The Florida Reef became a menace to shipping in the 1500s when the Spanish discovered that the safest way home for their New World gold and silver was north through the Florida Straits. With the Cay Sal and Bahama banks to starboard, the reef, arcing along the Florida Keys, to port, and the Gulf Stream on their stern, first the treasure fleets and later thousands of European ships made the passage through the ‘New Bahama Channel’. As the territory west of the Appalachians and then west of the Mississippi was settled, American ships began to fill the Straits as well,...
(read more)