Former Premier turned treasure hunter David Saul told Hamilton Rotarians yesterday that searching for lost shipwrecks has become a life’s passion.The 71-year-old is a director of Odyssey Marine Exploration, a company which has made headlines for a series of high profile discoveries most notably the wreck of HMS Victory in 2009.“Treasures come in many ways,” said Dr Saul, as he listed some of his company’s numerous lucrative finds. Nearly all treasures come with competing ownership claims.“One such episode was the 2007 discovery of what Dr Saul describes as “three football fields of nothing but silver and gold coins” near the Isles of Scilly, which is thought to be worth half a billion dollars.The Government of Spain claims the treasure as the cargo of the Spanish galleon Mercedes, which sank in 1804.Not all the company’s finds are profitable, he added, noting the case of an Ethiopian airliner which crashed off the coast of Lebanon last year.The plane’s black box eluded both a team from a German firm and specialists from the US Navy, before a submarine from Odyssey was called in.“For ten days the Germans looked for the box and were unable to find it. Then Uncle Sam’s boys tried as well,” he said. “Within 72 hours we had found the box”.Dr Saul went on to say that all treasures came from shipwrecks, referencing the recent trend in marine exploration toward the mining of resources found under the seabed.He said Bermuda should not miss out on the opportunity and believes there is a chance deep-sea commodities could be found beneath the ocean surrounding the Island.“There is a distinct possibility that it could be the third pillar of Bermuda’s economy,” he said.Meanwhile, the former Premier does not appear to be contemplating a retirement any time soon. There are estimated to be around three million wrecks around the world, he told the Rotarians.