Road to becoming the wealthiest: Starting From Treasure Hunting in the Cabinets
Chapter 319 - 255: Unlucky Treasure Hunt

Chapter 319: Chapter 255: Unlucky Treasure Hunt

To get to the small island from Hawaii, you need to take a boat.

Sitting on a passenger ship that is obviously modified from a motorboat, Sean Knight saw many people like himself, with big bags heading for Santa Maga Island where the sunken shipwreck was discovered. He suddenly felt that this trip might have been somewhat rushed.

With so many people searching, could this be a scam?

Four of them sat together, listening to the discussions from others around them.

"I heard that someone found a jar of 18th century gold coins on Santa Maga Island yesterday, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!"

"Is that true or false?"

"Of course, it’s true! I saw the lucky guy holding the jar in a video on the news! How envious!"

"Now the boat tickets to Santa Maga Island have doubled, yet there isn’t an empty seat! Can you imagine how many people are there on the island?"

"This is already past the peak period! There were even more people coming before, the boat owner is making a fortune!"

...

Listening to these discussions, Sean felt more and more that this treasure hunt might be a cover-up by the local tourism department.

Even if it’s not, at least the local authorities seem to be taking advantage of the trend by attracting tourists.

Seeing that almost everyone brought diving equipment, and many people even carried metal detectors in their hands, they were obviously planning to pick up something.

The seats were already full, but the ship owner still didn’t set sail, and then some people just squeezed into the cabin, standing in the aisle between seats.

It was only when there was no more room for people that the ship finally set sail leisurely.

Sean was worried that if they encountered a bigger wave, the ship would definitely capsize!

Fortunately, although the boat sailed slowly, it was very stable. After more than an hour of traveling, they reached the island about a dozen nautical miles away.

Santa Maga Island was not large, only about one kilometer in circumference. When they arrived at the simple dock, they saw quite a few people on the beach.

There were also many people diving in the sea with diving equipment, looking for something.

As soon as they disembarked, someone stopped the tourists and shouted in not-so-standard English:

"Pay money! If you want to search for treasure, you have to pay! One hundred dollars each!"

"You’re robbing us!"

"We’re tourists, not treasure hunters!" A white man carrying a metal detector shouted righteously.

Then he was pushed to the ground by two locals, who took away his metal detector and still obediently paid the money.

If they had to pay, they had to pay. Sean didn’t say anything, paid the money, and decided to look for a place to stay first.

After a while, they found that all available accommodations on the island were already occupied.

There was originally only a small village of several dozen fishermen on the island. Now that several hundred people had arrived all at once, the first-comers had rented out all the vacant houses in the village, while the later arrivals had to either set up tents or sleep outdoors.

Fortunately, it was hot here, so they didn’t have to worry about getting cold at night.

Douglas returned after looking around and clicked his tongue, saying,

"Wow, now renting a broken tent costs fifty dollars a night! Diving equipment is even more expensive, at one thousand dollars a day! Someone directly opened a fast food stall here and is making a killing!"

Because of what happened with Aphrodite Johnson, Douglas had become much more proactive and efficient in his actions.

"Well, let’s set up a tent." Sean looked around and said, "Let’s find a place to rest first, then gather some information."

The four of them found a spot about fifty meters away from the beach, unloaded their backpacks, took out their tents, and began setting up camp.

Then a thin, black-skinned local came over, babbling a bunch of words, which Sean could barely understand, asking for money again.

Setting up a tent would cost you another hundred dollars!

"These people are crazy about money!" Douglas complained, but still paid the money—to Sean’s surprise, he did it voluntarily.

Seeing Sean looking at him, Douglas smirked and said,

"Boss, I know I messed up! I’m just making up for it! We’re here to search for treasure, not to have a grudge. Once we pay the money, it’s gone. But with your luck, boss, just finding a gold coin would get us all our money back, right?"

Sean didn’t expect that when Douglas started flattering, he could actually be quite smooth-talking.

However, it remains to be seen if he can really change his slick-talking ways.

There were not only plenty of treasure-hunting men on the island but also treasure-hunting women and women brought by treasure-hunting men.

So there were not only people on the beach with metal detectors searching for treasure, but also beautiful women in bikinis sunbathing.

After setting up their tents, Lincoln Harrington was cooking, while Sean Knight, Elijah Hastings, and Douglas Cooper went to gather information.

The three of them returned after a while and began to compile the information they had gathered.

Douglas spoke first:

"Let me start. The best news is that none of the treasure hunting companies or individuals have found the treasure yet. The most they have found is the jar of gold coins we heard about on the ship, but many people doubt that it was a local publicity stunt.

The bad news is that there are too many companies and people coming. Six of the world’s top ten treasure salvage companies are here. As for individuals, at least seven thousand people have come in recent days, according to local statistics! There are still nearly a thousand people on the island."

This was important news and Sean nodded at it.

"I went around and found out that the ship’s plank was first discovered in the north of the island. In addition to some broken ship planks, there were also the ship’s figurehead and a corroded bronze cannon. According to experts, these came from Spanish sailboats during the great voyage period.

Now there are seven salvage ships working in the northern part of the island, but so far there haven’t been any finds."

Sean nodded and said,

"It’s almost the same as the information I gathered. Also, according to the locals on the island, there was indeed a pirate hideout here a long time ago, but it was only small groups of pirates, with no known treasure. As for the sunken sailboat, if it really is the one in the publicity, there should be at least several hundred thousand gold coins on board, as well as a so-called holy relic."