The Boca Chica Channel Wreck: a site assessment

Neyland, Robert

This report describes a joint federal and state archaeological survey and assessment of a colonial shipwreck located near Key West, Florida. Discovered by local divers in the early 1970s, the shipwreck is located in Boca Chica Channel on submerged bottomlands acquired from the state of Florida by the U.S. Navy for the Key West Naval Air Station (NAS Key West) on Boca Chica Key. Bill Muir, a local naval architect and historian, reported the shipwreck site to state officials on several occasions. Because it was outside of the state's jurisdiction, it soon became the subject of limited amateur investigations, disputes among principals of the Key West Maritime Historical Society (KWMHS), a federal admiralty court case, and a confrontation with Navy security personnel. Concurrent with plans for joint submerged cultural resource management in the new Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the Florida Division of Historical Resources (FDHR) also began a partnership with the U.S. Navy's Naval Historical Center (NHC) in 1995 to inventory, investigate, and prepare management plans for significant Navy shipwrecks in Florida's waters. Planning discussions also included non-naval sites in Florida under Navy jurisdiction, such as the Boca Chica Channel Wreck. Muir's preliminary investigations led him to conclude that the site represented an early colonial Spanish vessel based on architectural characteristics and artifact types. A cooperative project for further exploration and assessment of the shipwreck was organized by archaeologists representing the NHC, the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research (FBAR), the National Park Service (NPS) Submerged Resources Center (SRC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Sanctuaries Program. The project began in September 1997 with a remote sensing survey of Boca Chica Channel to locate submerged cultural features and test excavations to determine the wreck's condition and archaeological context. Survey results confirmed the wreck's location and several other manmade features in the vicinity. Examination of the shipwreck and recovery of several diagnostic artifacts for comparison with those previously recovered by Muir produced a more complete interpretation of the site as the remains of a late eighteenth-century Spanish or French colonial-built trading or fishing vessel. In addition to these analyses and conclusions, this report offers several recommendations for further coordination of the management, protection, and public interpretation of the site as a significant regional and national archaeological resource.

The Boca Chica Channel Wreck: a site assessment

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