penetrate formerly inaccessible wieckage. But, were it 

 possible for us to locate them, our best opportunity 

 would still be in diving on wrecks which had gone down 

 in water so deep that they could not be reached at the 

 time of their sinking. 



Tracing back the story of shipwreck and salvage in 

 those early centuries, I found records of fleet after fleet of 

 plate ships which had been caught in hurricanes and cast 

 up on these unfriendly shores. Early in the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, two entire fleets were destroyed by hurricanes along 

 the coast of Florida. The first large fleet met its end in the 

 summer of 1715, off Cape Canaveral in the vicinity of 

 Pahn Beach. In 1733 a second plate fleet, under the com- 

 mand of Admiral Don Rodrigo de Torres, was lost, the 

 ships being scattered all up and down the reefs off the 

 Florida keys, from Key Largo to Key Vaca. 



From his office in the Smithsonian, Mendel Peterson 

 had sent us an old chart detailing the names of the ships 

 under Admiral de Torres's command and the approximate 

 locations where the original nineteen had foundered. 

 One account of the disaster noted, "With the help sent 

 from Havana the people were picked up, some silver was 

 saved and the fifteen ruined ships were burned." * The 

 Spaniards made it a practice to burn whatever super- 

 structure remained above water once they had salvaged a 

 wreck, so that it would not be seen by any of their ene- 

 mies. 



All up and down Los Martires, as the Spanish called 

 the keys, English ships and the ships of other nations also 

 found a watery grave. Today the names of many of the 

 reefs commemorate these early warships which were lost. 



• Another account, which contradicted the above to some extent, 

 reported, "The ship La Florida of the fleet of don Rodrigo was ship- 

 wrecked on the shoals of Matecumbe. Fifty-five were drowned. Fourteen 

 more ships foundered, three of wliich capsized, disappearing beneath 

 the waves with all hands." 



52 Sea Diver 



