Treasures Of The Deep

The Extraordinary Life and Times of Captain Mike Hatcher.

This is the story of an Australian adventurer's life and colourful career trawling the bottom of the ocean for sunken treasure.

Michael Hatcher grew up as a Barnardo's orphan and was a millionaire by the time he was in his twenties. He made his millions through the sale of artefacts that he has found in exotic locations like Indonesia and Thailand. Perhaps most famous of all is the Nanking Cargo, found aboard a sunken Dutch East ship in the South China Seas, which sold for over GBP 10 million. Mike uncovered 239,000 pieces of antique porcelain, 45kg of gold on that one shipment alone.

This book tells of his amazing adventures as a modern-day treasure hunter, a modern-day buccaneer and his worldwide role he has played in the salvage business. Mike relays his struggles including poverty as a child, apparent rejection from his parents, keeping his men out of trouble, often by taking the law into his own hands and the ever persistent modern day threat of piracy and trouble with governments.

'Treasures Of The Deep' also tells the poignant tale behind many of the uncovered wrecks including when he saw a Japanese carrier, torpedoed while carrying Australian passengers. This is an extraordinary and original tale vividly told to appeal to the adventurer in us all.