They go deep down into the ocean to help treasure hunters and historians uncover some of our world’s greatest artifacts.
“All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye we see a bow of a ship, leaning vertically,” said Charles Kohnen, the president of SEAmagine, a company that builds transparent submarines that fit two to 10 people.
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WATCH HEREThe personal submersibles allow anyone to go deep into the ocean for private explorations, scientific work or even tourism.
In October of 2024, his team and some clients were doing additional training in the Bahamas, going deeper than 800 feet, when they made an unexpected discovery.
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“We were looking at it and the first thing we noticed was that it had a military marking on it, so this must be a military ship,” he explained.
The San Salvador II was commissioned in 1955 for the US Coast Guard under a different name. According to Kohnen, it was decommissioned and given to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force until 1999, when it sank during a storm due to an engine fire.
But just a few months ago, it was found by SEAmagine.
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But, do they find hidden treasures like this one frequently?
“We do, it is amazing. The moment you go below 100 meters, 300 feet, nobody knows nothing. It is amazing, amazing how little we know,” Cohen said.
The SEAmagine submersibles have conducted more than 13,000 dives globally since the late 90’s, and their underwater explorers are finding new things everyday.
“New shark species in the South Pacific, we found a new algae, we found a number of shipwrecks which you wouldn’t be able to find because you wouldn’t have known they were there.”
The company says they are link between historians and treasure hunters. They provide the technology necessary to explore, to the private citizen, company, organization, or institution.
But every once in a while, they are the ones who find it. And when that happens, they call a local university or national research center. In the case of the San Salvador II, they called the Navy to help them retrieve the treasured artifact.
