As high school pals Jeff Hummel and Matt McCauley shared a passion for treasure hunting around their Mercer Island, Washington, home. Finding the elusive S.S. Pacific topped their list of pursuits. Some 40 years later, they may have realized their dream.

Fanny Palmer felt uneasy as she headed to Victoria, British Columbia’s Esquimalt Harbor on the morning of November 4, 1875. The 18-year-old daughter of a local college professor was going to board the S.S. Pacific for one of its bimonthly runs to San Francisco.

Even the non-poker players on the U-1206 had a sense they survived World War II because of a flush.

Where to find $17 billion under the sea is hardly a secret. A tangled snarl of claims to the holy grail of treasure wrecks plus technical challenges of visiting the ship are thwarting the recovery of its prize. The San Jose is some 2,000 feet below the waters off Colombia, where it sank in a battle in 1708.

When the Earl of Abergavenny sank in 1805 off England’s southern coast, the death toll in the hundreds made it the nation’s worst maritime disaster. The tragedy even sank the soul of a man who was not on board, yet that might have inspired him to rise to become the poet laureate of the United Kingdom.