Cíes history is linked to a lot of maritime accidents, shipwrecks, remains of ships on seafloors increasing its rich maritime heritage. From the Roman Age we have found amphoras, pottery and stone anchors. There are remains of a Muslim fleet wrecked ship from the 9th century.
The location of the islands, the routes to entry into the sea inlet could cause these shipwrecks, entering or leaving the sea inlet. Also, they provided safety and sheter as well as freshwater and all these factors made it a right place for anchorage, contributing to create some amazing archeological record under these waters.
A lot of elements were recovered, for example cannons, bullets, anchors, sabres., materials from the past which enable to reconstruct historic passages whcich happened on these coasts. Some as mysterious as El Santo Cristo de Maracaibo and its supposed treasure turned into a legend. It sank in Cíes soon after the battle of Rande in 1702 when the Franco-Spanish and the Anglo-Dutch fleet fought. The Anglo-Dutch clearly beat “la Flota de la Plata” coming from América.
Before the current signalling and navigation systems, there were more accidents due to very shallow drafts (depth needed for sailing) as Carrumeiro, Boeiro, Biduídos, As Negras or Forcados.
During the 19th and 20th centuries there were a lot of accidents an shipwrecks of small ships with cruel endings and the press of that time mentioned them. Some of them were traineras (rowing ships), boats,small boats, gamelas (typical Galician boats) steamboats.
