I've gone so far down this rabbit hoe I'm no longer sure what I read and where. The old wrecked ship that is half full of sand and where Barnabas fights the alligator is a clear story location in Sackett's Land.

Dad said that he mentioned it again in Fair Blows the Wind and that fans wrote to him connecting the two ... a connection he didn't think anyone would make, he just did it for fun. Sort of.

But I can't seem to find it in Fair Blows the Wind. I'm going to have to start reading through yet again. I have a memory of it but it might be a memory of Sackett's Land or of Dad telling me about it.

It is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE, however, that the ship he was talking about in his letters was not an abandoned hulk in Fair Blows the Wind. It's possible it was the San Juan de Dios, the ship that was abandoned by the Spanish characters in the beginning of that story.

Do we know what happens to the San Juan de Dios? As I remember it drifted away from the sand bank where Tatton Chantry found it when the tide came in.

This would fit with my ALERT - TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS post. The story Pim tells about Chantry is followed by the rebellious crewman Johnathan Delve heading off to try to find a rumored Spanish wreck that still may contain some treasure. Chantry left many tons of silver ingots on the San Juan ... and, without being sure that it is the same ship, Barnabas Sackett knows where it is.

If anyone has any EVIDENCE BASED ideas I'd love to know them. I'm trying to wrap up all the threads in this Lost Treasures Postscript.