>>Click to enlarge (Size: 488,139 bytes)<< The passage through the Straits of Florida has been termed the most dangerous of any along the American coast. Over 500 years since it was discovered by European navigators, the Florida Reef has claimed thousands of ships and lives. In the 1850's, the heyday of the wreckers, ships were piling up on the reef at the rate of nearly one a week. Salvaging these wrecks was a highly competitive, hazardous gamble of the lives, limbs, and vessels of the wreckers against an often elusive gain. Here's a sample of the vivid accounts of wrecking operations presented in this book: The evil crew of a wrecked Spanish slave ship hijacked their would-be rescuers and forced them to carry their wretched human cargo to Cuba. Wreckers salvaged some strange cargos - an Egyptian mummy, the fossilized bones of a prehistoric sea monster, a railroad locomotive, and calvary horses. Wrecking divers, working without benefit of any apparatus, plunged into the black, polluted waters of flooded cargo holds to wrestle out barrels, boxes, and 500-pound bales of cotton. Whether they were thought of as pirates or salvagers, saints or sinners, wreckers helped turn Key West, Florida into a thriving seaport and the richest city in the United States. From earliest Spanish salvagers to the eventual installation of lighthouses and the demise of the wrecking industry, this book is richly detailed and thoroughly researched.
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