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While Florida has always been a top spot for scuba diving year-round, the winter is an especially popular time for the state. There are other spots in the winter you can get to with your power boat, too. A coral reef, artificial reefs and ship wrecks are easily reachable in your power boat and provide plenty of places to discover along Florida’s more than a thousand miles of coastline. Divespots.com lists the Florida Keys, Boca Raton, Destin, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami, Naples, Panama City, Pensacola, Tampa/St. Petersburg and West Palm Beach. The list of sunken ships provides an incredible maritime history along the state’s coast: -- The Empire Mica, a British tanker sunk by a U-boat in 1942 off Mexico Beach in the Panhandle. -- Regina, or Sugar Barge, is a tanker that sunk in 1940 near Bradenton Beach south of St. Petersburg. -- Liberty Ship Thomas Hayward isn’t technically a ship wreck. It was heavily damaged when it hit a floating mine off Europe in 1946. It was sunk in 1977 near Destin. -- The Half Moon was a sailing yacht bought and used as a floating saloon near Miami during prohibition, but was cast adrift in a storm in 1930 and sank. -- The Fantastico was a 200-foot Honduran freighter that sank in 1993 as a result of the no-name “Storm of the Century.” It now lies near Naples off the coast of Southwest Florida. -- The Gunsmoke was an old shrimp boat that was used to smuggle marijuana. In 1977, the crew killed four people who happened upon them when they were unloaded. Later they scuttled the boat near Egmont Key. But if the ship wrecks aren’t enough, there is a long list of artificial reefs, many created by sinking ships, along the Florida coast. Here are some of them: -- Budweiser Bar was originally the Olive M., but renamed for the company that helped pay for sinking it in 1987 for an artificial reef near Boca Raton. It was built in 1965 and used to transport dry goods to the Bahamas and Haiti. -- Noula Express is about a mile southeast of Boca Raton Inlet. The 114-foot freighter was sunk in 1988, but was broken apart during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. -- The United Caribbean also was sunk near Boca Raton. A 150-foot coastal freighter, it has a checkered past as the Golden Venture. It ran aground near New York in 1993 while carrying 228 Chinese illegal immigrants. It was left in the Miami River after the owner couldn’t pay the crew. -- One of the most unusual artificial reefs lies near Destin – 14 U.S. Armored M-60 tanks that placed there in 1994. -- The Mercedes I famously ran aground on Thanksgiving Day 1984 at a Palm Beach seaside estate. Abandoned, it was bought by Broward County and sunk near Fort Lauderdale. -- A large artificial reef was formed by sinking The Anna, a 225-foot freighter off the coast of Jacksonville in 1986. -- The largest artificial reef lies 22 miles from Pensacola. The USS Oriskany, an 880-foot U.S. aircraft carrier was sunk in 2006. It took more than 500 pounds of explosives to sink it. But despite all the ship wrecks and artificial reefs, there also is the only living coral garden in North America. The Florida Reef lies along the Florida Keys on the Atlantic Ocean side. For more information about dive spots you can visit in your power boat along the Florida coast as well as elsewhere in the U.S. and Caribbean, Divespots.com is a great resource. Florida-based EdgeWater Power Boats builds premium boats for diving as well as cruising, fishing and skiing.
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