THE DRAGON'S TREASURE ALMOST TOOK MY LIFE.

In 1656, two hundred and twenty seven years before Robert Louise Stevenson wrote ‘Treasure Island’ the Dutch East Indies (VOC) treasure ship The Gilt Dragon (Vergulde Draeck), struck a reef 5.6 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. 
On board were several canons, Elephant tusks, Earthenware jugs, Eight chests of Spanish silver coins (Pieces of eight) and a crew of 193. Of those 118 lives were lost and 300 years later, as I dived on her treasure, the Gilt Dragon almost took my life too!

It was a beautiful sunny day & the sea was mirror calm. I had been briefed on the three king waves that would come up from time to time & the plan was to keep watching out for them, turn & face them and dive under them before they broke on the reef.
Our party consisted of salvage diver Allan Robinson and myself together with my girlfriend and Garry, a young rock lobster fisherman. 
Garry seemed to be living like a castaway on the beach and I  thought to myself "We already have Robinson, so this guy must be Crusoe".  Garry impressed me, he was a larger than life young guy and I envied his lifestyle.
On the beach he drove an unlicensed ex army jeep with kangaroo skin seat covers. He worked on his Dad's Lobster fishing boat and he lived in a corrugated iron shack in the sand dunes near Ledge Point. At the rear of his shack he showed me a large Elephant tusk (Part of the Gilt Dragon's valuable treasure) worm eaten from hundreds of years in the sea. At 19 years old I was already an experienced wreck diver, but never before on a treasure ship!
We were in a small outboard motor boat about 3 and a half miles (in those days considered to be outside of Australian Territorial waters)  from shore at Ledge Point on the 1656 wreck of the Dutch East Indies vessel, the  Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon) with its tons of ballast bricks, eight chests of silver coins, elephant tusks, pottery a gleaming bronze deck cannon and several big iron cannon. 
The sea was eerily calm and Allan thought it was safe enough for us to snorkel from his boat to see cannon that stood vertical from the reef with its muzzle protruding  out of the water.  I had a wet suit jacket that was too big for me and a borrowed weight belt made of an old ex-army webbing belt with homemade weights bolted onto it. We got in close to the reef where the water was shallow, Alan pointed to something protruding slightly above the mirror calm water “WOW!” A three hundred year bronze cannon pointing skyward from the side of the reef. Polished, literally by the sands of time, it gleamed like gold in the clear water.
Taking a quick breath I dived down and touched the clear V.O.C crest on its gleaming sand polished muzzle. I was vaguely aware of Allan shouting something, but I was too overcome with excitement to respond. I came up for a breath and realized something was terribly wrong. A huge shadow folded like a giant hand above me and as if the awesome site of the cannon hadn’t been breathtaking enough, the first of an unheard of, six king waves tore my mask and snorkel from my face, scooped me up and hurled me onto the jagged rocks, knocking out the remnants of my breath of air and stunning me.
I then fell back off the reef and plunged to the bottom where, even without my mask, I could see more cannon lying dark on the white sand. I grabbed hold of one but the next wave was too strong for me, almost ripping my fins from my feet. Again like a giant hand the wave rolled over me and it squeezed me like a tube of toothpaste. I was torn from my anchor point, lost my grip and again hurled savagely, like a rag doll, onto the rocks. 
I knew I was in trouble, but thanks to my dive training (with Allan Robinson as one of my instructors) and my experience, I remained calm. I knew what to do, drop my weight belt and the buoyancy of my wet suit would work like a life jacket. But I had one big problem; the safety release on the homemade weight belt wouldn’t work. The belt was jammed and with each receding wave, every time I tried to raise my head for a gulp of air, the weights dragged me down to the bottom. One moment I was swirling around on the bottom in the sand among the big iron cannon and the next I was smashed onto the sharp ragged rocks.
 I was totally exhausted, the fight and the breath had been knocked out of me and I gave up. It seemed this was the end of my nineteen years on this earth, and I knew I would soon be sucking sea water & sand into my empty lungs.
