If you’ve ever been to Key Largo on a dive vacation, odds are fairly good that you might have had the option to visit a site called Mike’s Wreck – maybe you’ve even been down to see this one of a kind shipwreck for yourself. Despite the fact that this is a very popular dive site, the true identity of the ship has remained a mystery up until now.
A Well-Preserved Steel Steamer
Divers have been flocking to Mike’s Wreck since the 1980s, when Mike Butler first discovered it. It wasn’t until 2009 when divers taking a course on underwater archaeology visited the wreck and decided to take steps to discover the steel steamship’s true identity. After all, the ship is very well preserved and it is not ancient as many of the wooden galleons lying off the coast of Florida are. Surely, there had to be records of the ship somewhere!
It took years of dedicated research, but Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary maritime archaeologist Matthew Lawrence and a team of experts finally uncovered the truth. Mike’s Wreck is actually a 315-foot British steam ship called the Hannah M. Bell. She sank off Key Largo on April 4th of 1911. According to records, the ship was carrying a cargo of coal toward Vera Cruz, Mexico. It is believed that the Hannah M. Bell collided with a section of Elbow Reef, which is a very narrow, shallow reef located about six miles away from the mainland, just to the west of a deep shipping channel. Elbow Reef has taken her share of vessels throughout the course of history, some with tragic loss of life; the crew of the Hannah M. Bell managed to make it off the ship before she went down. No lives were lost in the accident.
Shipping records uncovered during the search for the ship’s true identity reveal that she became grounded on the reef. Her engine room flooded, and the holds filled with water. Salvage efforts were undertaken, but heavy weather caused extensive damage and the ship eventually slid down the reef. Today, she lies in very close proximity to two other shipwrecks – the City of Washington and the USS Arkansas. In 1920, the U.S. Shipping Board steamer Quoque was lost when she collided with the top of Hannah M. Bell’s sunken remains.
If you’d like to explore the Hannah M. Bell wreck, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that this is an easy dive in just 30 feet of water – in fact, some sections are so shallow that they’re popular with snorkelers. Massive deck beams, fifteen-foot high portions of hull, and large sections of hull plating rise up from the ocean floor. All the nooks and crannies make the wreck an excellent site for spotting crabs, lobsters, octopus, and many species of sea turtles, along with schooling blue tang, great barracuda, and many other fish including the occasional goliath grouper. Key Largo’s dive charters run regular trips out to the wreck – a fantastic piece of history you can see with your own eyes.