By Malcolm Billings
               In Havana

               There is a 16th Century fort at the entrance to Havana harbour that is packed with treasure from wrecked galleons. It is Havana's
               newest museum, opened this year.

               The display cases are full of wonderful things: Exquisite jewellery made from emeralds and gold; an intricate gold chain that could have
               been made for a Spanish princess; stacks of gold and silver bullion and personal items such as rings, plates and pewter mugs that must
               have belonged to the crew of unfortunate vessels.

               There is a concentration of wrecks around the coast of Cuba - estimates vary but there are hundreds, if not thousands - because the
               harbour at Havana was the gathering place for the Spanish silver fleets.

               The galleons laden with treasure from Mexico and other Spanish possessions assembled once a year and then sailed back to Spain
               in armed convoy.

               The curator of the maritime museum believes that some of the jewellery came from the Philippines - Spain's colony in the Far East.

               Mexican gold and gem stones were sent all the way to Manila to be made into high class jewellery.

               Treasure hunting

               Then the products would come back to the Pacific coast of Central America, overland through Mexico or across the Isthmus of
               Panama and on to Havana.

               Finding and excavating the wrecks in shallow water has been going on for years, but the real goodies, according to Paulina Zelitsky, lie
               undisturbed on the sea bed at the depth of about half a mile.

               Paulina, who once worked as an off-shore engineer at a Russian submarine base in Cuba, is now president of a Canadian company,
               Advanced Digital Communications, which has the exploration contract.

               ''We locate objects on the sea bed with a side-scan sonar device which we tow along behind our salvage ship,'' she explained.

               "When something shows up on the screen we send down a remotely operated underwater vehicle to investigate. This has cameras
               and lights and the pictures are relayed to the deck of the research vessel."

               The wrecks show up quite well because at that depth they are not encrusted with coral. Ships' planking survives and there are always
               ballast stones along with a lot of pottery.

               Somewhere among all that they can be sure of coins, gold and silver bullion and objects made of metal of various kinds.

               One of the wrecks they have identified could be a jackpot of a cargo.

               They have been looking for a special ship. It is one of the earliest wrecks dating from the beginning of Spanish colonisation and
               disappeared with a huge cargo of gold and silver along with gems and cultural objects specially collected to show the king of Spain
               the extent of the wealth of the New World.

               New equipment

               Their existing equipment has identified the site but the salvage team is waiting for new equipment now being designed to work on the
               sea bed for months at a time.

               Paulina described it as looking like a giant scorpion that clanks its way around the sea bed and is able to negotiate outcrops of rock
               and gullies using its six legs and a set of wheels.

               Like a scorpion, this new vehicle will have a long tail or arm that can lift and dig. And it will be a more precise operation. All its
               functions will be controlled by someone in a miniature submarine who can see exactly what's going on.

               Millions of pounds have been invested in this deep sea project, and as yet nothing has been raised.

               Is it all worth it I wondered? Are there enough wrecks with treasure that is recoverable to make it worthwhile?

               Paulina produced some stunning statistics. Although the new museum has cases full of treasure Paulina believes that only about 2%
               of everything that was lost has been recorded so far.

               That means, she said, there could be an absolute fortune down there: gold and silver worth thousands of millions of pounds lying on
               the bottom of the Caribbean.