San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve State Park

The San Pedro Underwater Archaelogical Preserve State Park is an underwater state park in Monroe County of the U.S. state of Florida. The State Park is about 5 m depth in Hawk Channel 2.3 kilometers southwest of the island of Indian Key.

History

The San Pedro was a 287 ts large, originally built in the Netherlands ship of the Spanish silver fleet, which fell on 13 July 1733 in a hurricane off the coast of Florida. The San Pedro fell to the coral reef between Lower Matecumbe and Indian Key on bottom, some of the crew was able to escape to the nearby islands. After the disaster, the Spaniards sent more ships to rescue the survivors and to recover the treasures. The surviving crew and salvage fleet managed to recover a large part of the cargo, were among 1,600 Mexican Silberpesos and some boxes of Chinese porcelain to that, then that lie above the waterline parts of the ship were burnt to facilitate divers access to the lower section of the wreck.

The remains of the ship were discovered in the 1960s. Treasure Divers recovered some silver coins, porcelain, gun barrels and other remains of the ship, so that today, are obtained from the wreck only the ballast stones that are scattered over a 27 by 9 m large field. The sinking site was examined by students and underwater archaeologists from the Florida State University and Indiana University in 1977 and again in 1988. Because of its easy accessibility and the rich marine fauna of Untergangsort was explained as an example of the 1733 decline in silver fleet on 1 April 1989 Underwater Archaeological Preserve Florida's second. To the ballast stones cement replicas of seven cannons, an anchor from the 18th century, and an information panel were sunk. 2001, the locality in the National Register of Historic Places was recorded.

Activities

The site is marked with buoys and can only be visited by boat. The remains of the ship are considered one of the oldest artificial coral reefs of Florida and are covered by Acropora corals and other species. Numerous species of tropical fish such as parrot fish or butterfly fish and lobsters, crabs and other marine formatter can be observed when snorkeling and diving.