DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum, Fenwick Island, DE - Fenwick Island, Delaware - Southern Delmarva Peninsula Museum Rich With Buried Treasures From the Deep

The DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum, Fenwick Island, DE, is located at 708 Ocean Highway. The museum is on the southern end of the Delmarva Peninsula. It is just north of the state line with Maryland at Ocean City.

The museum opened in 1995 seeking to recover and preserve maritime heritage. Individual donations are the main source of funding for the effort that has come to assemble the largest collection of shipwreck related artifacts in the Mid Atlantic Region of the United States. Local authorities also support this private museum.

80% of the collection rotates throughout the world in traveling exhibits and as loans while only 20% can be on display at any time in the museum due to limited space. That means 10,000 pieces are usually on exhibit here. The pieces in the collection are from around the globe and date form the first quarter of the 17th Century onwards into the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum, Fenwick Island, DE's artifacts include antique coins, gold bars, weapons and a variety of goods carried and used on board in early sailing times. Some 30,000 of the pieces in the collection were found in the local area, which includes both the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays.

Among the oldest items at the museum to date is a gold chain that was on its way to the Queen of Spain before it sunk on a Spanish Galleon off the Florida coast in a 1622 hurricane. That galleon was found in 1985 after a 16 year quest. It held an estimated $538 million in gold, silver and gems, much of which formed part of the museum's initial collection.

The museum arranges for a variety of tours that range from simply seeing the museum itself to also visiting other maritime museums in the area. The museum's location is in an area that has been the site of a good deal of shipping and piracy since 400 years ago.

Actual artifacts and coins are sold by the museum store as well as films, books and other educational materials and souvenir memorabilia.

The museum's Director, Dale Clifton, is continually expanding the collection through his own ongoing exploration. A Nearby lab in Ocean City, MD assists with the restoration of new items that are found. They are usually covered in barnacles and worn from centuries of submersion in the salty brine of the ocean.

The museum Director also arranges Treasure hunts and welcomes experienced divers to join his teams that seek to discover new relics for the museum's ever expanding collection.

The DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum, Fenwick Island, DE, is central to the Maryland and Delaware seaside tourist attractions and is just a short drive from the nation's capital.

The museum makes educational materials available to local schools.