Friday, July 8, 2022 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
Fisherman makes a rare fi nd
Timbers from
the Beeswax
shipwreck
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
KMUN
No one believed Craig
Andes when he said he found
pieces of a shipwreck that
resisted discovery for cen-
turies in sea caves north of
Manzanita.
But Andes, a commer-
cial fi sherman based in Til-
lamook County and an avid
beachcomber,
persisted.
Samples of the timbers he
found sticking out of the sand
in the caves were eventually
tested and dated. The timbers
are now believed to belong
to the wreck of Santo Cristo
de Burgos, a Spanish gal-
leon also known as the Bees-
wax for the valuable wax that
formed part of its cargo.
Under the watchful eyes
of state and marine archae-
ologists, a crew of sheriff ’s
deputies, state parks employ-
ees and others scrambled
over barnacle-crusted rocks
at low tide to haul out the
pieces Andes found.
In the late morning, a jet
ski shot toward shore, towing
precious cargo.
To untrained eyes, the
water-logged beam they
hauled out of the surf looked
like any other piece of drift-
wood on the beach: smoothed
by time and ocean waves.
But in the hands of experts,
the beam has the potential to
provide important informa-
tion about one of the region’s
earliest shipwrecks and one
of the North Coast’s most
enduring legends.
James Delgado, a leading
marine archaeologist who
helped spearhead retrieval
eff orts, will be involved in
further documenting and
studying the timbers at the
Columbia River Maritime
Museum in Astoria.
He said larger pieces
retrieved from the sea caves
could suggest how the ship
came apart — how the wreck
happened — and might pro-
vide valuable clues to where
the rest of the wreck is
located.
“Will this answer big
questions? Probably not,”
Delgado said. “But it’s
another step in a process that
could potentially lead to fur-
ther discovery.”
Built in the Philippines,
the Santo Cristo de Bur-
gos left Manila in 1693
loaded with fi ne Asian trade
goods and likely wrecked on
Nehalem Spit after a journey
across the Pacifi c. Almost
nothing is known about the
fate of the people aboard.
Oral traditions among tribes
suggest there was some con-
tact with survivors. A tsu-
nami that struck in 1700 fur-
ther scattered the wreckage.
For centuries, artifacts
associated with the wreck
have washed ashore on local
beaches — porcelain and pot-
tery, chunks of beeswax —
Lydia Ely
Craig Andes is a commercial fi sherman and avid beachcomber.
but the fi nal resting place of
the wreck remains unknown.
The timbers Andes found will
fi nally give marine archae-
ologists a chance to study
pieces of the galleon itself.
For local groups that have
searched for evidence for
decades, the discovery is an
exciting leap “because it’s
actual physical remains of the
ship,” said Scott Williams,
vice president and princi-
pal investigator of the Asto-
ria-based Maritime Archaeo-
logical Society.
“It also fi ts into 19th cen-
tury written accounts that
there was wreckage along the
cliff s,” he added.
He and others had long
assumed the claims were
hyperbole or fl at-out lies.
Shipwrecks don’t typically
preserve in shallow water.
But on the North Coast
the water is cold and — near
the Columbia River outfl ow
— not as salty. There are not
as many of the organisms
around that eat up wood.
Then there are Oregon’s
shifting sands. Once the tim-
bers were buried, they would
have been pretty protected.
Williams was one of the
experts who initially doubted
Andes’ claims. When carbon
dating came back showing
the timbers were most likely
from the Beeswax, Williams
told Andes he could say, “I
told you so.”
The Maritime Archaeo-
logical Society suspects the
lower hull of the galleon is
still out there somewhere off -
shore. The discovery of the
timbers gives them another
point to swing out from and
the society plans to keep
looking.
“We haven’t found what
we would call ‘The Wreck,’”
Williams said. “We don’t
know if something like ‘The
Wreck’ exists.”
In the meantime, Williams
hopes the timbers taken from
the cave can reveal more spe-
cifi cs about how the Manila
galleons were constructed, a
process about which very lit-
tle is known.
A strange moment
For Andes, it’s a strange
moment.
It turns out offi cially
fi nding bits of a shipwreck
is complicated, especially
when those pieces are found
in a protected area controlled
by the state and still claimed
by the Spanish government,
which takes a protective
stance over the wrecks of its
old galleons.
Though groups had been
hunting for the Beeswax
for decades and pieces of
the wreck’s cargo had been
washing up since the ship
ran aground, it seems no one
was prepared for a discovery
quite this big.
