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           On a fateful day in November 1996, as divers with Intersal, Inc, were winding down their search for shipwrecks in Beaufort Inlet, they discovered a room-sized mound of cannons, anchors, and ballast stones. Eight years before, in 1988, the private research firm had received a permit from the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch, (UAB) to search for the remains of Queen Anne's Revenge and Adventure in Beaufort Inlet. Intersal also held a permit to search the same area for the Spanish ship El Salvador, which was lost in 1750. For nearly 10 years, Intersal conducted intermittent surveys in Beaufort Inlet with little result. Then, in 1996, Intersal hired shipwreck researcher Mike Daniel to direct field operations. Using historical accounts provided by Intersal President Phil Masters, Daniel selected a survey area that he felt encompassed the inlet's early-eighteenth century entrance channel and bar. At the time of discovery, the Intersal crew recovered several artifacts dating to the early-eighteenth century including a brass blunderbuss barrel and a bronze bell with a date of 1705. After a brief site visit and an inspection of the small collection of recovered artifacts, state underwater archaeologists agreed that the site was quite possibly the remains of Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge, which was known to have been lost at that location in 1718. Following months of secrecy, during which agreements were arrived at between Intersal, its nonprofit entity Maritime Research Institute and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the find was announced with great fanfare and interest throughout the world. The work began in the fall of 1997. It was to be the most ambitious archaeological assessment of a N.C. shipwreck since the discovery of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor three decades earlier. ... click for more