It should come as no surprise that in an island nation long dependent on boats for transport, commerce and
the bare necessities of life, many vessels succumbed to the hazards of foul weather and navigational errors.
Historical shipwrecks are scattered throughout the islands, and it seems like steamships, in particular, fared
poorly here. Wrecks such as the San Jacinto in the Abacos, the Mahoney off Nassau, the Frascate off San
Salvador and the Southampton off Conception Island all left massive boilers amid their scattered wreckage.
Other more recent shipwrecks have been sunk on purpose to provide dive attractions. The queen of the
Bahamas’ artificial reefs is Theo’s Wreck, a 240-foot freighter scuttled in 1982 that now sits on its port side in
103
feet of water off Freeport. Off the southwest end of New Providence, local dive entrepreneur Stuart Cove
has sunk more than 20 ships of varying sizes as dive attractions, the most impressive of which is the 200-foot
Ray of Hope. For the sheer quantity of marine life, though, no other wreck compares with the Sugar Wreck off
West End, Grand Bahama. Here, in only 20 feet of water, immense schools of grunts blanket the site by day,
and numerous loggerhead turtles come to the wreck each night to rest.
recks
74
|
fall 2012
The Bahamas has a rich maritime history, and many ships have met a watery fate
along its shallow coral reefs. From
Spanish galleons lost
in the hurricanes of the 1600s
to
steamships that plied these waters
in later years,
historical shipwrecks are scattered
throughout the Bahamas
.
Recently, dive operators have intentionally sunk ships to serve
as dive attractions, and they grow more colorful and fascinating with each year beneath
the sea.