Bowed, but not beaten, Clive made the decision to return to England during the summer of 1979, and resume the search for the Bonhomme Richard. While making preparations for the expedition, he contacted attorney Wayne Gronquist. A longtime environmental activist and preservationist, Gronquist, whose office was in Austin, Texas, had met Clive during his first expedition to find the Richard. Concerned Wignall might have outstanding liabilities from previous searches, Gronquist suggested Clive create a new entity and incorporate his search activities as a nonprofit foundation.

“Wayne,” Dirk Cussler says, “was the individual truly responsible for NUMA. He was an extremely nice, decent man of high integrity, with a great love of Texas history. Wayne’s exuberant sense of optimism would at times wear on Clive, but he always tried to do the best job possible.”

George Cofer, executive director of Austin’s Hill Country Conservancy, recalls searching for lost cannons from the 1836 battle at the Alamo. “Wayne Cronquist and Clive Cussler were convinced they could find the Alamo cannons. When the San Antonio River was lowered for repairs, Wayne would organize a search, and we’d go out in the middle of the river, up to our knees in mud. We didn’t find cannons, but we did find a few Saturday night specials.”

The foundation’s original trustees included Gronquist, who was named president; Peter Throckmorton; Dr. Don Walsh, a former naval officer who, along with Jacques Piccard, holds the record for the deepest dive in the bathyscaphe Trieste to 35,798 feet in the Marianas Trench; Admiral Bill Thompson, the navy’s chief of information, 1971-75; and legendary educator and scientist, Dr. Harold “Doc” Edgerton, founder and president of the United States Navy Memorial Foundation.

When it came time to name the entity, the trustees, obviously taking into consideration who was footing the bill, suggested The Clive Cussler Foundation. “Humble Herbert I ain’t,” Clive says, “but my ego isn’t quite that monstrous. I nixed the idea.” Their second choice, the National Underwater & Marine Agency (NUMA), won out, and the fictional NUMA, first appearing in Pacific Vortex, became the real NUMA, an organization “dedicated to preserving American marine heritage by locating and identifying lost ships of historic significance before they are gone forever.”

NUMA’s primary mission is discovery, not salvage. After a wreck is discovered, NUMA relinquishes all claims, trusting federal, state, or local governments, corporations, universities or historical organizations to raise the wreck or retrieve important artifacts. Clive is extremely proud of the organization’s record. “No member of NUMA has ever taken an artifact home from the historic wrecks. And items brought up from a wreck are turned over to the jurisdiction where it was found.”

In one example, artifacts including fittings, apothecary vessels, clay pipes, cannon fuses, and a ship’s bell were recovered from the wrecks of the Confederate raider Florida and the Union frigate Cumberland. NUMA entrusted them to the experts at the College of William and Mary for preservation, and the restored artifacts are now on display at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Norfolk, Virginia.

From the disappointing first expedition to locate the Bonhomme Richard, Clive had made contacts with many of the most respected individuals involved with underwater archeology. So he chose Eric Berryman, a marine historian, author, and former navy commander to organize the second expedition in 1979. The search flagship, Arvor III, was a major improvement over the ill-fated Keltic Lord. “She was a solid and comfortable boat,” Clive says, “under the command of Scot Jimmy Flett, a finer man I’ve never met. Our crew included Peter Throckmorton and Bill Shea, a magnetometer expert who worked at Brandeis University for many years in the school’s video department.”

Although the second expedition managed to cover more than ten times the area at half the cost of the first effort, the Bonhomme Richard once again refused to be found.