Treasure hunter family finds $300,000 worth of 300-year-old Spanish gold off Florida coast

[HooptieWagon]

3. perhaps, perhaps not.

People still find doubloons in the surfline with $100 metal detectors.
Many galleons were wrecked along Fla's east coast. No lighthouses then, low coastline difficult to see at night, strong Gulfstream current made navigation difficult, a strong easterly gale or hurricane would drive the ships ashore with little warning. Sometimes the Spanish could salvage some of the treasure, sometimes "wreckers" beat them to it, but there's a lot still there. Many of the shipwreck sites are known, but the treasure is scattered during the shipwreck and centuries of storms. Its buried under the sand, sometimes a storm uncovers some that gets washed up into the surfline.