[1] The name Nuestra Señora de Encarnación translates into English directly as Our Lady of the Incarnation, a religious reference to the birth of the Messiah, God becoming man in the flesh.

On 29 November, Boticaria, which may have been a barge,[7] or a Nao carrack,[8] sank in a relatively peaceful manner with most of the crew and cargo saved after three days of taking on water and failing to contain a leak due to running itself onto a reef during the storm.

At least one other source mentions a very similar accident but attributes the sinking to a ship called Nuestra Señora de la Soledad which is referred to as a galleon and not a merchant carrack or nao.

[12][13] A ship that was probably the Soledad struck rocks or a reef in the area of Punta de Brujas and broke up on impact leading to the death of around 280 people, likely most of the galleon's crew, with its treasure completely lost in totality.

[14] What remains probable in any case is that both Nuestra Señora de la Soledad and Encarnación did, in fact, sink sometime between 29 November and 3 December 1681 as a result of the same storm and the hazardous nature of the area with its shallow water depth and various reefs.

It is likely that Encarnación, despite sinking, was not damaged to the same extent as ships like Nuestra Señora de la Soledad given her present-day state of preservation.

The cargo discovered on the ship includes around 100 wooden boxes containing metal swords, nails, bolts of cloth, horseshoes and scissors and a sizable quantity of ceramic pottery.

[23] The intended target of the archaeological team that discovered the wreck was the treasure fleet of Captain Henry Morgan which lost five ships in the same waters around the mouth of the Chagres River in a storm in 1670.