Reef Naming

How the Reefs Got Their Names

Ray McAllister

A few of my readers who have assisted me in locating and recording good diving spots along the reefs of SE Florida know that I prefer to use the local names for various spots. However, often the locals do not want to let me know of their names, in the hopes that no one else will dive their favorite spot. So I was forced to make up names for each site included in my book. In the last installment of "How the Reefs Got Their Names" we came south to the Noula Express.

As we continue south the next reef in "Diving Locations" is the Deerfield Pier Debris which is self explanatory since the disposal of the concrete sections of the old pier was easier underwater than on land and it makes a good reef.

When I found Separated Rocks, it was and still is a series of low rocky masses sticking up a few feet from the sand, off the Deerfield Pier. Originally they were, no doubt, connected and projected higher, but many years of slow loss of sediment from the beach to the nearshore bottom has slowly covered the low spots and left only a half dozen high spots sticking out of the sand.

Off Hillsboro Beach we found a nice low ledge, one of the few spots where I have seen Swiss Guard Basslets, a pretty little fish not common off this area. It was necessarily called Hillsboro Ledge.

The "Ancient Mariner" was the name of a boat, originally the USCG Cutter "Nemesis", then after a second life as a Ft Lauderdale restaurant ( known mostly for food poisoning of a number of patrons), she was sunk as an artificial reef in June, 1991. A great deal of lumber, comprising her false upper works broke loose as she sank and floated away. Hurricane Andrew stripped off most of the dangerous material left after the sinking.

The "Berry Patch" was the name of a 65 ft. harbor tug which was used to push barges to and from Ocean Key, the Bahamas, where they mined aragonite sand for the US. She is surrounded by several other unnamed wrecks in the 50 ft size range.

Many years ago, Jack Cannon, a local diver, showed me two masses of reef that projected from a flat reef area, sticking up some 4 to 8 ft. They are within swimming distance of each other and far enough inshore to be free of strong currents most of the time. When I accidentally rediscovered them during preparation of the book, I named them Cannon's Mounds, North and South, for Jack.

Hillsboro Domes are a series of low mounds or coral domes, which in years to come will eventually be converted into something like Separated Rocks, as sand moves offshore to bury the lower parts. At present they stick up 4 to 8 ft. with small sand holes and "canyons' between them and a low ledge on the inside edge. I have done very well, at this site, looking for lobster.

One of the few outside edges that I have put in the book is Hillsboro Outside Edge, a seaward facing ledge from 3 to 7 ft. high, off Hillsboro Beach. Since I was not much into naming reefs for people in my first few editions, starting about 1971, the name came easily and I have not tried to change it.

One of the more interesting names is "Abby Too" Reef. When looking for new spots to put in the dive locations book, I passed a boat called the "Abby Too", anchored at the same spot on several different occasions. I stole the marks by running slowly past about 200 yards seaward, taking photographs of the spot where I thought the anchor would be. I projected the angle of the anchor rode downward and lined up that spot with two objects on the beach. Later I returned when "Abby Too" was not there and, sure enough, there was a nice reef which I subsequently included. One of the original pictures showed the bow of the boat, name readily readable, on the site so the name was easy to derive. I have often wondered whether the owner of the "Abby Too" new I had done this. Whoever it was they never contacted me or complained or thanked me for immortalizing their boat's name.

Nearly a mile north of Hillsboro Inlet there is a spot which, when I first found it, looked like a horseshoe with the open end pointed towards shore. Later, after exploring it, it became obvious that there were at least three successive horseshoes, one after another. I called this one "The Horseshoe", and later put a Palm Beach Horseshoe somewhat north of Boynton Inlet. In that case it was the local name of a somewhat similar feature.

I was dating a lady by the name of Suzanne when we, together discovered a nice shallow reef just south of Hillsboro Inlet. This was some years and several editions after I started publishing these spots and I started to use peoples names for reefs, generally making the person quite pleased for the recognition and in thanks for help which I really needed. In 1995 I was approached by Mike Cohen and asked if, in memoriam of Jim Nolan, a well known local diver who died, probably of a heart attack, chasing lobster on this reef, I would rename it for Jim. Although I have never in 25 years renamed a spot, this seemed like a very reasonable request. Suzanne, long gone, will understand. For the next edition where it will be subtitled Suzanne's Reef, henceforth it will be known, in my book, as "Nolan's Reef'.

