Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum, Maritime museum in Key West, Florida, United States

The Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum occupies a three-storey pale stone building at 200 Greene Street, with a gabled roof, two rows of tall paned windows and a white band below the roofline. Above the dark double doors, gold letters on dark blue read "MEL FISHER" and "MARITIME MUSEUM"; two black replica cannons on carriages stand on the red-brick terrace. Inside are finds from the 1622 galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita, the slave ship Henrietta Marie, the 1564 galleon Santa Clara, and a working conservation lab.

The museum is named after Mel Fisher, a treasure hunter who searched for sunken Spanish ships off Florida's coast. A Spanish fleet sank in a storm in 1622, and two of its ships became the focus of decades of underwater exploration and recovery.

The museum's name honours founder Mel Fisher, whose company recovered the 1622 galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita. A second-floor rotating gallery has displayed artifacts from Cuban balseros who reached Key West in hand-crafted vessels, and the collection also covers the slave ship Henrietta Marie and Caribbean piracy.

The entrance at 200 Greene Street opens through dark double doors flanked by two black replica cannons on a red-brick terrace. A daily private Lab Tour admits guests to the working conservation and archaeology lab, where they may touch artifacts and follow the stages of treatment. Conservation of some pieces takes weeks to years before display.

The museum is also a working conservation and archaeology lab, and visitors can join a daily private Lab Tour to touch artifacts and follow the stages of treatment. Depending on type and density, an object can take weeks to years to conserve before it goes on display.