Manzanita's Spanish Galleon: New Discoveries and a Talk in N. Oregon Coast's Nehalem

Published 11/02/25 at 5:55 p.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Nehalem, Oregon) - On Saturday, November 15, get ready to have history blast you in the face. Nehalem Valley Historical Society presents “The Beeswax Wreck of 1693” at North County Recreation District (36155 9th Street, Nehalem) at 3:30 p.m. (Photo of one of the ship's beams / Scott Williams)

$10 at the door - proceeds benefit NVHS.

Researchers Carl Whiting and Tom Mock reveal more on the subject of these beach finds as well as the famed galleon. They are part of the Beeswax Wreck Project, involving numerous interdisciplinary researchers trying to get to the bottom of the Oregon coast's most engaging, invisible shipwreck.

“The story of the Spanish Galleon that met its fate on the shores of Manzanita more than 300 years ago is the stuff of international intrigue, as well as a famous movie about the treasures it left behind,” said the NVHS. “But what are the most recent artifacts recovered from the Galleon? What is our current understanding of the fate of the ship itself? Were the earthquake and tsunami friends or foes of the foreign evidence?”

By far and away the biggest headline in 2022 was a new development in the case of the Santo Cristo de Burgos: parts were found near Manzanita. They were discovered in a dangerous cove right beneath Neahkahnie Mountain, and then an entire film crew from National Geographic documented this large group of scientists poking around the area and inspecting the massive beams. See Part II, Manzanita 300-Yr-Old Spanish Galleon Find: Historic Surprises for Oregon Coast

It was an electrifying find.

Photo Scott Williams: the precarious cove where the beams are located

Before that, in the early 2000s, researchers discovered it was the Santo Cristo de Burgos – not another ship that had been on their radar in the 20th century.

Indeed, one of the group's main researchers, Scott Williams, put out a paper on work done by himself, Whiting, Mock and the others. It reveals some interesting new twists to the tale of the ship.

Fun and Intriguing New Facts of the Manzanita Spanish Galleon

In the early 1800s, Euro-American settlers along the Oregon coast began hearing stories of a shipwreck that had occurred more than a century before. It was said it carried an enormous cargo of beeswax blocks and candles, and indeed gobs of that stuff washed up in the Manzanita area for centuries.

But where was this elusive ship?

The wreck became legend: and that legend, in turn, spawned more legends – even its relation to a famous movie - and then finally it began to reveal its secrets late in the 20th century.

The group's study draws on archaeological, historical, and geomorphological evidence to show that the wreck was likely a Manila galleon that ran aground on the Oregon coast sometime between 1670 and the last major Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami around 1700. A thorough review of Spanish maritime records identified only one eastbound Manila galleon lost during that period: the Santo Cristo de Burgos, which departed the Philippines in July 1693 and was never heard from again. This strongly suggests that the so-called Beeswax Wreck is, in fact, the missing Santo Cristo de Burgos.

Even more remarkable: it seems the 1700 quake scattered objects from the wreck all over the Nehalem Bay area.

While they have found parts of the ship – those beams in the cave – they have not yet located anything else from the Spanish vessel. Researchers still believe it's possible it's out there feeding the surf with objects.

Until nearly 2010, researchers had believed it could not be the Burgos because there was some documentation it had burned. Then, however, they discovered the documentation was faulty, and much of it could be traced to a fictional story written by an American ex-pat living in the Philippines in the early 20th century.

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