5 Dollars - Elizabeth II Sea Venture Wreck

The Sea Venture was the flagship of a nine-ship resupply fleet bound for the struggling Jamestown colony when it was deliberately run aground on Bermuda's reefs during a hurricane in July 1609. All 150 passengers survived, and the ten months spent on the island before the crew built two smaller vessels and continued to Virginia directly inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest. Without that shipwreck, Bermuda's permanent settlement likely never occurs.

This 1987 issue is a 5-troy-ounce piece, part of the Bermuda Monetary Authority's broader commemorative program marking the wreck's place in the island's founding history. The actual wreck site lies in roughly 20 feet of water off the northeast reefs and remains a protected historic site under Bermudian law.