Isla del Coco, Costa Rica History

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Central America

Isla del Coco

History

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Isla del Coco, Costa Rica History

Spanish seafarer Juan Cabezas discovered the Isla del Coco in 1526. By 1542 it had already appeared for the first time on a sea chart. Since this time, seafarers from all the world's seagoing nations have at one time or another landed on the island for fresh water (the island gets 6,000 to 7,000 mm of rain a year) or coconuts. No one has until now lived on the small Pacific island permanently. A group of exiled prisoners spent a number of years on the island in the 18th century. For them, the sentence to "paradise" may not have been all that attractive. The judge who pronounced sentence is rumored to have said, "They were ripe for the island."

A number of famous people have visited Isla del Coco of their own free will. President Franklin D. Roosevelt landed on the island several times, and French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau also visited the island and carved his name on one of the cliffs.

For centuries Coconut Island has also attracted people with more sinister motives. According to legend the island's hills contain chests full of gold bullion. More than 500 expeditions have searched for sunken Spanish ships that are believed to have sailed for Spain loaded with Inca gold. The "Treasure of Lima" aboard the Mary Deer was especially valuable. It was supposed to have been shipped secretly home to Spain in the 18th century by order of the Colonial Governor. Its present-day value is believed to be about three billion dollars.

German adventurer August Gissler was the most persistent of all the treasure hunters. He spent 18 years on the island, built himself cabins, planted fruit trees and fields, and obtained permission to prospect for ore. The government of Costa Rica was to have shared in any discoveries he made. Whether Gissler ever actually found anything, and whether he really returned to New York to die a rich man are questions that have never been clearly answered.

A few years ago two German journalists published findings that once more created excitement and raised speculation about buried treasure on the Coconut Island: P.D. Lauxmann and C. Pfannenschmidt claimed in their article, The Authentic History of Steven.son's Treasure Island, that Isla del Coco was indeed the Treasure Island that Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson had in mind when he wrote his great classic.

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