Researchers are confident they have found the shipwreck of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria, the flagship from his first trip to the Americas.

According to CNN, an explorer named Barry Clifford led a team to investigate the wreck, found off the northern coast of Haiti, stuck in a reef about 10 to 15 feet down. The expedition leader said what tipped him off was a 15th century cannon found at the site.

"It is the Mount Everest of shipwrecks for me," Clifford, 68, told CNN. "This ship changed the course of human history."

King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I sponsored Columbus' trip to the Americas from Spain in 1492 and the Santa Maria was the ship in the small fleet he sailed on. Haiti was the first Caribbean Island the fleet found and Columbus set up a fort there.

The crew used some of the wood from the Santa Maria to build parts of the fort when the ship was accidently grounded. In 1493, Columbus returned to Spain with the Nina and the Pinta, his two remaining ships.

"All the geographical, underwater topography and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that this wreck is Columbus' famous flagship, the Santa Maria," Clifford told the Independent. "The Haitian government has been extremely helpful - and we now need to continue working with them to carry out a detailed archaeological excavation of the wreck."

According to the Washington Post, Clifford is one of the world's most accomplished underwater explorers. In 1984, he discovered what could be to this day the only pirate shipwreck. Known as the Whydah, Clifford found 10,000 coins and 400 pieces of gold jewelry beneath 14 feet of water and five feet of sand.

Clifford said the findings will go through a full excavation process, which will confirm what they are and then be put on display at a museum in Haiti.

"There is some very compelling evidence from the 2003 photographs of the site and from the recent reconnaissance dives that this wreck may well be the Santa Maria," Charles Beeker, of Indiana University and a member of Clifford's team, told the Independent. "But an excavation will be necessary in order to find more evidence and confirm that."