With the DMT shaft stalled on a mysterious obstruction at 77 feet, Rick Lagina and the team arrange a video call with veteran diver Mike Huntley. Charles Barkhouse confirms the archival record shows no metal at that depth, and the team briefs Huntley on the situation: the oscillator could not advance, an 8,300-pound hardened alloy chisel broke against the barrier, and the Irving crew believes it is plate steel. Huntley agrees to dive the flooded 60-inch caisson to determine the obstruction's physical dimensions, surface composition, and orientation. While Irving disassembles the drilling equipment in preparation, the team turns its attention to Smith's Cove.
Rick, Marty Lagina, Dave Blankenship, Charles Barkhouse, and Gary Drayton excavate at Smith's Cove during low tide, racing against the rising water. Marty operates the excavator while Gary scans the spoils. The team uncovers a wooden timber with a clear 45-degree cut, confirming it was shaped by human hands rather than deposited as driftwood. They believe the piece may belong to the U-shaped structure first discovered by Dan Blankenship and David Tobias in the early 1970s, a nearly 65-foot-long wooden formation with notches every four feet and Roman numerals carved beside them. The team retrieves a sample for carbon dating before the tide forces them to withdraw.
Rick and Charles visit 94-year-old Dan Blankenship at his home, where Dan confirms the U-shaped structure was massive, built from logs exceeding 24 inches in diameter, and that he always believed it was put in by the original depositors. The team also travels to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, to meet the descendants of Harold Bishop, crane operator during Robert Dunfield's 1965 Money Pit excavation. Bishop's family presents a thick piece of wood with routered grooves and square-cut nails that Harold recovered from the dig and kept for decades. Rick notes the nails could be early bronze ship fasteners, connecting the piece to Doug Crowell's discovery of a French ship's log from the 1746 duc d'Anville expedition.
Craig Tester delivers carbon dating results in a War Room video conference with Marty, geophysical engineer John Wonnacott, and the island team. The U-shaped structure wood dates to 1684-1732, and the Dunfield wood dates to 1646-1690, placing both firmly in the pre-discovery era. Craig notes the U-shaped structure date closely matches the Middle Eastern human bone at 1682-1736, suggesting coordinated activity on the island during the same period. The team concludes that properly exposing the U-shaped structure will require a new, larger cofferdam at Smith's Cove and agrees to plan the project for a future season.
On Lot 8, near the late Fred Nolan's property, Rick and Gary Drayton return to the area where they previously found the ornate lock plate. Gary recovers a military-style cuff button he dates to approximately 1780-1820, followed by a decorative brooch mount. Upon rechecking the hole where the brooch was found, they discover a deep red gemstone with 12 hand-cut facets that Gary estimates at roughly three karats. He dates the stone to the 1700s based on its craftsmanship. Rick calls the rest of the team to view the find, and Marty, Jack Begley, and Charles Barkhouse confirm it appears to be a genuine piece of antique jewelry. Gary describes it as a bobby dazzler and notes it could be the first actual treasure recovered from Oak Island under their treasure trove license. The team agrees the stone must go to a gemologist for identification and discusses whether it could connect to the legend of Marie Antoinette's missing crown jewels, the theory that first attracted Franklin Roosevelt to Oak Island in 1909.
