CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT: MARCH REEF MADNESS

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT: MARCH REEF MADNESS

Brad Bertelli wrote a little history about the reef near Key Largo, and it was posted April 6, 2012 on KeysNet.com. It is very similar to the Lighthousefriends.com article (with photos) about this reef and its lighthouse. One of the coolest parts of this cruising adventure with the Admiral has been learning about the history of the people and places we are visiting. So here is a summary, thanks to Mr. Bertelli and Lighthousefriends.com, of the history of Carysfort Reef. According to Bertelli, “Carysfort Reef is the single most dangerous tract of coral” in the entire chain that forms the reef all along the Keys. Lots of ships wrecked on this part of the reef, which is four miles long. In his dramatic fashion, Bertelli writes “Once upon a time, verdant forests of elkhorn and staghorn corals were reaching up with limestone daggers.” Oh yeah, that’s where I would want to go snorkeling, wouldn’t you? But read on – it just might be worth it.

Carysfort Reef is six miles off the coast of North Key Largo. It has claimed the lives of many who wrecked on its coral, starting with the first recorded North American shipwreck, according to Bertelli. This first ship that wrecked, the HMS Winchester was heading from Jamaica to England in September 1695. It was a 60 gun battleship. Most of the crew had scurvy, including the first captain, Edward Bibb. He was replaced by Captain John Soule, who has the misfortune of guiding the ship when a storm arose and blew the ship off course right into the reef, where it was “impaled by the coral.” Bertelli has a way with words. It wasn’t until 1938 that some cannonballs from the Winchester were located just one and a half miles southwest of the Carysfort Reef. They must have been pretty heavy to have stuck around in the same area – through hurricane force winds and churning tides – for nearly 250 years. This last tidbit about the cannonballs discovery is from Wikipedia, which by the way called the Winchester a “fourth rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy.” In the book, Famous Shipwrecks of the Florida Keys (Bob Weller), it is reported that the cannonballs had certain markings (like fingerprints, I guess) that matched them to the Winchester. Also found was a prayer book, along with some silver coins, anchors, musket balls, and cannons. Twelve years later, there was a second effort to find remains from the Winchester, and the salvagers found a bunch of stuff, including pewter ware and a gold watch. (Hey kids, what time is it? Time to plunder more valuables from the Winchester!)

Remember that the crew was suffering from scurvy? The original captain, Bibb, had been dropped off in Jamaica. The other scurvy-infected crew members were not so lucky. By the time the storm hit the Winchester, according to one historical source, there were only 8 healthy crew members left to try to prevent the impalement on the coral. Only a few of the 400 strong crew members were rescued, including Captain Soule, but most of them were “lost at sea”.

You may ask: “How did the Reef get its name?” I can answer that. A ship called the HMS Carrysford, a 28 gun British frigate (“sixth rate”), was punctured by the coral in its hull in 1770. She was used in the American Revolution, the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. She was one tough bird. She was cut open by the Reef, but she did not sink, miraculously, and ultimately sailed away from the Reef and on to her illustrious history – even though she was 6^th rate. There must have been some remarkable hull repair people on board (and a lot of duct tape). At any rate, “Carrysford” became “Carysfort” over time. What a great idea – to name the Reef for the one that got away! There are some sources I have found that call this ship the HMS Carysfort, so either the Reef was named exactly for the frigate or it changed slightly over time. Small matter, she survived, and ended up on the wrong side of the War for Independence, but survived all of her war time encounters and captured at least one privateer during that War.

With lots of ships crashing on the coral of the Carysfort Reef, someone came up with the grand idea of putting up warning lights around the reef. At first, those warning lights were attached to ships stationed next to the reef. The first “light ship” was the Caesar, a two lantern schooner out of New York. Ever the profligate spender, in 1824 Congress gave $20,000 to light the reef, and the Caesar left New York Harbor to do just that. The lanterns on this ship were supposed to be visible for twelve miles. In addition to the lanterns, which were attached to the schooner’s masts, the Caesar had bells that rang every time the schooner was moved by the currents. The Caesar did not make it to Carysfort Reef on the first try. She was forced ashore near Key Biscayne, and her crew abandoned her. Wreckers took her to Key West and got a high price for the salvage. She was repaired and then set sail under Captain Whalton and a new crew, landing at Turtle Harbor, which is near the Carysfort Reef. Turns out she might have well have stayed in Key West. She anchored next to the reef and lit the lanterns, but they were a bust, apparently. Ships could not see them, even as they got really close to the Reef, never mind the manufacturer’s representation that they were visible for 12 miles.

