Liberty Star,Pegasus and ET-134 Under way in the Florida Straits


0945 a.m., Oct. 22 — Liberty Star, Pegasus and ET-134 Under way in the Florida Straits

Last night I stood by the watch on the bridge for a short time. The bridge, completely darkened, was lighted only by soft, red LED lights and the glow of the two radar scopes. The watch, John Jacobs and Clint Small, were checking readouts of wind direction, speed, the tow of Pegasus — depending upon their vision and the excellent ranging of the radars for vessels moving within the area of interest of Liberty Star. It was a dark, cloudy, starless night, as black as space.

Radar scopes fill up with targets now; off Liberty’s bow, the Strofades, a freighter pushing east; off Liberty’s starboard side, a tanker passing east and a freighter passing west; off Liberty’s port bow a yacht moving east; Key West packed with moored ships.

Seas are running 4 to 6 feet and we are moving at eight-and-one-half knots.

Pegasus, spray washing over her bow, reported all is well.

The Captain has just closed a meeting with his senior officers concerning plans for the remainder of this tow and upcoming missions beginning next week and into the busy weeks ahead.

A radio squawks! Coast Guard Station Key West via International Hailing Frequency: small craft advisory throughout the area.

The routine of weather and sea, ship and crew continues. All is well. Aarg!

Into the Florida Straits


The Straits of Florida, Florida Straits, or Florida Strait is a 100-mile strait located south-southeast of Florida, and is generally accepted to be the area between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and between the Florida Keys and Cuba. The strait carries the Florida Current, the beginning of the Gulf Stream, from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic. (By the way, a strait is a thin, navigable channel of water that joins two larger navigable bodies of water.)


Florida, seen during space shuttle mission STS-95 on Oct. 31, 1998. Credit: NASA

The history of exploration of the Americas is strewn everywhere here as well. Off to the south some 70 miles away is the Island of Cuba; a major point of entry to the Western Hemisphere and base of operations for early Spanish explorers and ships returning across the Atlantic to Spain. To our north are the Florida Keys.

The Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon first recorded sailing through the straits in 1513. Many more Spanish ships came later.

In 1622, twenty-eight heavily laden ships left Havana for Spain carrying the wealth and prestige of the Spanish empire in the Americas. Besides heavy cargos of silver, gold and emeralds from Spain’s American possessions, the ships carried thousands of sailors, soldiers, passengers, and all the necessary materials and provisions for a long voyage. The fleet was overtaken by a hurricane as it entered the Florida Straits. By the next morning eight Spanish vessels lay smashed on the ocean floor, scattered from the Marquesas Keys to the Dry Tortugas. Among these sunken ships were the Santa Margarita, the Nuestra Senora del Rosario and the Nuestra Senora de Atocha.


The Florida Keys. Credit: NASA

The most famous Spanish wreck found west of the Florida Keys was the above-mentioned Nuestra Señora de Atocha with a value estimated by some at $300,000,000.

Beginning in the 1500s, virtually every navy in Europe sailed these waters. Spanish, English, Dutch, Portuguese, French and eventually American colors have fluttered over the Straits.  Many ships flying no colors, pirates and privateers, prowled the Straits in the 1600s and 1700s seeking luckless and under-armed victims. During World War II, German U-boats transited the Straits on their way into the Gulf, but they remained only a short time before withdrawing to the much safer and deeper waters of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Florida Keys contain the few coral reefs in the continental United States, making it a haven for fish and coral. These same reefs are hazards to navigation and thousands of ships have wrecked over the centuries in the Keys and elsewhere in the waters of Florida.

Key West


As Liberty Star enters the Florida Straits we should note one of the oldest inhabited islands of this area, Key West. First noted for its potentially strategic location by Ponce de Leon in 1513, Key West — or Cayo Hueso, as it was originally known by the Spanish — is situated at the western gate of Florida Straits some 90 miles north of Havana, Cuba. Key West had for several centuries a more or less continuous exploration and commercial relationship with her sister colony in Cuba. Fishing and salt production highlighted some of the early industries.


Key West, Fla., seen from the International Space Station in 2002. Credit: NASA

Spanish rule of the area was interrupted by twenty years of English domination, but the end of the American Revolution in 1783 returned Florida to Spain. In 1819 Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States and as a result the population began to grow along with American interest in the Keys strategic military location. 

A major fortification, Fort Zachery Taylor, was built at the extreme western end of Key West just prior to the American Civil War and although Florida seceded from the Union, Fort Taylor was seized by Federal forces almost immediately after hostilities began.  Just east up the coast from Fort Taylor Union engineers built additional fortifications known today as the East and West Towers of Fort Martello. 

Key West played a pivotal role in preventing Confederate blockade runners from operating freely in the Gulf of Mexico throughout the Civil War.

Some 27 sailors who died in the USS Maine explosion in Havana Harbor were buried at the Key West Cemetery.

Both forts have been preserved and are open to the public. In the 1960s Fort Taylor was fully excavated and found to have buried within its confines the largest collection of surviving civil war cannon anywhere in the country.

The U.S. Navy returned to Key West with a large presence during World War II and remains today a major employer in the area with Key West Naval Air Station and other smaller facilities.