Seventeenth-century bronze cannon recovered from La Salle's Belle, shipwrecked in Matagorda Bay, Texas, in 1686. Juan Rodriguez hoists the conserved gun from a citric acid bath used to brighten the bronze by removing oxidized metal.

Found in Lagoon on Grand Turk

One of only two known pre-Columbian Taino canoe paddles. Found only 50 yards from a Lucayan Taino Indian site. Radiocarbon dating by Beta Analytic Inc. places the paddle between AD 995 and 1235. Lucayan Tainos are believed to have arrived in the Turks and Caicos Islands between AD 700 and 900. Paddle undergoing conservation at Ships of Discovery's Texas headquarters before being returned to the Turks and Caicos National Museum. "Grand Turk continues to surprise us. Recent finds there require us to re-write the pre-European history of this part of the world," says Dr. William F. Keegan of the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Ships of Discovery Conservation Lab headquartered in the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History

Rescued from the rust pile