ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA—Chuck Meide of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program will partner with the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the state of Florida, the Institute of Maritime History, and the Center for Historical Archaeology in Melbourne to look for a French fleet lost in 1565 off Florida’s Atlantic coast. Jean Ribault, leader of the fleet, was planning to attack the Spanish colony at St. Augustine with his four largest ships when a hurricane pushed the heavily armed vessels to the south and then sank them. “It was a storm that literally changed American history,” Meide told the Florida Times-Union. The Protestant French settlement at Fort Caroline was soon destroyed by the Catholic Spanish, who also killed Ribault and the other shipwreck survivors. Meide’s ongoing expedition will employ a shrimp boat outfitted with sonar and a magnetometer to search for French cannons, cannonballs, and other artifacts. “It is Florida’s origin story, so it is also the story of the birth of our nation,” he said.