There was immediate
interest in retrieving the tim-
bers, but considerations like
securing a permit, the coro-
navirus pandemic and the
logistics of doing a retrieval
in caves that are diffi cult to
reach, in an area popular with
tourists, slowed the project’s
momentum. The retrieval
date was moved multiple
times and was fi nally put off
until this spring.
Oregon
State
Parks
remains deeply concerned
about what the discovery will
mean for the state park area
near where the timbers were
found, which already sees
a high number of visitors
throughout the year.
This week, the goal was
to remove most, if not all, of
the timbers from the cave so
offi cials could say with confi -
dence, “There’s nothing else
there,” Delgado said.
The galleon has long cap-
tured people’s imagination.
At one point, the tragedy of
the shipwreck was confl ated
with a story about men row-
ing ashore and burying a box
— of gold, obviously — near
Neah-Kah-Nie
Mountain.
Treasure seekers descended
at various times on the moun-
tain. Their activities once
gave the mountain the nick-
name “mountain of a thou-
sand holes.”
For the record, Delgado
said the only gold he’s seen
on shipwrecks is in the mov-
ies. The beeswax, porcelain
and textiles would have been
just as valuable as gold to
people at the time.
Still, interest in the “lost
Spanish gold” surges from
time to time and park rang-
ers sometimes catch peo-
ple with shovels, said Ben
Cox, the park manager of the
Nehalem Bay Management
Unit that includes Neah-Kah-
Nie Mountain.
Such activities can harm
resources and also violate
park and ocean shore rules,
said Chris Havel, associate
director for the state parks
department.
“Even the chance of an
important historical fi nd can
challenge a person’s judg-
ment,” he added. “There’s a
thrill in knowing and a nearly
irresistible urge to discover
more as quickly as possible.”
He said, “We don’t want
to miss the chance at answer-
ing some long-standing ques-
tions about contact between
European and tribal commu-
nities. We also don’t want to
harm these possible artifacts,
the ocean shore or see people
get hurt trying to chase the
mystery.”
But Andes feels confl icted.
A former treasure hunter
himself, he is now more
intrigued by the history of the
items he fi nds.
Over the past two years,
he has been the person keep-
ing a regular eye on the Bees-
wax timbers, making the
tricky journey across slippery
rocks and into caves he has
begun to think won’t with-
stand the pounding of ocean
waves and the sliding of the
cliff s above much longer.
As the retrieval date kept
getting pushed back, he tried
to keep the timbers in place.
He tied up one with rope —
it got washed out to sea any-
way last year — and partially
reburied others, setting rocks
on top of them.
At the same time, Andes
said he has been asked by
some people — including
state parks offi cials — not
to go out to the caves. And
throughout the whole pro-
cess, he has been told to keep
quiet about his discovery.
It is a tricky balance, said
state archaeologist John Pou-
ley, who was on hand when
the timbers were brought in
this week. There is the need
to keep archaeological sites
and artifacts safe while at the
same time educating the pub-
lic about such discoveries.
Andes doesn’t want hun-
dreds of people rummaging
around in cliff s and on the
beaches, but he also thinks
people should know about
what was found.
‘Just looking
for agates’
Oregon’s beaches are
public and the story of the
Beeswax has been a com-
munity interest for decades.
Continued from Page A1
carrying weapons to public
meetings.
“In regard to the risk
of violence, I was sent a
screenshot of two hand-
guns, a bottle of scotch, and
a Bible with a caption that
made me ill because of its
content,” Smith said . “I con-
sidered it hate-mongering in
tone, and because it came
from a person who frequents
social media, I felt it showed
a real lack of responsibility
in the individual, which in
turn, made me think safety
and security needed beef-
ing up at City Hall. Threats
to people in our community
will elicit a timely response
by the city.”
Smith asked for better
security doors and a metal
detector to prevent weapons
from entering City Hall.
Sweet sent an email to
city councilors and Smith
asking to get all sources
of the threats or perceived
threats in the form of emails,
texts or screenshots.
This message was trans-
mitted by word-of-mouth
to a member of The Pacifi c
Way Group, who referred to
a potential for violence at the
next City Council meeting.
On June 8, Beth Cam-
eron, an opponent of the fi re-
house bond, reported social
media posts to the sheriff ’s
offi ce after reading on Face-
book that Sweet “was say-
ing there would be guns at
the next City Council meet-
ing,” the sheriff said in his
incident report.
Cameron told the sher-
iff she was concerned that
Sweet was “unstable,” high-
lighting past troubles related
to alcohol.
Jack Zimmerman, an
administrator of The Pacifi c
Way Group, also contacted
the sheriff ’s offi ce about the
matter.
