It's eluded the most dogged adventurer for more than 150 years, but one man is getting ready to make his fifth foray south to find the elusive General Grant.
The passenger vessel, laden with gold coins, hit cliffs on the west coast of the sub-Antarctic Auckland Island in 1866, and neither ship nor its loot has been seen since.
Soon it'll be Bill Day's last-ditch attempt to find the hidden treasure, which has been a 35-year quest for the former dive instructor.
The General Grant is documented as having more than 2500 ounces, or nearly 71kg, of gold coins on board.
"The bottom estimate is about NZ$8 million - my top estimate is about $20 million," Day says.
Over the years there have been more than 30 search missions.
"John Baxter, leader of this 14th expedition down there, is confident he knows exactly where it is. This time I'm going down to the site and putting my divers in the water."
But no one knows the Island's numerous coves like Day. This trip will be his fifth attempt.
"It is a bit of an addiction, that's true. It is an obsession, I'll say that anyway," he says.
New technology and a state-of-the-art pulse magnetometer has drawn Day back again. He reckons it's given him a fighting chance of finally getting his hands on the shipwrecked treasure.
"I sort of got myself at peace with not finding the General Grant because I'd done everything that could be done, and then this new technology has arisen that's going to let us search electronically for the shipwreck," he says.
Fame and being the first to find the ship is more important than fortune, but it is a shiny bonus.
"Finding gold underwater is fantastic. Iron rusts, silver goes black, but gold is sparkling like the day. You go in and 155 years later it's sparkling like the day it went in," Day says.
Day and his crew of seven will spend six weeks at Auckland Island. Going at this time of year gives them 18 precious hours of daylight to search.
"I think the point is more that if I don't find it this time with this technology, there's nothing more to do."
Auckland Island is a world heritage site. Day hopes to make it historic too with the find of a lifetime.