One of the hapless ships that failed to see the lights or hear the bells was the Guerrero, a Spanish ship with 561 Africans who were captured and being brought to the “New World” as slaves. A British warship, aptly named HMS Nimble, tried to run down the Guerrero, and when Guerrero could not outrun Nimble, a battle ensued. Captain Whalton on the Caesar heard the exchange of cannon fire. So the ships were pretty close to the Reef, and sure enough, the Guerrero crashed into the Reef on December 19, 1827, breaking her two masts. The captured Africans were in the hold, and forty of them drowned. The Nimble hit the Reef too, but was able to extricate herself and sail away. You can probably hear the Congressmen during their inquiry: “What did $20,000 get us? Lights that can’t be seen, bells that can’t be heard?” I didn’t find any records of an inquiry, but there should have been one.

Despite her dismal performance, the Caesar maintained her post and kept the lights burning along the Carysfort Reef for about six years, before she was taken back to Key West for routine inspection. It turned out that it wasn’t just the lights which were inferior. The timbers used to build Caesar had all rotted and were full of fungus growth. She was useless. And so, true to form, Congress appropriated another $20,000 for another lightship (the first one had been sooo successful). The next ship, the Florida, was – you guessed it – built by the same guy who built the Caesar, using wood that rotted easily. This time, it was reported, that he used rot-resistant live oak. And Captain Whalton, never one to give up a cushy job, took command of the Florida and sailed it to Turtle Harbor, where he tried again to provide a warning to ships that sailed near Carysfort Reef. In his spare time, he and his crew members started a garden of fresh fruits and vegetables on a piece of land in North Key Largo, because his supply ships were not reliable.

Enter the Seminoles – not in a good way. On June 26, 1837, Captain Whalton and four of his crew went ashore to tend their garden. When they touched land, they were shot at by Seminole warriors. The captain and one of his crew were killed. The other three escaped, but two of them were wounded. This next part is not for the faint of heart. Captain Whalton and the other crew member were scalped, their bodies were stripped and they were stabbed several times. One of Captain Whalton’s fingers was cut off to get his ring. The Seminoles left the area, and two other crews, from the Pee Dee and Brilliant, went ashore to rescue the remaining crew and take the remains of Captain Whalton and the other man for burial. This was during the Second Seminole War. One source says this incident may have provoked the Second Seminole War. But at that point, neither the Seminoles nor their would-be subjugators needed much provocation to go after each other. The location of this attack, which is at Mile Marker 106, is called Garden Cove.

Back to the Reef – between 1833 and 1841 there were 324 shipwrecks reports on the entire Florida Reef. Sixty three of those wrecks, or 20 percent, occurred around the Carysfort Reef. Something better than the lightships was clearly needed to ward off unsuspecting ships. So in 1948, the great spendthrift, Congress, allocated money to build a permanent lighthouse. The lighthouse was not completed until 1852, so ships were still dealing with the less than helpful lightships until that point. Lt. David D. Porter, USN, commander of the mail steamer Georgia, wrote in 1851:”the floating lightship, showing two lights, intended to be seen twelve miles, but they are scarcely discernible from the outer ledge of Carysfort Reef, which is from four to five miles distant. On to [sic] occasions I have passed it at night, when the lights were either very dim or not lighted.”

About the lighthouse, it was started by Captain Howard Stansbury of the U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, who set it in place, then left the project. It had a 112 foot tower. The job was finished by none other than Lt. George Meade in 1852 – the very George Meade who was one of the Union generals to defeat General Lee at Gettysburg in the next decade. It was the first such lighthouse in Florida. It still stands to this day. Up until 1960, when it became automated, light keepers lived at the lighthouse. The U.S. Coast Guard was given jurisdiction over the lighthouse in 1939. One of its light keepers, Frank Taylor, when assigned to the Carysfort Lighthouse, said “it was almost like I was being taken to Alcatraz.” Still, he learned to snorkel while in this assignment, because, in his words, “there was really nothing to do.” He had a black and white TV with poor reception and a few books. Poor baby – no IPhone or I Pad or 24/7 satellite TV. Talk about your complainers! So the trade-off was that he learned how to snorkel and catch fish with a spear gun, on government time. Never mind that this Reef is actually one of the best places in the world for snorkeling. And it’s only six miles off the coast of North Key Largo. The Reef itself is supposed to be magnificent, with its various coral structures, which play host to tons of colorful fishes and turtles and rays, so I’ve read.

