Joe Sheimer - "Hidden Treasures"
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| Joe Sheimer |
Alan Gallaway introduced Joe Scheimer, Rancho Cordova Rotarian and multi-careered gentleman who has two master degrees and 4 Instructor pilot ratings.
Joe spent 25 years in the Air Force and logged over 4,500 hours in flight and over 1,000 in combat in the Vietnam war. He has won many Air Medals and Awards, ending up as a Colonel.
Joe then became an Investment Advisor for 20 years and retired in 2013.
Joe has been married 40 years to Marie, his wife, and has two daughters, Joanne and Jessica.
Joe has been a Rotarian since March of 1996, GSE Team Leader to Colombia in 2010, and a Past-President in which his Club (2012-3) won the District's Outstanding Medium Club Award.
Today, Joe is going talk about his "Treasure Hunting" experiences based out of Florida.
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| Some of Joe's treasure - coins, and other artifacts |
Joe started out with a slide show outlining the history of Columbus's (Colon) voyages to America. He went through each of his four voyages. showing how these voyages started the trade in silver and gold and developed into a regular circuit of Spanish fleets from Spain to the New World.
Of course, during these voyages, ships were lost at sea and their treasures with them. Joe talked about some of the wrecks such as the Nuestra Senora de Atocha which was a 500 ton ship with bronze cannon, and went down in 1622 with 4 tons of silver and 1400 slaves. It also had tobacco, gold, copper, gems, jewels and indigo on board.
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| Piece of pottery (center) 400 years old |
Fast forward to July 1985 with a famous treasure hunter, Mel Fisher. His group found the Atocha and brought out it's treasure. Apparently Joe Sheimer and his brother were partners in the venture. According to Joe, it was exciting times and he brought some of his artifacts to show us. Did he make a lot of money? Joe said no, but it was a lot of fun being associated with the find.
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| President Jay Boatwright and Joe Sheimer |
At the conclusion of Joe's presentation, President Jay, of course, mentioned to Joe that, in honor of his very interesting lecture, a book will be donated to the Carmichael library (how about a book about treasure seeking?).