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Histories & Mysteries
THE SHIPWRECKS OF KEY LARGO, REVISITED
by Captain Thomas A. Scott & Jared Bronson

Histories & Mysteries The Shipwrecks of Key Largo, Revisited
Far more than just another diver’s guide, the only book ever to focus exclusively on the histories and lore of the shipwrecks of the upper Florida Keys--now updated, revised, and revisited!Each history is told in vivid detail, from build, to sinking, to what you can expect when you dive these magnificent wrecks! Packed with historical and underwater photographs, this book will transport you to the crystal blue waters of Key Largo and back--back into the mists of time…

From Carysfort Reef in the north, to Alligator Reef in the south, hundreds of ships have met their fates beneath the waters of the Upper Florida Keys, their tales are here, meticulously researched over a period of more than 30 years. Warships, treasure galleons, and merchant vessels, all lie on the bottom waiting for you to visit. Read their true and documented stories here…

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DEDICATION: 
Hundreds of vessels lie beneath the waters of Key Largo and the Upper Florida Keys. Each of these ships was once the pride of her captain and crew--men and women who chose to dedicate their lives to the sea. Many of these crews now rest, along with their ships, beneath these waters.

It is to these sailors, and their mighty ships, that this book is dedicated, so that they might never be forgotten. To hear their stories, we need only to dig a little deeper into the records, to look, and to listen, a bit more closely....
By Captain Thomas Scott

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FOREWORD BY RICHIE KOHLER
Shipwreck stories have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. On weekend outings aboard our small family motorboat, we would slowly make our way along the back-bays and channels that lead from our homeport marina out to the Atlantic. Along the water’s edge, amongst the dilapidated piers and wharves lay the half sunken remnants of old sailing ships, fishing smacks and tugboats. Weather beaten decks awash, they’re now home to seabirds, rats and the small fiddler crabs that scurried along the barnacle encrusted hulls as our small boat’s wake threatened to set them adrift. With masts and cabins covered in pungent guano, and long beards of green seaweed swishing along the waterline, the fishy smell mixed with oil-soaked piers and creosote covered pilings and filled my nose as much as the stories these sodden hulks sought to tell filled my head.

Salt-crusted portholes drew my eyes to the inky blackness within these dead ships, and in my young imagination I was sure they were once home to pirates or whalers, the darkened corridors now relegated to ghosts and monsters. I wondered aloud where they had sailed, the storms they had battled and the exotic ports they had seen. With a rough scrub of my then thick mane, my father would laugh and add fuel to my already wide-eyed imagination, creating tall tales of a vessel’s exciting life, before coming to rest here in the back waters of a quiet Brooklyn New York estuary. Stories of brave sailors struggling against the full fury of nature herself, only to bring their cargos and stories back to harbor, making them wealthy in experience as much as money. But, then again, he would add, these are the lucky ones…many ships and their crews never made it back, swallowed whole into the ocean depths.

On occasion we would go deep sea fishing far from land, and as my father spun the helm wheel round and slowed the motor down, a black blob would magically appear, jumping up on the bottom finder, breaking the otherwise monotonous flat line that indicated a featureless seafloor. I knew in an instant that blob was the ghostly image of a ship forever resting in the deep.

What ship was it, how did it sink, what happened to the crew? Staccato questions blurted out as I readied the anchor to drop, sometimes my father knew the answer, sometimes he made it up, but fishing always came first so: “Stop asking questions and ready the line!”

It would be a few years before I would become a certified scuba diver and even more before I would return to explore the very shipwrecks off the New York coast that I had fished as a young boy. By this time the imagination of my childhood had grown into the insatiable curiosity of young man who as a child wanted to be an astronaut, but instead found his place as an aquanaut--searching for a lobster dinner and another adventure as a shipwreck explorer.

As the years went by and my experience grew, I found myself going further offshore, and deeper, in search of shipwrecks and the stories they hold. I poured through books such as this, gleaning every fact, detail and story of the wreck I was to dive into.

Every sunken vessel is not only a time capsule of seafaring history, but a repository of human drama, if simply one knows where to look, and how to listen. The torn and rent steel of a lost warship screams with the horror of explosions and war, as much as the passenger liners’ out-swung lifeboat davits whisper of bravery and sacrifice, to save the passengers and crew.

Each and every shipwreck has its human story of pathos or bravery, cruelty and kindness, honor or cowardice.

To the terrestrial being who has never ventured underwater thanks to the technology of SCUBA, shipwrecks hold “treasure” or “man-eating sharks.” But to the wreck diver, the sharks and the shipwreck are each a treasure in themselves. The ability to leave the world above and immerse yourself in the beauty of the undersea realm, swimming weightless amongst its denizens, and stare into the stories of each shipwreck you come across--is one of the last frontiers for modern man.

You never know what you will see when diving, but an adventure is always a guarantee. Although some treasure has been found, the real reward for going underwater is the experience itself.

Captain Thomas Scott has used his experience and taken years to collect the known and obscure facts of many of Key Largo’s incredible shipwrecks and collect them here. These are stories of not only wood, iron, tempest and storm, but of mysteries and human drama. Nothing can connect you more to a shipwreck than knowing it’s story before you dive it, the details shine light into histories darkened corners like a torch in a shadowed room.

I hope you find the stories that follow as illuminating as I did, and may they become the road map to your next shipwreck adventure!

Richie Kohler
Shipwreck Explorer & Historian
Explorers Club Fellow
Sutton, Massachusetts, 2025

PRAISE FOR HISTORIES & MYSTERIES:
“Even if you have the original edition, you still want to add this title to your library.”
Gary Gentile, Wreck Diver
Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, 2025

“The History of each wreck is brought out and explained in detail giving you a much deeper understanding of what you will come across as you dive these sites.”
Capt. Jimmy Gadomski,
Shipwreck Explorer Oceanographic Surveyor
Ft Lauderdale, Florida, 2025

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Captain Thomas A. Scott
Born in Ohio in 1958, Tom has worked as an aircraft mechanic, SCUBA instructor, boat captain, and I.T. professional. He is a United States Marine Corps veteran, serving as a CH-53 helicopter mechanic and crew chief from 1977-1982.

Originally certified in 1973, Tom became a professional diver in 1986, working as a divemaster on Andros Bahamas. Returning to Florida, Tom became a SCUBA instructor, working his way up to PADI Master SCUBA Diver Trainer as well as a USCG certified 100-ton vessel master. In later years Tom followed his love of shipwrecks into the technical diving realm as a TDI Advanced Trimix diver.

Jared Bronson
Born in Idaho in 1973, Jared has worked as an Army Ranger, scout sniper, web developer, I.T. professional, technical diver, and dive assistant instructor. He is a United States Army veteran, serving from 1991-1998.
Originally certified in 1994, Jared became a professional diver in 2000, working as a SCUBA assistant instructor in Key Largo, Florida. Additionally, he is a certified technical rebreather and advanced wreck diver, guiding on the Key Largo shipwrecks with Horizon Divers.

VISIT THE AUTHORS ON THEIR WEBSITE:
Histories & Mysteries The Shipwrecks of Key Largo, Revisited
HERE!

Additional Articles:
"Remember the City of Washington" by Captain Thomas A. Scott

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