Interestingly enough, this is the only reef spot which can be located with only one mark, using the principal of the stadimeter. If you put the Hillsboro Lighthouse on the elevator box of the Hillsboro Landmark Condominium, so that the white part of the lighthouse just touches the top ledge of the Landmark, you will be almost exactly on the spot. As you go closer to the Inlet, the white rises on the Landmark and it falls as you go farther south.

Steve Westervelt, who used to run a local dive charter boat, gave me one of Steve's Twin Ledges. Swimming around to get the lay of the land, I found another rise not too far away. Hence Steve's Landward Ledge, and Steve's Seaward Ledge. Later Steve saw the publication and told me he had deliberately not told me of the second ledge so he would have a place where fewer people dove. I was sorry to have burst his bubble but named them for him. Like Cannon's Mounds, they are often out of strong currents and good for novice divers.

Originally the next artificial reef south of Steve's consisted of a couple of old beatup pusher tugs donated by Qualmann Marine Construction Company of Pompano Beach. In later years several other wrecks were added, especially the "Jay Dorman", which had once been the private yacht of the Emperor Bao Dai of Vietnam. Between the tugs and the Dorman lies the big steel hulled sailboat "Alpha". All are rapidly breaking up, as a result of corrosion and Hurricane Andrew and severe winter storms. Later Lewis Marine also contributed some wrecks and various other dredge equipment and debris make this a widely scattered artificial reef. Marks are essentially for the Qualmann Tugs.

The Pompano Fishing Rodeo has been adding wrecks to the area for some years. They put up most of the funds for many of the wrecks sunk in the Rodeo Reef Site. The "Rodeo 25 Reef", originally a 215 foot freighter, was sunk in May 1990. There are a series of other wrecks in the Rodeo Reef Site, some of which I will identify but you can obtain a chart from the Pompano Fishing Rodeo which gives a broad overlook of the sites and ordinary GPS Lat/Long for most of them.

A nice spot with excellent cover for lobster and fish, is the "Pompano Third Reef Ridge". It is a double reef with a 50 to 75 foot wide sand flat between the two and a nice 5 to 10 ft. ledge on the inside. As named, it is part of the continuous Third Reef along the SE Florida coast.

Another Rodeo Reef is the "Jim Torgerson", named after the lead man in the Broward Sheriff's Office, charged with sinking most of the Rodeo Reefs with confiscated explosives. She was the RSB-1 in a former life. There is a plaque for Jim on the wheelhouse.

One of the most well known and famous spots in the book is the Pompano Dropoff. Originally there were no anchoring buoys on the Dropoff but now there are a string of them all the way from just south of the Pompano Pier to the wreck of the "Copenhagen." This is a ledge of coral rock, properly called micrite, at about 12 feet deep, which has been undermined by the seas and the outer edge has broken off and fallen into the sand at 25 to 30 feet deep. There are lots of undercuts, caves and blocks in the sand. It is an ideal spot for a beginners dive, shallow, often clear, loaded with corals, including an occasional small piece of pillar coral or elkhorn coral, found mostly south of Miami. The very shallow water provides enough light for the tiny marine algae (plants) which live in the tissues of hard corals, in a symbiotic relationship. In deeper water, few zooxanthellae get enough light to survive so the hard corals do poorly. But because the shallow ledge trips incoming waves, the hard corals are often torn loose and turned upside down, to die. It is common, after a storm, to see many big eyed corals (Montastrea) and brain corals ripped loose by the tremendous wave forces. If you see such corals, take a moment to turn them upright and wedge them in a crack so they will continue to live.

Much to my surprise, my last story about this topic got some good feedback from USAers. Consequently here are some more stories about reef names from the Pompano Dropoff south.

The next reef south is the "Captain Dan" wreck, named the Pompano Fishing Rodeo folks for Capt. Dan Garnsey, a longtime fishing captain of the "Helen S" and its successors, out of the Hillsboro Inlet. This was the former US Coast Guard Buoy Tender "Hollyhock" (the buoy tenders were named for flowering shrubs), and subsequently the Mission Ship "Good News" It was sunk in about 110 feet of water in Feb., 1990. 175feet long, it is beginning to show its age. The salt water does horrible things to a steel vessel.

Then we come upon the "Copenhagen Preserve", the remains of the "MV Copenhagen", a 325 foot long steel steamboat that grounded on the edge of the Dropoff and was abandoned when the tug sent to remove it was called to another job, probably more lucrative?. It was locally salvaged, with parts of the fixtures in some of the old homes in this area. During WW II, it was possibly bombed and certainly used as a target for military planes practicing fire at a "live" target. Spent 50 caliber bullets can still be found in the area. The bow section was recently found offshore of the wreck and projecting well above the sand. About all that remains of the "Copenhagen" are the bilges and lowest deck. The rest has succumbed to corrosion and military firepower. It bears a plaque designating it a State Archaeological Preserve, A Florida Heritage Site.

