Several years have passed since Ed and I 

 first felt the lure of seeking the sunken remains of ancient 

 sailing ships beneath the clear waters oflF southern Florida 

 and the islands of the West Indies. When we made those 

 first exploratory dives, we were as green as the moray eels 

 which curled malevolently within the jagged coral reefs. 

 Like most landsmen, if we had thought about sunken 

 wrecks at all, we had envisoned them as hoary hulls still 

 intact upon the bottom, and swarming with fish — dan- 

 gerous and predatory fish, writhing octopi and huge rays 

 with flapping wings. 



We knew that up until the nineteenth century pirates 

 had haunted these waters along the Florida coast, operat- 

 ing from their hide-outs in the complicated inner water- 

 ways of the Florida keys and the Bahama islands. We 

 were vaguely aware that Spanish treasure ships had 

 sailed in great convoys through these waters, laden with 

 the wealth of the New World, on their way back to 

 Spain. We knew that many of these ships had met disas- 



The Florida Keys 3 



