortugas. The Nuestra Señora de Atocha had lost all of her 265 crew and passengers except for three sailors and two slaves, who survived by clinging to the mizzenmast. Among the sailors killed in the disaster was Bartolomé García de Nodal, explorer of the Straits of Magellan surrounding Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. All of her treasure sank with the ship, approximately 30 leagues (140 km) from Havana. After the surviving ships brought the news of the disaster back to Havana, Spanish authorities dispatched another five ships to salvage Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita, which had run aground nearby. Nuestra Señora de Atocha had sunk in approximately 17 metres (56 ft) of water, making it difficult for divers to retrieve any of the cargo or guns from the ship. A second hurricane on 5 October of that year made attempts at salvage even more difficult by scattering the wreckage of the sunken ship still farther.The Spaniards undertook salvage operations for several years with the use of slaves, and recovered nearly half of the registered part of its cargo from the holds of Santa Margarita. The principal method used for the recovery of this cargo was a large brass diving bell with a glass window on one side: a slave would be forced to ride to the bottom, recover an item, and return to the surface by being hauled up by the men on deck. It was often lethal; dead slaves were actually recorded as a business expense by the captains of salvage ships. The loss of the 1622 fleet was a severe blow to Spanish commercial interests, forcing the crown to borrow more to finance its role in the ongoing Thirty Years' War and to sell several galleons to raise funds. The Spanish worked diligently and were able to salvage most of the Santa Margarita over the next ten years. However, in 60 years of searching, the Spanish never located the Atocha.