Cocos Island Story
Cocos Island Story
This story is missing in no book on treasure stories.
Cocos Island belongs to Costa Rica and is located in the Pacific Ocean between the coast of Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. It can be reached in one or two days by boat from Puntarenas. The story goes that two or three major treasures were hidden on this island. One hidden by the pirate Benito Bonito and the so-called church treasure of Lima which, according to tradition, was removed before this extremely rich city was taken by Bolivar in the early 19. century.
To this day Cocos Island saw some 500 treasure hunts, among them so prominent names as the former president of the US, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Near the 1950s the island was a popular playground for wealthy Americans.
There is no evidence that ever something of value was recovered from that island. There are rumors that certain early treasure hunters were much richer after the search than before but nothing was substantiated yet. Also, there is not a single known document that confirms that a treasure was removed from Lima by ship.
Nice true stories are linked with Cocos. For instance, a German named Gissler lived on the island for some 20 years. He was obsessed of finding treasure and even dynamited his way through solid rock. The results can still be seen today. He did not find anything but, ironically, a coin that stuck to his boots shortly before he left the island forever.
Apart from dedicated treasure hunting parties the island was visited by countless yacht owners who, of course, all knew the story and invested some days of treasure hunting before they continued their sail.
Today the government of Costa Rica does not allow treasure hunts any more. Access to the island is limited to a restricted area. People wanting to visit the island are accompanied by civil servants who live there. The official justification of these measures is that the Island’s nature needs to be protected. While the sealife off the coast is indeed spectacular and makes the island a nice destination for divers I do not believe the island carries unusual flora or fauna. I rather think the government is just annoyed by all these treasure hunting activities. The same phenomenon can be observed in other places e.g. Rennes Les Chateau. This shows that treasure hunters need to find places early, when no one else cares, especially the government. The more time elapses the more restrictions are put up. In the end everything is fenced and declared a national parc.
(C) Thorsten Straub www.metal-detecting.de 2006-2019.