Well, you’re clearly drilling.
Yeah, so I can hear it, absolutely.

Rick and Marty Lagina arrive at The Money Pit area to check on the progress of the probe drilling operation within the Garden Shaft.
Yeah.
Oh, Dean—part of the right—they’re at depth down to 93 feet and they should be right at the point where… there should be… right on—
If the wood’s—yes.

Having reached the approximate depth of the believed tunnel that may lead directly westward into the possible treasure zone, the burning questions are:
Can they locate the structure?
And if so, can they breach it to see what it may contain?

“Today is the last day, there’s no question about it. Dumas have to pack up. We have really only half a day of real active search.”
“Agenda?”
“What’s up?”
“I’m just binding it up—oh yeah, wood would do that.”
“I’d like to pull the bits and see what’s down there. What do you guys think?”
“I’d do it before we run out of time.”
“Okay, yeah. It’s a good idea.”
“Copy, Rodney. Go ahead.”
“Roger. Yeah, the guys would like you to stop drilling right now. Let’s pull the rods out. Let’s clean out the filing, make sure everything goes in a bag, and let’s see what we can see.”
“Stand for.”

Oak Island doesn’t give up her secrets very easy.
“No, she does not.”

“This is it. We’re gonna have to get whatever information we can get and hopefully figure out what this wood is at the base of the Garden Shaft.”
“So I’m hoping Ronnie has found something significant.”
“Hello, Rodney. Bags of goods. Any sign of any wood in it?”
“Nothing big.”
“Let me just ask you this—You were pretty sure you were on wood. Are you still pretty sure?”
“I’m like 99.9% sure I hit wood on the north side.”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have a direct hit and able to get into the tunnel, but we may have come down beside it.”
“I think so, yes. If we just came down on an edge of it, we can use that to project the line of the tunnel.”

“Rick, you and I gotta go down there. We haven’t explored at the bottom yet to see where the tunnel is.”
“So let’s go get suited up.”

“I want to go down in that shaft.”
“Ten years ago or longer, we never would have anticipated this moment, where Marty and I get to go down together underground in The Money Pit.”
“Well Rick, it all started here. And so we’re going down there together, right? So it’s going to be pretty unique. It’ll be interesting to see what our takeaways are.”
“Now let’s go down the damn shaft, okay?”
“All right. Are you leading, am I leading?”
“I’ll lead.”
“You guys down there ready to rock?”
“Yeah, we’re going to figure it all out right now.”

“It’s like a childhood fantasy, isn’t it? I mean Rick and I—60 years later—are going way underground in The Money Pit area.
And we’re in a position that other people were in over literally hundreds of years, trying to find this treasure.
And I’m there with Rick, who has been enamored of this thing since he was 10.
And you know—here we are, doing it together as brothers.”

“All right, big brother.”
“I know. This is really quite awe-inspiring.”
“Yeah, it really is quite a trip back in time.”
“It’s pretty amazing.”
“Oh absolutely.”

“Okay, we’re running out of time this year—but this thing is not going anywhere.”
“Oh no. Oh no.”
“You know this is where things would fall. And all—Gary always says—things fall to the lowest point, right?”
“If there’s anything to be found in this shaft, it might be there.”

“I think it’s worth running a metal detector.”
“Yes, but also what if we’re five feet above something? He might be able to detect it.”
“That’s a great idea. And the other thing is the coil he’s got on there—you can immerse it in water. So he could stand on the edge and put the coil down.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna give them a call.”

“Hey guys.”
“Hey Roger, this is Scott.”
“Hey Scott.”
“Yeah, we’re down here wondering if you guys can get Gary to come over here.”
“Copy that. We’ll get Gary and get him geared up to go down.”
“That works.”

“Yeah, with the literally few moments we have left, is to get Gary to try and metal detect.”
“Ah, finally. We could be close to the actual treasure.”
“Hello Mike, coming down Gary.”
“Oh wow. Oh my God. This is fantastic. I have a chance to be the first person metal detecting down in The Money Pit today.”
“Detector coming down.”
“Okay, keep it coming.”

“This is it. Standing next to Rick and Marty on these thick planks and knowing that there’s all this mud and water below me—got it—this feels fantastic.”
“And the old scene around me—it looks like it’s medieval. Almost like I’m in a dungeon in a castle back in Templar days.”

“Just so you know, there’s going to be a lot of modern nails and wire down.”
“Yeah, no worries mate. That’s why I’m using my CTX 3030.”
“You’ve got the discrimination bells and whistles with this—that’s what we need.”

“Okay, we’re looking two different things. Rick’s idea is that we are at the base of the old shaft. And if those guys dropped anything—it’s here.”
“Oh yeah.”
“And then the other thing is, what if we’re close to something big—you know, you and I.”
“Yeah, there’s that too.”
“So all right—we gotta move that board around.”
“Okay. You and I do that.”
“Yeah, put it over there.”

“There’s a hole—it’s two feet deep.”
“Okay, well—where does muck this treasure mark?”
“Yeah, we’ll see what’s down there mate.”
“All right, extend it a little bit.”
“Bye.”

“Oh, that’s the best sounding target!”
“Yeah, that sounded really good!”
“We know where the hits are—just as important. This is a non-ferrous target. This could be gold, it could be silver, it could be copper.”
“Either way, it’s a great sounding signal.”
“Gary, you’re the man.”
“You’re the man.”
“That was so much fun.”

Is it possible that Gary has detected evidence of the fabled Oak Island treasure in the muddy soil just a few feet below the bottom level of the Garden Shaft?

Or could the signals be coming from the bleed tunnel some 10 feet below, which runs westward toward the baby blob?

You guys are grinning from ear to ear.

As exciting as this moment is, it is also bittersweet.
Because at this point in the year, Dumas does not have the legal permits to extend the shaft any deeper.
And Rick and Marty cannot risk the future of the project, nor the safety of their team, by attempting to breach the bottom of the shaft to explore what could be dangerously unstable ground below.

The level of excitement when he describes a non-ferrous hit—it’s through the roof.
And that’s why it’s so frustrating not to go after this target.

But we’re at the end of the year.
I wish there was more time.

“All right. Here’s the deal—we’re done for today. Everybody’s cold. Put this ladder back up. Let’s get out of here.”

Tomorrow, we will have the final war room.