2023 Mel Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Captain Robert Moran

Taffi Fisher, right, daughter of the late treasure hunter Mel Fisher, presents Capt. Bob Moran with the Mel Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday during the annual Mel Fisher Days reunion event and charity fundraiser held at the Schooner Wharf Bar in Key West. Moran worked with the Fisher family organization on and off over many years in a number of capacities. ­­­His adventurous life story includes serving as a pilot flying a Grumman Widgeon amphibian seaplane and a Piper Twin Comanche in support of Navy search and rescue operations; surviving five days at sea shortly after the Cuban missile crisis in a lifeboat with little food or water, landing on Cuban shores, being arrested as a spy and sentenced to a firing squad. Fortunately that did not occur and he went on to undertake the remodeling of a Swedish lumber schooner into the iconic Spanish galleon replica “The Golden Doubloon” that served as floating treasure museum in Key West from 1967 until 1980. Moran, who now resides in Palm Bay, FL, is author of the autobiography, “A Deadly Path to Treasure.” (Photo: Carol Tedesco)