Details of the huge treasure-hunting operation set to come on The Curse of Oak Island Season 5 were revealed last night as History aired an exclusive first-look at next week’s season premiere.
The nine-minute preview revealed the team will drill an estimated 40 six-inch wide boreholes to depths of up to 200ft as they massively step up efforts to find the original Money Pit.
They will use last year’s GAL-1 shaft — named after Rick and Marty Lagina’s late parents George and Anne Lagina — as their starting point. An animation also showed how the exploratory boreholes will be dug around the locations of the C-1, T-1 and Valley-3 shafts.
Narrator Robert Clotworthy said: “This method may not only help the team pinpoint the precise location of the original Money Pit, but will also allow them to retrieve whatever artifacts or evidence of treasure may lie at the bottom.”
We already know from the Season 5 trailers that it appears the team DO find the original Money Pit this season — but exactly what they discover down there remains to be seen.
The sneak peek at the Season 5 premiere also saw a team meeting take place in the War Room — including Rick, Charles Barkhouse, Dave Blankenship, Peter Fornetti, and Dan Blankenship — as they updated Marty via a video feed.
They started out by breaking the news that the road along the island’s south shore — which leads to the Money Pit area — was completely destroyed over the winter after storms battered the island, meaning no equipment can get to the site.
The loss of the road is a massive setback to the team, with Rick describing it as “seriously bad news”.
However, they committed to repairing it as quickly as possible so a Geotech rig scheduled to arrive in a week’s time could be brought in and their borehole-digging operation around the Money Pit area could get under way.
Rick said: “With the rig scheduled to come in, we don’t have time to fool around with that road — we’ve got to get it done.”
The War Room meeting also revealed that the team plan to put a camera back down the C-1 shaft, which has not been disturbed for seven or eight months. Rick said that, coupled with the fact they have access to new and improved technology, raised the chances they would see something.
Marty revealed he hoped it would mean they could finally track down the shiny gold-colored object that they previously captured with a camera back in Season 3.
He said of returning to the shaft with a camera: “No, that would be great. I mean, look, we not only have the same old metal detector hits, that then vanished, we never did find the shiny gold object that a lot of experts said was real — so we should look.”
The team’s conversation ended on a solemn note with Rick raising a “personal” question with Marty about Craig Tester, asking: “I see Craig’s not there…how’s he doing?” The scene is thought to relate to the tragic passing of Craig’s son Drake earlier this year.
Watch the Season 5 trailer below:
The Curse of Oak Island Season 5 premieres Tuesday, November 7, at 9/8c on History.