Rainy, Lazy Days and the Spanish Holocaust.

We've moved up to Long Key. From 1903 to 1935 this was the site of the writer Zane Grey's fishing lodge. Much more than a "fish camp", this was a luxury lodge where the rich from all over the world came to indulge in massive kills of the then-abundant fish. Marlin and Sailfish were king, but the primary attraction was fly-fishing the flats for bonefish. As with most rich men's sports of the time, the visit was not a short-term affair. From boats, and later Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad, they came for months at a time to escape the cold winters. At the ranger station here, they have a set of small rail wheels for the narrow-gauge steam railway used to move baggage and people out to the docks and trains. As a side affair, much effort was spent with oversized shotguns taking heron and other birds for their plumage. Many a fancy hat was fashioned by milliners in New York and Paris using feathers from Layton, Florida.
That luxury and most of the people and economy of the Middle Keys was destroyed by the Great Hurricane of 1935.
By today's standards, it was a Class 5 monster. And the first hint of trouble here would have been the precipitous drop in atmospheric pressure recorded on the barometers that were watched so carefully in every settlement in the Keys. By the time the huge, dark arc of the first rain bands appeared out of the east, it was already too late. A train was sent down to evacuate the "conchs" and their guests back to the mainland. It never made the return trip. Backing up the tracks with hundreds inside and clinging to the cars, massive storm-driven waves higher than even the grand lodges drove it on its side and drowned all hope. Bodies were found in Florida Bay and the Everglades for six months. That hurricane became the backdrop for Bogart, Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson's "Key Largo".
The earth works and rail bridges were paved over and became the "Overseas Highway", US1.
Now when a hurricane is even close to the Keys, all traffic is north-bound. Only fools and drunks try to ride it out in bars built 2 feet above the normal sea level. Every body thinks their concrete-block stilted house will hold. And they do. But a 25-foot storm surge is more than just high water. Riding the surge are huge ocean waves full of debris. Picture swimming against a four-knot current in a maelstrom with floating trees, and boards flying with enough force to penetrate a solid concrete wall.
But today it's just rainy. And we're safe and dry in our techno-toy motorhome watching the radar on my cell phone.
Last night we went to a lecture at the "History of Diving Museum" in Islamorada. Captain Carl Fismer is one of the treaure hunters of the Keys. And a successful salvor he is. An early user of metal detectors above and below the water, he has a Bahamian lease to search Hogsty Reef at the south end of the archipelago. Over two hundred wrecks have succumbed to the rapid thinning of the ocean there. But the government always wants a cut.
The latest intrusion is that the government of Spain has maneuvered us into a treaty giving them the rights to all the Spanish Treasure fleets worldwide. And our goverment protects their claim!
I am a trained archaeological diver (SCIAA Certificate MN-001) and I understand conservation of the information on a wreck. But we already know the economy and daily life of the Spanish rape of the New World. That rapacious conquistadores and missionaries decimated the indigenous people and cultures here is not disputed. Their zeal to "save souls" was only exceeded by the military need for gold to expand King Phillip's navy and the armies that he drove all the way to Holland. The wars of the Catholic Kings of Spain to suppress the Protestants, drive out the Moors, and generally torture every culture they found from China, the Phillipines (named after him), South America and the Caribbean were fueled by the gold and silver dug by Indian slaves in Lima, Potosi, and other hell-holes.
But the real horrors were what happened in the "conversions". Our dedicated priests and friars, did not protest when families were taken into slavery, and the uneeded infants baptized only to have their skulls bashed in. Such barbarity ensured the survival of their ephemeral "souls" as Catholics, and prevented subsequent recantation and return to their native religions.
I see our governments protection of Spanish admiralty claims in the same light as returning stolen Jewish art to the Germans!
The other part of removing the silver, gold and bronze from the bottom, is that,except for the gold, the other metals are toxic to marine life. Copper bottom ships poison the barnacles,corals, and fish. Indeed when a treasure site is picked clean, the coral grows again.
Salvors should keep meticulous records and record the information about these wrecks, okay give the goverment 20% of the value, display the more interesting artifacts in public museums, but we already know the Hispanic predilection for gaudy baubles!