 In a surreal, silent, slow motion moment, my whole life, like a movie, replayed in front of my eyes. In the final episode it was as if I saw myself lifeless, dead, bloated and blue slowly drifting backwards and forwards among the weed and I thought to myself
"Heaven or Hell!"....Suddenly! I burst back to the present time.
“This is not for me!” and my brain screamed out to the God that I didn't think I believed in... “God please save me!” 
With that, my whole being seemed to explode with a super charge of Adrenaline, enabling me to throw myself to the surface. 
Oblivious to my drama, Allan had made it to safety. I caught a glimpse of him in the water near the boat & on board were Garry & my girlfriend. When I saw her I thought “This is the last time I will ever see you”.
  With the weight belt dragging me down, I was still in trouble. There was just enough time, before the final wave broke, for me to yell out to Allan for help.
It had seemed so natural and so easy to shout out to God for help, yet I found it unnatural and embarrassing to call out to man. I quickly overcame my embarrassment and was able to get out two or three shouts for “HELP!” before the next wave grabbed me. Strangely this wave behaved differently to the preceding five. It still effortlessly scooped me up, but it didn't smash me onto the reef, instead it gently rolled me, like a bag of bones, over the full width of the reef and into deeper but calmer waters. There was no way I would be able to swim back to the boat with the weights dragging me down, so while blocking out stories of sharks waiting on this side of the reef for an easy feed of stunned and injured fish, I renewed my effort to drop the belt. Quickly Allan Robinson was alongside me, he always carried a spear with him on this side of the reef to fend off the sharks that I was trying to not think about.
He seemed perplexed as to why I had not dropped my belt. He grabbed at the buckle and gave it a wrench. Nothing happened. His expression and manner changed. Reaching for his knife he dropped his brand new spear and it sank into the depths. Then while he partly lifted me with one hand, with the other he sawed through the tough webbing belt. It was difficult and seemed to take ages.
Eventually I was free and bobbed around like a cork in my over sized wet suit. Allan took the lead and we swam quite a long way around the reef and back to the boat. Bruised and extremely tired, the swim back was long and painful, so I used a clumsy combination of overarm, breast stroke and sidestroke, then while I was in the middle of a dog paddle, Allan said in an unusual serious tone of voice: 
“Have a look under you!” ​then suddenly as if to correct himself he said ‘’Oh! It’s Okay. You can't see without your mask” ​
 “Why, what is it?” I asked 
“Nothing, just part of the wreck” he said unconvincingly.
I didn't think there was any wreckage this far from the reef. 
​We were in open waters and thoughts of sharks crept back into my mind. I brought my legs up and avoided splashing like an injured fish.
We made it back to the boat and then back to the beach.
On the way home Allan told me he had seen a 10 foot shark ‘sniffing’ at my scratched & bleeding legs.

It was a strange journey home and I had mixed emotions.
​ I was confused and yet was sure that something, far more mysterious than possible death, had happened to me. I had called out to the God that I thought I did not believe in. But who did I thank that day? I thanked the man that cut off my weight belt. And to what did I credit the surge of power that came over me when I needed it most? I credited my own system for its production of Adrenalin.

​Sadly, it took me about three decades before I realized that it was God that saved me physically that day and now I am so thankful to Him for extending His Grace to me even further by saving me Spiritually too. Now as a Christian, I know first hand, that we all have an inherent knowledge of the one and only true God and in every heart there is a void that can only be filled by the Spirit of God. 

HOW ABOUT YOU? 
​Do you ever feel like you’re drowning? Like there’s an ocean of pain and problems and you can’t breathe?
There is one who can rescue you and save you from the depths of despair. He is waiting for you to call out to Him!

Read the full story on my treasure hunting website: https://oztreasure.weebly.com/gilt-dragon-i-called-out-531672.html