The sheriff ’s offi ce deter-
mined that the discussion
had been distorted. Instead
of Sweet being proactive in
ensuring security at meet-
ings, messaging led to a per-
ception Sweet was either
going to bring a fi rearm to
a meeting or invite others to
bring them, the sheriff said
in his incident report.
“Sweet was aware of the
misinformation being spread
and we discussed the email
he sent,” Phillips said. “Mr.
Sweet has no inclination
whatsoever to bring fi rearms
of any type to a meeting.”
Zimmerman, one of the
leading opponents of the
bond measure and a critic of
Sweet, said his report to the
sheriff ’s offi ce wasn’t moti-
vated by politics.
“The question on my part
— and I know on Beth Cam-
eron’s part — was if there
were in fact, people coming
to City Council with guns,
why was this not reported?”
he asked. “One, to the county
sheriff ; two, to the residents
of Gearhart; and then three,
what were the actions that
would be taken to protect the
residents?”
The rumored threat
came just days after the
mass shooting at a school
in Uvalde, Texas, Cameron
said . “I was understandably
concerned for the safety of
every single person attend-
ing City Council meetings,”
she said.
Chief Bowman wrote in
his blog in early June that
City Hall did receive an
anonymous letter, she said.
“So what did I falsely
report? ... I reported because
I would never have been able
to live with myself if some-
one had been hurt, or killed,
and I had known about that
potential from social media
rumors beforehand,” she
said.
Along with the Zoom-
only meeting on Wednesday ,
the City Council could con-
sider additional measures
regulating fi rearms on city
property.
“Due to possible nega-
tive reactions by others from
these social media posts and
the members themselves,
certain precautions should
be taken,” Bowman said.
“Everyone should be able
to feel a sense of safety at
a public meeting or gath-
erings. By making a few
adjustments and setting forth
some security protocols, cit-
izens will have just that.”
It’s how Andes found the
pieces of the wreck that have
everyone so excited and con-
cerned now.
By trying to keep word of
the timbers quiet, he worries
that parks and other groups
involved missed an oppor-
tunity to better protect the
resources. He knows he is
not the only one roaming the
beaches and hillside, curious
about what is there.
“People walk down here
every day and walk off with
stuff ,” Andes said.
He thinks about some
of the familiar faces, that
instantly recognizable pos-
ture of people searching
for old stuff , and the pleas-
ant codes they’ll exchange:
“Looking for agates?”
“Yep, just looking for
agates.”
Then there are people who
may not realize that the bit of
porcelain or wood they’ve
found could be important,
something diff erent than the
usual beach debris, some-
thing they should tell some-
one about.
Andes believes that dis-
cussing more openly what is
down there earlier could have
boosted funding for recover-
ing the timbers, future inter-
pretation work and eff orts to
protect the site. He thinks the
state missed an opportunity
to get ahead of the public.
To which Havel noted in a
statement: “It would be great
if just explaining a problem
and asking for public help
would work in a situation
like this. Our experience has
been, it doesn’t.”
The state parks depart-
ment doesn’t see a way to
get ahead of interest with-
out identifying the location
and inadvertently increasing
interest.
“We already constantly
say: stay away from cliff
edges and bases, know
the tides so you don’t get
trapped, stay away from logs
in reach of the surf, and all
the other beach safety mes-
sages,” Havel said.
“Our additional message
when people pay attention to
this story will be, ‘If you fi nd
anything unusual, old, and
human-made on the ocean
shore, report it.’ Our view is
doing that now for this spe-
cifi c location, or even with-
out any context, would either
put an unwanted spotlight
on this spot or simply be
confusing.”
Andes is convinced
there’s more to be found that
could help solve the mystery
of the Beeswax — a mystery
that has intrigued him since
he was a kid.
Over the years, he stud-
ied photos and other historic
documents. He explored
beaches and cliff sides,
expanding his own under-
standing of the landscape
around the wreck, the places
where evidence has washed
up.
Andes discovered the fi rst
timber piece in the sea caves
several years ago. It looked
like nothing more than a bit
of buried log, one end stick-
ing out. At fi rst, he wasn’t
sure what he was looking
at. Then, in the spring of
2019, more of the wood was
exposed and he began to sus-
pect it wasn’t just driftwood.
In fact, he said, he knew
what it was the minute he
saw more of it. The wood
was exceptionally hard and
dotted with small square
holes. He was convinced it
was from a shipwreck and
one wreck in particular: the
Beeswax.
“You can’t tell all the
treasure hunters in the world
about it,” he said, “but you
kind of have to because
they’re going to fi nd out
about it anyway.”
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False threats: Safety concerns after social media rumors
Lydia Ely
A piece of the Beeswax shipwreck.
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