Sight · Biscayne National Park
A boat-only snorkel stop over an unidentified 19th-century sailing vessel.
Overview
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Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Biscayne Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Biscayne National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Schooner Wreck is a submerged 19th-century sailing-vessel site on Biscayne National Park’s Maritime Heritage Trail. It isn’t an intact ship: ballast piles, pieces of wood, rigging, and iron fasteners are the remains that identify it. The evidence points to a small- or medium-sized vessel.
The park groups this wreck among the trail sites snorkelers can readily enjoy, but getting here is by boat only. The park lists two moorings at 10 and 11 feet; those are depths at the buoys, not a full depth profile of the wreck. One boat may use a mooring for up to four hours. Check current navigation information and have a backup plan, since a buoy can be damaged or missing.
“Schooner Wreck” is the common name, but the vessel may not have been a schooner. Its name, port of origin, destination, and the fate of anyone aboard are unknown. It may have been a typical working vessel of the Florida Keys, rather than a famous ship with a traceable story.
The ballast is basalt, but it can’t identify where the vessel came from: ballast was routinely loaded, transferred, and shared between ships. Little cargo evidence remains, and the wreck was probably salvaged after it sank.
Wildlife
201 sightingsWest Indian ManateeMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
154 sightingsAmerican CrocodileMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
15 sightingsBurmese PythonMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
17 sightingsTamanend's Bottlenose DolphinMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
23 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
146 sightingsGreat BarracudaMost seen around 6 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Biscayne. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ModerateSpite Highway Trail15.8 mi · 7.5 hr · 4.2 mi awayA bulldozed highway cut now shelters a tunnel of tropical forest.
EasyElliott Key Nature Trail1 mi · 45 min · 4.4 mi awayA short island walk from hammock shade to Atlantic boardwalk
EasyAdams Key Loop Trail1 mi · 30 min · 4.6 mi awayA shaded island loop through a former presidential retreat.
Sight · 0.8 mi awayAnniversary ReefTwo official moorings mark this snorkel stop on the Florida Reef.
Sight · 2.3 mi awayAlicia WreckA 345-foot steamer wreck and a salvage fight that rewrote U.S. law.
Sight · 2.4 mi awayPacific ReefOffshore reef with numbered moorings and seabirds near Pacific Reef Light.
Sight · 2.6 mi awayAjax ReefBoat-only drift dives over coral ridges toward sandy bottoms.
Sight · 2.9 mi awayErl King WreckAn 1891 steamer wreck best explored by scuba.
Sight · 3.9 mi awayMandalay WreckA luxury cruise schooner now rests as a shallow snorkel wreck.
Sight · 4.1 mi awayLugano WreckA 1913 steamer wreck for divers exploring Long Reef.
Sight · 4.2 mi awayShark ReefA boat-only snorkeling reef with a named mooring as its access pin.Parkwolf’s Biscayne ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
