Unexpectedly Tender: Shipwrecks in the Strait of Florida

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Unexpectedly Tender: Shipwrecks in the Strait of Florida

What you don’t know is that life can thrive in wreckage.

A few years ago, we lived in Miami. We had moved there from Cincinnati for my husband’s job. During the more than six years we lived there, we visited the Florida Keys — a twoish hour drive from Miami to Key Largo, the most northern stop — more than 50 times. A staple of our visits to the Keys was spending time on the Great Florida Reef, one of the world’s largest coral reef systems extending through the Straits of Florida. The Florida Current passes through the Straits and the Reef. As reported in that beacon of democratized knowledge, Wikipedia, because of the Current, “Ships began wrecking along the Florida Reef almost as soon as Europeans reached the New World [in the 1600s].”

We can explore the shipwrecks by snorkeling or diving across the Reef’s vast breadth and shallow depth. That is a delight. What happens in the wreckage is pure magic. Snorkeling over shipwrecks means witnessing the Reef build new life around, between, throughout, underneath, and over the ruins. Over time, marine life creates an entire ecosystem that thrives in the wreckage.

I remember snorkeling in the Reef. I am by no means an expert diver or snorkeler. I often persist through panic. (Persistence might be a delight, too.) Perhaps knowing how difficult snorkeling is for me makes my delight more understandable. You don’t have to dive too deep to experience delight. When you see life flourish — fish swimming, plants growing, coral corralling, there are no words, only an understanding of what it means to thrive amidst steel. As a storyteller, my panic vanishes as I dream of pirates, strange lands, and conquests. Marine life is a modern pirate finding wealth in the sea.

There is something delightful and poetic about thriving in wreckage.

The reefs delight because they testify to life’s beauty and resilience in the most beautiful and resilient way I can imagine. They are delightful because they remind us to pay attention to what happens beneath the surface of our lives and our natural world. They are delightful because they highlight life’s fragility, strength, and interdependence. They are delightful because they connect us with possibility, wonder, and awe — moments often lost to everydayness.

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