CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - New data reveals what’s lying in the water just off Florida’s east coast, and it’s much closer to where you’re swimming than you may think.
▶ LISTEN TO ORLANDO’S MORNING NEWS EXPRESS PODCAST ON WDBO
“Everyone looks up when they think of this coastline, rockets, launch pads, the Cape,” said Vukan Simic, CEO of BoatBooker. “Almost nobody looks down, or back a hundred years. There’s an abandoned village in the dunes and 85 charted wrecks in the water next to it, more than half of them still active hazards today.”
BoatBooker analyzed NOAA’s official nautical chart data, the same charts captains use to navigate today, to build a shipwreck hazard map of the US coastline, and found 85 charted wrecks sitting in the waters around Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach, 55.3% of them still active hazards.
This is not the first time Florida’s spacecoast has made headlines regarding a supposed shipwreck.
A huge rubber bale that washed up on Cape Canaveral following Hurricane Elsa in 2021 may have come from a World War II shipwreck, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said.
According to a report by Marine Environmental Research, the packages that washed up in Brazil were “almost certainly” from the SS Rio Grande found at a depth of 5,762 m.
“Numerical simulations show that currents can carry out the bales from the SS Rio Grande to the beaches,” the report said.
READ: Rubber bale that washed up on Cape Canaveral may be from WWII shipwreck
BoatBooker noted that, a “wreck counts as a ‘hazard’ only when NOAA’s own data marks it dangerous for navigation, a reason ships reroute, not a safety rating of the surrounding water for swimming, fishing, or boating.”
Florida leads the nation with 2,302 charted wrecks, more than any other state, and the Space Coast alone accounts for more charted wrecks than entire states like Alabama (106) or Oregon (64).
Click here to download our free news, weather and traffic app. And click here to subscribe to our daily 3 Big Things newsletter.