A beachcomber exploring sea caves along the north coast of western Oregon, USA discovered timbers from the hull of the Beeswax wreck Spanish galleon that sunk in the Pacific Ocean more than 300 years ago, state officials have just announced.
For the past several years, explorers have been searching at land and at sea up and down the Oregon coast looking for the remains of a long-lost Spanish galleon trading ship known as the Santo Cristo de Burgos. The ship disappeared on a voyage from the Philippines to Mexico in 1693, as it apparently drifted severely off-course before being wrecked somewhere near the modern village of Manzanita.
This was known because bits and pieces from the Spanish galleon have been washing up on northern Oregon beaches for many decades. Included among these 300-year-old artifacts were many blocks of beeswax, which was used to make candles for Catholic ceremonies and was routinely shipped from Asia to Spanish colonies in Mexico in centuries past. Because of the unusual nature of this item, in northern Oregon the lost Santo Cristo de Burgos came to be known as the Beeswax wreck, which has its own Wikipedia page!
