Today's Featured Biography

Alan Riebe

It was about November of 1965 when my father transferred to Ramey Air Force base in Puerto Rico to work on Hound Dog missiles, which, at the time, were one of America’s first lines of nuclear defense. I remember my astonishment at the feeling of passing into a time-warp, as it seemed we were aloft only minutes in the military plane before emerging over the western end of the life teeming tropical island. Gazing down from my little window in the heavens, I beheld my first glimpse of the jungle clothed cliffs and the surrounding deep blue waters, which were soon to be my liquid playground.

Not long after arriving, I met Chris and Scott Duncan and with Scott, became interested in learning to dive after hearing we could sell lobsters to Tony’s Restaurant just outside the base gate for a whole dollar each! That was all the inspiration needed and with that, I begged my parents to purchase a mask, snorkel and fins from the Base Exchange Store. Within days, I took my first dive off Crashboat Beach near the village of Aquadilla. Thereafter my voyages into the newly found undersea world left me filled with wonderment of how such a diversity of creatures with their unending array of color, came into being! Random DNA mutations over billions of years? God? As my fascination increased, I became a shell collector and over time collected a wide variety, which I often traded or sold to a shell shop located just outside the base parameter at Gate 5.

I also became intrigued by the stories of older divers around the base, who told of shipwrecks and lost treasures they believed to be laying submerged around the island. Afterward, each time I dove to recover another shell, I dreamed of finding a chest of jewels and of being rich forever! Actually, such a discovery did indeed occur on land by a Puerto Rican who, while digging a hole for cooking a pig for base bigwigs, unearthed a little chest of ancient jewelry. As the story goes, he later became the richest man in Aguada.

Back at sea, my first sighting of a shipwreck was off Borinken Beach Point, where one day I had drifted with the current all the way from Officers Beach, spearing fish and collecting shells as I went. All I saw at the time were a few large crooked timbers protruding above an expanse of pearl white sand. Diving down I examined them further and remember thinking “no treasure here, just some old wood.” Some time later, just beneath the waters of an outcrop of volcanic table rocks located at the eastern end of Officers Beach, I discovered the scattered remains of another shipwreck, which other divers I learned, knew about as well. Nearly all of the artifacts were covered in thick coral and rarely was anything brought ashore because of this. Therefore, each new diving experience became a goal of spearing lobster and fish, finding shells, and looking for the proverbial treasure chest filled with riches.

Meanwhile, besides my diving, I was also passionately into surfing and on two occasions in 1968, photos of me appeared in Surfer Magazine. (Now posted to the RHS website). That year I also qualified for the World Contest, held at Rincon Beach, but missed the event as soon before our family left for Florida. I remember one of my last surfing experiences before leaving the base. I was surfing alone at Officers Beach and a cool morning breeze, scented with the sweet smell of jungle flora was blowing, causing a crosswise rippling effect to occur upon the face of the waves. After riding a few waves, I just sat on my surfboard feeling and inhaling the awl and beauty of everything all around, knowing this little world was soon to disappear from my life.

Another of my favorite memories is of the "skate board hill" in front of Judy Sawyers house on Kelly Drive. It was there me and my friends Scott and Chris Duncan, Rick Larsen and Mike Johnston, prepared ourselves for school each morning and in the evenings thereafter when we were not surfing. I recently reunited with Judy in Florida and shared a fun week with her and her husband Tom (and their two parrots), at their home in Fort Lauderdale.

Otherwise, my above water experiences at Ramey revolved around a lot of deep thinking about life and what the meaning was for my existence on this little rock hurling around in space. Much pondering of my teenage universe was done from the Wall at the Officers Club, which has captivated so many of us with its towering view of the jungles below and the expanse of the ocean stretching musically to the horizon from the winding beaches.

After leaving Ramey life’s stream carried me first to Florida and afterwards to Georgia, Virginia, Ohio, and to the farmlands of Illinois, where I owned and operated a home construction company. Then, in 1978, I wanted to get back to the things I enjoyed most, surfing and diving. The following year I returned to Virginia and began historical research on the famous treasure galleons, cast away in their voyages home to Spain during the colonial period. This research soon led me to the storm beaten shores of North Carolina, where I began my search for the treasure ship El Salvador lost off Cape Lookout in the year 1750. There I remained until the autumn of 2005 when a federal judges' ruling dismissed my exploration activities after more than two and a half decades of effort. Hence, the final chapter of this long saga is one I have yet to tell.

Along the way, in my quest for treasure, I wrote and published five books titled Treasure Wrecks Around the Globe, War Treasure I, War Treasure II, Sunken Naval Vessel of WWII and Chronicles of Shipwrecks and Sunken Treasure 900-1900 AD. The latter remains my masterwork. Several years ago, I sold the copyrights to the books to a friend. They have yet to be republished.

I am now semi-retired and when I do work, it's conducting archival research for undersea exploration companies. My current focus is writing about my life experiences of which my time at Ramey played so instrumental a part.

Alan R. Riebe (Still surf’n and dive’n).

VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES