aquanut
Bronze Member
I've always had the theory that early Spanish Galleons would easily run into the Cay Sal Bank when trying to navigate theStraits of Florida. It gets extremely shallow very quickly and sits right in the way of northbound traffic from Havana and Mexico. Although some ships took the south eastern route below the Bahamas, did they all? Did the Spanish during the early 1500's know about the Cay Sal bank to the north before losing ships on it due to storms? It seems reasonable to me that they didn't, and even after they did, there wasn't much they could do to keep those old fat ships off during a storm. I've heard stories of divers accidentally coming across old cannon piles and anchors and not being able to refind them. One story was that several bronze cannon were found in extremely shallow water on the southern end near Cuba. Since it was only 30 miles from Cuba, apparently the Cubans patrol that area and the divers were chased off. They either couldn't return or couldn't relocate the cannons. Anyone out there have anything to add?
Aquanut
Aquanut