Eleven dollars gains you entrance to the museum, and a sticker – but no brochure/keepsake to take home with you (which annoyed me, as I knew I’d be writing about it later). Nevertheless, I consider the fee well spent, as the museum features beautiful 400-year-old anchors, pots, cannons, doubloons, and majolica earthenware that Mel’s team of salvagers has recovered. Of course, we’ve all seen these kinds of items before, but they were particularly vibrant and well restored.

Personally, I was more impressed with some of the other, more unusual finds on display, like the beautiful, 77.7-karat emerald, which is about the size of one of the keys on your computer's keyboard. This emerald doesn’t appear on the ship’s manifest, which means someone was smuggling it from Cuba to Spain when the ship sank. I was also intrigued by the beautifully-polished gold and silver bars on display. The bars were as big as duty free Toblerone bars and each featured a variety of information – the purity level; who owned the bar; the tax levied on it; etc. – that was as legible as if the information had been etched into the metal yesterday. My father had told me that, years ago, there was a display that allowed visitors to hoist one of the bars for themselves, to feel its weight. Sadly, this very cool feature isn’t present today, which is too bad, because while I’m mega-wealthy, I’ve never actually picked up a gold bar before.

The museum also featured a ten-minute video (starring a frazzled, weathered-looking Cliff Robertson, who played Mel in Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story), explaining Mel’s life and his general wonderfulness. I’d read that the museum was as much a tribute to Mel as it was a salute to the Atocha, and while that’s somewhat truthful, it’s almost impossible to divorce Mel from the wreck. After all, he’d spent decades searching for the wreck; fighting (all the way to the Supreme Court) for the salvage rights; and trying to recover and present to the public as much of the history of the wreck as possible. You may not like Mel, or you may think he’s a vain profiteer, but you’ve got to respect his drive and determination.  

Anyway, if you ever make it to Key West, I’d highly recommend setting aside an hour or so and wandering through the museum. I think it’s absolutely worth it. 

Have you been there? What did you think?