At the time of her sinking, Nuestra Señora de Atocha was heavily laden with copper, silver, gold, tobacco, gems, and indigo from Spanish ports at Cartagena and Porto Bello in New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama, respectively) and Havana, bound for Spain.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha had been delayed in Veracruz before she could rendezvous in Havana with the vessels of the Tierra Firme (Mainland) Fleet.

[2] The Nuestra Señora de Atocha had lost all of her 265 crew and passengers except for three sailors and two slaves, who survived by clinging to the mizzenmast.

Among the sailors killed in the disaster was Bartolomé García de Nodal, explorer of the Straits of Magellan surrounding Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America.

Nuestra Señora de Atocha had sunk in approximately 17 metres (56 ft) of water, making it difficult for divers to retrieve any of the cargo or guns from the ship.

The Spaniards undertook salvage operations for several years with the use of enslaved people, and recovered nearly half of the registered part of its cargo from the holds of Santa Margarita.

The principal method used for the recovery of this cargo was a large brass diving bell with a glass window on one side: an enslaved person would be forced to ride to the bottom, recover an item, and return to the surface by being hauled up by the men on deck.

He also proposed the idea to several other potential helpers, who were discouraged by the fact that this dangerous professional diving job would be paid at minimum wage unless the ship could be found.

It was Fisher's son, Kane, who radioed the news to Treasure Salvors headquarters on the Florida coast, from the salvage boat Dauntless.