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Overview
A 110 m English steam freighter that collided with the SS Robert C. Tuttle off Key Largo on 9 April 1942 while running blacked out to evade a German submarine. She settled on a sandy slope between Dixie Shoals and French Reef, the broken midships and stern in 8 m of sand and the crushed bow rising 8 m above the bottom at 14 m. One of the most dived wrecks in the world and a staple shallow night dive: schools of porkfish and grunts shelter inside the forward hull, queen angelfish and stoplight parrotfish work plates encrusted with elkhorn coral and sea fans, and resident green morays and goliath grouper sit in the wreckage. Salvage in the 1950s and postwar gunnery practice broke the hull apart, but the bow profile and ribs remain the canonical photo subjects.
Briefing note
Open Water certification and basic buoyancy control sufficient. Three mooring buoys mark the wreck — never tie to the structure. The wreck lies inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, both protected; no artifact removal or coral contact. Night dives are the local specialty: octopus, basket stars, and spiny lobster emerge across the broken plates, and resting parrotfish sleep in mucus cocoons inside the bow. Check the marine forecast before booking — northerly winter fronts can drop visibility and turn the surface choppy.
What you'll see
10 species curated- year-roundGoliath grouper
- year-roundGreen moray
- year-roundStoplight parrotfish
- year-roundQueen angelfish
- year-roundPorkfish
- year-roundFrench grunt
- year-roundGreat barracuda
- year-roundNurse shark
- year-roundBermuda chub
- year-roundSpiny lobster
Reef data for this area
Jurisdiction-level snapshotsBenthic snapshot — NOAA NCRMP
Florida Keys (NCRMP)
Current mean coral cover
6.7%in 2022
Earlier survey
6.2%in 2014
↑ +0.5 pts
Stratified random benthic transects across NCRMP Florida domain (fore-reef + patch reef sites). Florida Reef Tract has been at historically low cover since the late-1990s white-band epidemic; SCTLD spread (2014–present) and the 2023 marine heatwave have kept means in single digits.
Reported at the jurisdictionscale, not the dive site — the published surveys don’t resolve a single reef. NOAA NCRMP Florida benthic 2022 status report →
Conditions
| Month | Water | Visibility | Current |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 22–24 °C | 12–20 m | mild |
| Feb | 22–24 °C | 12–20 m | mild |
| Mar | 23–25 °C | 15–25 m | mild |
| Apr | 24–26 °C | 20–30 m | mild |
| May | 26–28 °C | 20–35 m | mild |
| Jun | 28–30 °C | 20–35 m | mild |
| Jul | 29–30 °C | 20–35 m | mild |
| Aug | 29–31 °C | 20–35 m | mild |
| Sep | 28–30 °C | 15–30 m | moderate |
| Oct | 26–28 °C | 15–25 m | mild |
| Nov | 24–26 °C | 12–20 m | mild |
| Dec | 22–24 °C | 12–20 m | mild |
Season calendar
Peak season highlighted · current month outlined
Gear for this site
Beyond the basic kit- Underwater torch — Goliath grouper and green morays hold in shaded pockets inside the bow and under broken plates; a torch reveals the wreck's resident fauna and is mandatory for the popular night dive.
- SMB and reel — Multiple charter boats work the three mooring buoys simultaneously and Gulf Stream eddies can push divers off the wreck; deploy a marker before surfacing.
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