Sharks
Welcome to the Shark Bite Capital of the World!! New Smyrna Beach just south of Daytona is home to the most shark bites.
That’s Bites, in the world. Australia on the other hand is number one for the most fatal.. That’s Fatal, bites in the world. So you might get nipped but you will probably make it.
The photo above was taken over New Smyrna and yes, all those black things in the water are sharks. This photo was also taken during mating season which generally runs from March until June or so.
Currently the largest shark on record in Florida is Unama’ki, a female great white weighing in at over 2000 lbs and measuring at 15 feet 5 inches long. She has been stalking the Florida coastline since February 2020 in search of a place to give birth. While Unama’ki is the largest great white ever recorded in this portion of the Atlantic, and this close to shore; it is not uncommon to see Great White’s this size out in open waters. If you would like to track Unama’ki or other sharks, here is a great ocean tracker set up by Seaworld.
Starfish
There are about 2000 kinds of Starfish in the world and of those, probably 500 more or so can be found here in Florida. Here are a few facts that show that this is one odd creature. They are not fish, more appropriately called “Sea stars” these guys are related to urchins and sand dollars, also not fish…
A vampire would starve trying to live off of them as they have no blood. They recirculate seawater through their bodies to keep them going. Starfish can see you. They have eyes on the ends of each arm and while they do reproduce in the old fashioned way, they can also grow from a cut off body part of another starfish. One other thing…
Most starfish are carnivorous. Yup. They wrap their arms around their prey, extend a little tube into the victim, shoot it full of dissolving enzymes and then suck up the dissolved individual through said tube.
You can find starfish on the beach in most areas of Florida though South Florida it is more common. The Gulf side of the state has some of the best collecting opportunities, especially if you can get to one of the island beaches. Usually it’s not too hard, there are boat rentals and ferries at most.
Florida law states that a person cannot “harvest” any shell or other thing with a living creature in it. This is very important when it comes to our protected species and wildlife in general. Starfish, sand dollars and conchs are living creatures, not just shells.
Sand dollars
It is pretty easy to tell whether you can take these guys home with you or not as they look completely different when they are alive. Most people have only seen them after they have passed on. While living, their coloring varies from dark gray to vivid purple and they are covered in shaggy hair.
It is just a stark white shell of their former selves that we find on the beach. If that is not what you find, please help this critter back into the sea. Fort Myers and Sanibel Island are renowned for beaches loaded with sand dollar shells.
The Sand dollar also comes with a neat legend that is associated with Christianity. It is said that the 5 holes in the shell represent the wounds of Christ. The star on the back represents the star of Bethlehem; and if you break it open, there are what looks like 5 doves that fall out. You are truly blessed if you find a whole and intact sand dollar on the beach.
Conchs
There are two types of Conch here in Florida. There are the sea snails from the ocean with beautiful and highly coveted shells; and then there are the Conchs, Florida Keys natives who hail from the rebellious Conch Republic.
There are many interesting facts available about both of them, one of the most impressive being the 27 ways the human Conchs found to cook the Conch creature. Always the rebel from the pirates who occupied the place to quite a few of the current residents, the occupants of the keys even declared war on the United States government in 1982.
Upset that the road to the Keys was closed due to the Castro situation, the mayor of Key West demanded it be reopened, then when he was refused, deserted from the United States and called his new country the Conch Republic. Within a few hours he declared war on the U.S and within 24 hours or so of that, a meeting was had with the U.S. Navy, where the mayor surrendered. Crazy, but it gets pretty hot down there…
The Conch animals are mostly protected species, especially the huge and beautiful pink Queen Conchs. Another highly loved local favorite is the Florida Fighting Conch. Named more for his elaborate get away dance than any actual aggressive behavior.
The same rules apply here as with sand dollars and starfish, no one can collect a living creature, it must be deceased and not by your hand. People have been tracked down to other states and gone to jail over it.
Something as precious and beautiful as these things must be protected. There are so many interesting things about them. Like how they too make pearls. Particularly the Queen Conchs, they produce an extremely rare and highly sought after pearl worth way more than your common oyster pearl.
Conchs are even more legendary than the Sand dollar here. If we found one, my mom would have me hold it up to my ear so I could hear the ocean inside it. No matter where you are, if you have a conch shell you can hear the sea… This is true. It has also been said that they have been used to call Mermaids to answer wishes and such.