The Sinkhole is apparently the collapsed roof of a limestone cavern under the bottom. It is sheer walled on the east edge, dropping from about 60 to nearly 90 feet. The east side is bare rock with big blocks which have broken from the walls and are sliding, upright, toward the hole in the bottom which is filled with sand. One has to wonder if it might give way at any time and allow more sand (and an unwary diver) to be catapulted deep into an underlying cave system. Local divers tell me there are several other such sinkholes in the vicinity, particularly to the north a short distance, but I think one sinkhole is enough for the book.

We found this one when Mark Consiglio, who was running my boat at about 15 years of age said we had just hit 90 feet. I was forward and told him he was wrong, that there was nothing 90 feet deep inside of the Third Reef. As we returned from a dive offshore, I humored him and retraced our track and THERE IT WAS! He got a great tale to tell out of it.

I do have fantasies of sitting in the bottom of the sinkhole with an open lobster bag, catching the lobster as they come over the sharp edge during a walk. Dream on!

Actually we named another reef for Mark when, on an extraordinary day, with 100 ft. visibility, he was towing along the edge of the Third Reef and dropped off, yelling that he had found a good spot. He was right. So we named it for him. The edge goes both north and south of the marks but there is a high steep spot right at the marks. North a ways is a steep undercut nose sticking 25 or 30 feet west which often has fish under it. The reef is better to the south which is great for the typical current is north, taking you back to your anchor. This is, naturally, called "Mark's Ledge"

Anglin Pier Reef is almost directly seaward of the Anglin' Pier (Commercial Blvd. Pier). The inside edge is at 57 ft or so and the top about 45 feet. It has a double ledge about 30 feet apart and to the south blends into a single ledge.

The "Wreck of the Rebel" is an artificial reef sitting in sand at 110 ft deep. It was the M?V Andrea in a past life and has no reef of any significance around it. Consequently you must use about 300 feet of anchor rode and a fairly heavy piece of chain to hold in the sand. On a good diving day there may be half a dozen trails in the sand where people did not have enough scope to let the anchor flukes dig in. The Rebel lies bow north and like all the wrecks is beginning to show signs of salt water poison.

The "Rebel" was named for the donors dog, according to local scuttlebutt, and sunk by the Broward Artificial Reef Program, the S Florida Divers SCUBA club and various other groups.

Then, seaward of Oakland Park Blvd. In 65 feet of water the artificial reef "Jay Scutti" sits upright on the bottom. She is a 97nfoot ex-tug, the former "Airkok", from Aruba. This is an interesting area of wrecks. Tied astern of the Scutti by a massive hawser is the steel sailboat hull of the "Pride" a component of the Harbor town Artificial Reef. She is also upright and roughly N/S. About 150/200 feet NE is another sailboat hull, the "B. H. Lake". A 45 foot sailboat hull, the "Moonshot" lies E of the Scutti and astern of the Pride is a small 20 foot sailboat, almost touching her. Any severe storm could change the orientation of all these wrecks although the Scutti apparently did not move during "Andrew".

The famous (infamous) "Mercedes" is offshore in 97 feet of water with small reefs around it. The Mercedes gained notoriety when it was grounded on the Palm Beach shore against Molly Wilmoth's seawall, during a hurricane. It is possible, with great caution, to swim through the hull and out onto the adjacent sand through great holes blown in the hull during sinking. The wreck is deteriorating and during Andrew the wreck was partly broken amidships and has since separated even more. The strong currents and sometimes carelessness of the local dive charter boats may cause one difficulty. Actually the Mercedes is my dive shop! I put some of my divers on the wreck and two of us swim north along the bottom looking for gear dropped by divers caught in the often strong currents. I have found everything from a camera case and camera, through weight belts, masks, snorkels, spears, depth gages, etc. on these "dive shop" runs.

A good decompression dive after the Mercedes is the Oakland Ridges, inshore in 25 to 40 feet of water. It is an area of multiple patches of reef and lots of fish and invertebrates. Not many lobster or grouper but most everything else. Shallow, it often has good visibility and one can get a long dive out of one tank of air. Since the whole area is reefy, it is not hard to find even if you are not quite on the marks.