IN SEARCH OF CABRILLO : AUTHOR SEEKS ADVENTURER'S RESTING PLACE.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

The best-selling writer who dreamed of raising the Titanic now hopes to find the lost grave of the first European explorer of California.

Novelist Clive Cussler is leading a team of modern-day adventurers in search of the final resting place of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo on Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Ventura County.

``It's just a long shot,'' Cussler said. ``If you don't look, you don't find. It's worth an effort to check it out and at least eliminate it. It's like looking for a shipwreck. If you don't find it, at least you know where it isn't.''

The location of Cabrillo's grave has remained a mystery for four centuries. Survivors of the explorer's ill-fated expedition left behind only sketchy records of burying their leader's body on one of the Channel Islands, and historians have long debated whether the grave is on Catalina, San Miguel, Santa Rosa or elsewhere.

Cabrillo served as a crossbowman under conquistador Hernando Cortes in the bloody conquest of Central America. He later became one of the richest men in the New World and gained enough social and military standing that by 1542 he was picked to lead an expedition to explore the Pacific coast north of Mexico.

The fleet wintered in an anchorage off one of the Channel Islands - it remains uncertain which one - and kept up running battles with the indigenous people ashore. In December 1542, Cabrillo sent a party ashore to get water, but the sailors soon came under attack.

Cabrillo gathered a rescue party and rowed to the beach in one of the launches. Leaping off the boat, he broke his leg and was carried back to the ship where he contracted gangrene and died on Jan. 3, 1543.

Cabrillo was buried on the island that this crew called Capitana, according to the 1986 biography ``Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo,'' by historian Harry Kelsey of Pasadena.

For centuries, many historians have assumed Cabrillo's remains were buried on San Miguel Island off Santa Barbara. A statewide Portuguese group even erected a memorial in 1937 overlooking Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel to honor the explorer, who some claim was Portuguese rather than Spanish.

In 1901, an archeologist found a mysterious stone on Santa Rosa bearing the initials ``JRC'' with a carving resembling an upside down pitchfork.

Comparing the stone with aerial photographs and topographical maps, Cussler theorized the stone may have been a marker showing the way to Cabrillo's grave site to guide later expeditions that might come back to retrieve the body.

``Just on a hunch I got an aerial photograph of the island,'' said Cussler, who has residences in Arizona and Colorado. ``There was a section of ravines and gullies that very closely - not exactly - matched these markings.''

Chasing after real-life mysteries was nothing new for the author of 14 books, including ``Raise the Titanic.''

Cussler was one of the founders of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, a nonprofit group of divers, academics and modern-day adventurers, which has found about 70 shipwrecks since the 1970s. Among their finds is the wreckage of the Confederate submarine CSS Hunley which sank off Charleston in the Civil War.

The group plans to hit the shores of Santa Rosa sometime this summer.

``We're banking on the fact that Cabrillo would have been buried with a sword and breastplate,'' said Walt Schob, of Palmdale, project manager for NUMA. ``His bones would have all deteriorated by now.''

Guided by a global positioning system accurate within inches, they will search about one square mile with metal detectors and other electronic sensors.

``I wouldn't go out there if I didn't think there's a chance,'' Schob said. ``If it's there we'll find it. The sad part of it is if it's one foot away from where you're looking, you miss it. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.''

Kelsey said he doubted the explorers would find the remains on Santa Rosa. ``Good luck to them,'' he said. ``It's the wrong island. I think it's probably Catalina.''

Kelsey said the sketchy historical evidence suggests Catalina is probably the island the explorers called Capitana where Cabrillo was buried.

``I'd be very surprised if they find anything,'' Kelsey said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Map

Photo: Clive Cussler plans to search Santa Rosa Island for the remains of the Spanish explorer.

Associated Press

Map: Santa Rosa Island