[2] On April 9, 1554, four Spanish naos[3] departed from San Juan de Ulúa bound for Havana, Cuba, the first leg of a return trip to Spain.

[4] The scattered remains of the wooden vessel named Santa Maria de Yciar are buried off Padre Island, Texas near Mansfield.

[2] The scattered remains of the wooden vessel named Espíritu Santo (Spanish for "Holy Ghost") are buried off Padre Island near Port Mansfield.

A salvage operation by a private company in 1967 was the subject of a court case and was responsible for the Antiquities Code of Texas, passed by the state legislature in 1969.

[2] The San Esteban was discovered in the early 1970s during a magnetometer survey of the area arranged by the Underwater Archeological Research Section of the state Antiquities Committee.