ABOUT
Darrell Miklos was raised in a family that has had a long history of successful underwater recoveries. In 1970, seven-year-old Miklos stowed away on his father and uncle’s boat while they recovered spent booster rockets for NASA’s Apollo Program. Additionally, he and his three sisters were tasked with collecting pieces of eight along the Treasure Coast shoreline for their dad, who had met Kip Wagner (famous for discovering the locations of the wrecks of the 1715 Fleet). Later, through his father, Miklos met Astronaut Gordon Cooper, who worked closely with Wagner’s Reale Eight Corporation and had a passion for shipwreck discovery. Miklos and Cooper developed a close personal relationship.
The first shipwreck Miklos pursued with his father was the Nuestra Señora de Atocha of the 1622 Spanish Fleet near the Marquesas Keys in 1979 and 1980. In 1997, Miklos worked closely with Astronaut Gordon Cooper on a recovery project in the Bahamas, and later on several different projects including Swift Oceanics Limited, a boat manufacturer based in California, Canada, and Mexico. The two also set out on expeditions ranging from visits to ancient Mayan ruins in the Yucatan and Campeche, Mexico, and Caribbean shipwreck exploration.
After Cooper’s death in 2004, Miklos has continued to pay homage to Cooper’s legacy by pursuing his passion for historic shipwreck discovery. He has several promising projects in the works.
Ample Entertainment’s professional crew is currently filming Gemini Marine Explorations’ expeditions to produce a new docu-series, Cooper’s Treasure, for the Discovery Channel. Amblin Entertainment, a Steven Spielberg company, is co-producing the project.