Fast forward to 1973. Mike is prepared for another routine summer in Pensacola with his marine biologist father. But plans suddenly change and Mike finds himself on Shipwreck Island near the site where the Skink went down and right in the middle of a century-old mystery!

Mike and his new friend Kyle are intrigued by a salvage ship anchored just offshore. Some say it was brought in by fortune hunters searching for the long-lost Confederate ship and its treasure. But when the boys scale a fence at the fort on the island and explore a section closed off to the public, they realize that the fortune hunters may be looking in the wrong place. There in the sand-covered floor of an abandoned chamber they spot something shiny: an old double eagle gold coin. Mike and Kyle agree to keep their discovery a secret and start their own investigation into the shipwreck and the missing gold.