The last major shipwreck on Carysfort Reef occurred in 1989, when a 155 foot long, 244 ton ship, the Alec Owen Maitland, impaled itself on the reef. The captain exacerbated the situation by putting the ship in reverse to try to power off the coral. In so doing, he destroyed a lot of coral, jeopardizing the integrity of the entire reef. Fortunately, there was a “Reef Doctor” named Harold Hudson, who knew what to do to make repairs. He used concrete slabs to rebuild the reef. Not pretty, but apparently effective. The Reef remains relatively healthy today, as it is not frequented on a daily basis by the myriad tourist dive and snorkeling boats that leave the canal where we are docked at Marina del Mar in Key Largo. Parts of the reef are as shallow as five feet and the deepest parts go to 25 feet. I would like to go out there to see the red and white lighthouse and to snorkel, but so far we have had only one calm day for snorkeling in the month we have been here. There’s still time, and once the spring breakers return North, it will be easier to find a snorkeling boat willing to make the trip out there. With any luck, I will see Carysfort Reef up close and personally, but not so close as to get stuck on one of its stalagmites. I’ll keep you posted.

With the title, “March Reef Madness”, were you expecting some roundball too? The best game I saw this year was Baylor thumping on Kansas, with Pierre Jackson having his way up and down the court, destroying whatever there was of a Kansas defense and shooting with impunity. This was before the Men’s NCAA Tournament began. I think Baylor’s still in the NIT, and I know that Kansas was lucky to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. Michigan put them out of their misery last night – in overtime. FGCU, the 15^th seeded upstart from Fort Myers, succumbed to the greater depth of the Gators. On the up side, this means no more stupid stories about the lucky FGCU coach who “bagged” a “top model” for his wife. Really! If you want to see some women at the top of their game, tune in today and tomorrow for the semifinals of the Women’s NCAA Tourney. UConn looks unbeatable, but so do Baylor and Stanford. I used to avoid women’s basketball, because it appeared so much slower – and who shoots free throws underhanded anymore? Anyone?  Rick Barry? But watching UConn and Maryland today, the action is riveting. The officiating stinks – women are being clobbered and no fouls are being called. Hmmm – maybe it’s getting to be a bit too much like the men’s game.

Speaking of fouls not be called, what’s the deal with Antonin Scalia being able to shoot his mouth off, spouting untruths during the arguments before the Supreme Court this week on same sex marriage – and getting away with it? I cry “Foul!” He absolutely lied, lied, lied that sociologists are divided about whether children of same sex partners are “damaged”, when in fact, the American Sociologists Association had filed a brief with the Court stating unequivocally, based on years of research, that children in same sex marriages are NOT damaged – in fact, they are in very good shape, thank you very much. Which is worse, the Scalia did not read the brief before taking the bench, or that he read the brief and simply outright lied? Personally, I think he lied. Remember his comments in his 1996 dissent in Romer v Evans, which challenged Colorado’s statute prohibiting local jurisdictions from outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation? He compared homosexuality to murder as two moral issues he was entitled to be repulsed by:

“Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings,” Scalia wrote. And then he dropped the hammer: “But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible – murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals – and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of ‘animus’ at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct[.]”  

So the big question is: Why didn’t this bigoted bloviator recuse himself for the same sex marriage cases? There is no doubt that he finds homosexuality morally reprehensible. He would probably recognize the right of a murderer to marry before he would ever recognize the rights of two homosexuals to marry. His mind was already made up about this issue when he was an altar boy, no doubt. Does he not see the conflict of interest that exists when a judge is totally close-minded and PREJUDICED on a major civil rights issue before the Court? This is quite different from the judge who presided in federal court over the trial in San Francisco on the constitutionality of Prop 8, which violated the basic rights of gays to marry. That judge was, oh my God, gay, and according to the far right, not capable of being fair in ruling on this civil rights issue. Oh really, I guess that excludes all fair-minded Black judges from ruling on an issue involving discrimination against Blacks. The difference is that gays and Blacks, unless they are bigots like Scalia (read: Justice Thomas), do not have a conflict of interest in following the law, particularly the constitutional right to equal protection of the laws. Scalia, by virtue of his bigotry, is incapable of following the law. He wants to deny equal protection of the law to homosexuals because he hates them, just like he apparently hates murderers, polygamists and people who are cruel to animals. Justice Scalia, you are out of order! Recuse yourself! Hold on to your “animus”, your intolerance; just don’t impose it on me and the rest of the citizens who expect enforcement of the constitutional right to due process and equal protection. Shame on you! If Ruth Bader Ginsburg was ever your friend, it’s time for her to step away from you now. You are beyond the pale. You are a throwback to Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott. And you are a disgrace to the Supreme Court.

Baseball starts next week. GO GIANTS! Remember Sergio Romo’s victory T shirt – “I just look illegal”? You gotta love these guys. Word of advice: Put Tim in the bullpen. Anyone remember Dennis Eckersley’s stellar career first as a starter and then as a closer? Tim Lincecum – Cy Young for outstanding middle relief work. It could happen. Let the season begin! Beat L.A.!