Famous Shipwrecks Around Miami

With a rich history of pirates, treasure hunting and exploration, the waters of South Florida hold more than just an impressive variety of aquatic life. The sunken carcasses of ships lost to battle, storms or mutiny litter the ocean floor around Florida all the way to Texas, their rotting hulls now home to the many fish and coral that have overtaken the wrecks. 

There are thousands of shipwrecks off the Florida coast, and an additional 1,000 shipwrecks off the coast of the Florida Keys alone. These numbers just reflect the shipwrecks we know about, and don’t include the many unnamed vessels that still await discovery below the deep waters. 

Before we dive into some of the shipwrecks around Miami and South Florida, here’s a little bit about the archaeology of shipwrecks. 

Archaeology of shipwrecks

Shipwrecks are like time capsules: they preserve the goods and products from the time that the ship was sunk, and through those we can learn about what life was like back then. 

Think about other archaeological sites like temples, graves and palaces. These sites are usually elaborately decorated and wonderfully adorned, but they don’t always represent what life was really like.

King Tutankhamun of Ancient Egypt, for example, was discovered in an untouched grave filled with beautiful hieroglyphics, precious jewels, war chariots and, most famously, a glorious sarcophagus made of solid gold. This untouched grave site perfectly preserved the moment in time that King Tut's mummy was laid to rest, but it doesn’t actually show what life was like for everyone else. It’s fair to say that there weren’t many people who got the same treatment as a pharaoh.

That’s why shipwrecks are uniquely valuable to the archaeological community. A shipwreck is generally the result of an accident, so there’s none of the pomp and circumstance of an official ritual. Shipwrecks preserve the real daily lives of real, common people like traders, soldiers and travelers. We learn about the clothes they wore, the goods they carried, the structures of their societies and even the food that they eat! 

It’s like a friend dropped by unannounced and witnessed the glory of your messy kitchen, microwave meals, untidy study, cluttered kids’ room and cozy sweatpants. It’s not what you’d want your legacy to be, maybe, but it’s your real, unedited state of being. 

Shipwrecks in Florida

Ships generally prefer staying afloat, so what is the main cause for shipwrecks? According to the Sea Researchers Society, the majority of shipwrecks are caused by running aground, meaning that a rock, some coral, a sand bar or even another shipwreck lodges the ship in place. When the tide runs out, then the ship will either fall to its side and get damaged, or it can be flooded when the tide rises again. 

Most of the shipwrecks in Florida were caused as a result of storms or running aground. Stories of ocean battles and pirate mutinies account for only a fraction of the total shipwrecks around Florida, but they are, by far, the more interesting ones. 

Because so many ships passed through Florida’s waters during the Spanish colonial period, it was inevitable that a large percentage of these ships fell to hurricanes, pirates and shallow waters. And, although the technology has advanced greatly since then, the storms and shifting sands still remain a threat to modern maritime escapades.

Shipwrecks around Miami

Here are a few shipwrecks that you might see or hear of down here around Miami! 

SS Potrero del Llano

Type: Steam tanker

Launched: November 6, 1912

Sunk: May 14, 1942

This oil tanker was owned by several hands during World War I, and sailed under different names. It was called the F.A. Tamplin, Arminico and Luifcero before the Mexican government seized it and named it Potrero del Llano. 

The ship was sailing from Tampico, Mexico to New York City in May of 1942 when it was ambushed by a German U-boat off the coast of southeast Florida. According to records, the captain of U-564 saw the Mexican flag painted on the side of the tanker and mistook it for the Italian flag, as Mexican merchant ships weren’t allowed to display the eagle on the flag, a right reserved only for Mexican navy ships. The U-boat torpedoed the tanker, and it sank just off the coast of Cape Florida, just south of Miami.

Mexico declared war on Germany after this, and another tanker had been sunk by U-boats within a span of a week.

SS Arratoon Apcar

Type: Steam ship

Launched: June 27, 1861

Sunk: February 17, 1878

This British steamship was travelling back to London from Havana, Cuba when it ran aground on rocks at Fowey Rocks, just southeast of Miami, on February 17, 1878. The Fowey Rocks Lighthouse was under construction at the time, and the workers on the platform just narrowly avoided being struck by the ship. After several attempts at dislodging the ship from the rocks, the captain and crew abandoned ship and sailed their lifeboats to shore. The lighthouse was completed later that year.

The Arratoon Apcar is now part of the Biscayne National Park’s jurisdiction and is a popular diving destination!

Here are other shipwrecks in Biscayne National Park!

Half Moon

Type: Schooner

Launched: 1908

Sunk: 1930

This German racing sailboat was stuck in London at the dawn of World War I and seized by British officials, making this vessel and its crew among the first German prisoners of war. The Half Moon exchanged hands several times and eventually made its way to Miami, where it became a floating restaurant and dance hall. In 1930, a severe storm broke the yacht from its moorings and ran it aground in Key Biscayne, where the ship was deemed lost. It’s still there, slowly deteriorating under the water.

HMS Fowey 

Type: Fifth rate warship

Launched: August 14, 1744

Sunk: June 26, 1748

This elaborate warship served as a naval escort to many merchant ships travelling to and from North America and Europe. HMS Fowey was in the process of escorting three ships from Jamaica to Virginia when the ship struck rocks just off the coast of Miami. The Fowey Rocks Lighthouse is named after this ship, although the lighthouse is located a few miles north of the shipwreck.

These are just a tiny percentage of all the shipwrecks in South Florida, but if you live in our luxury South Florida apartments then they are the ones closest to you!

Enjoy!

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Featured photo courtesy Pixabay/dimitrisvetsikas