Lynchburg, VA, March 14, 2024 — Doug Hanau has completed his new book, “Surfing Treasure’s Wake: Revised Edition”: a remarkable work that follows a young boy’s discovery of a tragedy in the past.
It’s 1715, and the Spanish galleon the San Miguel, having left Havana on her way back to Spain, is caught in a sudden and overwhelming hurricane. Black water rushes across her wooden decks as Isabella Rojas and her six children hold on for dear life and pray that God is listening. But God is not. Fearing death, Isabella binds each child around the waist to a knotted rope, hoping to save each, but all are swept overboard. One by one, each child drowns, the weight of each body slowly pulling Isabella beneath the stormy seas, as her golden medallion sinks beside her. Now they rest at the bottom of the sea, waiting to be released from their watery graves.
Over two hundred years later, while surfing, sixteen-year-old Marc, abandoned by his father, encounters the ghost of Isabella. Along with Bob, a retired treasure hunter, Marc is drawn into the world of surfing, treasure hunting, and mystery as they both try to solve the legend of Isabella and her children. Then a tragic loss forces Marc to face his reality as he discovers the real treasure he’s been searching for all along.
Author Doug Hanau writes, “Six children and their mother lashed to a rope, drowning, each dragging the next into watery darkness. Angelic faces, contorted by terror, fade into the cold black abyss. The mother tried desperately to fight the increasingly cutting weight around her waist as she sank. Her beautiful dark eyes stared up. Lace-covered arms reached for the surface; her mouth opened, silently pleading to God for help. The bubbles rose as she followed her doomed children to their deaths, her precious golden medallion of the Virgin Mary sinking beside her.”