You have to have a big one and you have to blow into it just right. It has to be on a full moon on a deserted beach and then the sound you make has to be just right… Mermaids are superseded by Dolphins so if they show up, you are doing it right.
Mermaids
If Mermaids were real, surely we should be able to find one here. With 2 oceans and multiple inland Mermaidesque locations, someone should have seen one sometime… The pirates are full of mermaid tales.
How bewitching they were, luring pirates and sailors to their death on rocky shores. Summoning storms to wreck the ships… These scary tales of evil mermaids are told alongside tales of mermaid love and ill fated relationships between sailors and mermaids.
The romantic and sad tale of the pirate who fell in love with a beautiful mermaid. She lived in a spring on a deserted island where the pirate buried his treasure. He found her playing with the jewels and offered her whatever she wanted.
She stayed there, guarding the pirate’s treasure and he would return… One day he came home to her forever. After being home for just a short while, he died in her arms in the spring on the island, just the pirate and his mermaid… His treasure floated out over the water around them and floated to the bottom.
There’s another sailor who told a tale of Mermaids and it has some historical documentation. In January of 1493, Christopher Columbus was aimlessly sailing around the Americas looking for land. On this day, he saw something totally different. Mermaids. 3 of them, or so he said.
Now let us keep in mind that women in Columbus’s day were mostly a little more robust than modern ladies. When he laid eyes on the 3 Manatees frolicking in the surf, he assumed like so many other sailors in this time frame, that they were Mermaids.
Not as beautiful as some others were described mind you, these were rather masculine according to our witness, but Mermaids nonetheless.
Mermaids and Manatees have a lot in common. Manatees are from the Sirenia family of marine animals. A name that originates from the word Siren. Mermaids have long been known to be the sirens of the sea. Malaysian people called the Manatee the “Lady of the Sea” and had no distinction between it and a Mermaid.
Mermaids have been known to “rise” up out the water around ships and in the waves. Manatees do something very similar where they stand up on their tails, “rising” up out of the water on it.
Not to burst anyone’s idea of the fantasy Mermaids like the ones that may have populated Atlantis… We may have them too, read on my friends and on that note, there is one more coincidental similarity between these great creatures.
They both inhabit both salt and freshwater. Manatees and Mermaids such as in the pirate tale, love Florida’s ancient and hidden freshwater springs. You can still see both at this place in south central Florida.
Weeki Wachee Springs, Weeki Wachee, Florida
City of Mermaids…
Welcome to the only place in the world where you can see real life Mermaids in their element. Possibly these were some leftover from those pirate days of river hopping and treasure hiding??? No… These ladies have been the main attraction at one of Florida’s oldest running theme parks.
Founded in 1946 by an ex Navy diver, the spring itself was the inspiration for Newton Perry. After making it the right kind of home for a proper Mermaid, he went off to find him some. The ladies came for free room and board, free training and they of course, got to be Mermaids and the celebrities of Weeki Wachee Springs.
It is no easy task to become a Mermaid. One must leave her legs and lungs at the door. The underwater theater where the Mermaids perform daily is 6 feet under the surface. It’s sliding down a dark concrete tube 14 feet down and 64 feet out into the spring to get them there that is the fear one must face.
They swim into view behind the glass theater window from below and the audience never knows the difference… How do they breathe? That is a well known mystery I will let you readers discover on your own.
Pirates
The coasts of Florida are no stranger to pirates of many kinds. Real ones, Disney ones… Strange people dressed as pirates for no good reason ones… Pirates have long vacated this state but their memory and the fact that they were here will last forever.
The Florida Keys. A collection of small islands connected by various bridges and ferry boats. In the 1600’s it was a great place to build hideouts and attack the Spanish. While many pirates have occupied this area, there is one who stood out and became legendary. A little history first…
What is now Haiti was once the notorious island of Tortuga, famed pirate base. France and Spain have always had problems here and at one point Spain paid rebel slaves in Haiti to rise up against the French. When that revolution was over in 1804, those leaders of the Revolution were made Spanish Generals and given ships and money to escape Haiti.
They were allowed to choose whether they wanted to go to Cuba or Florida. Being that the only civilized area of Florida at the time was St. Augustine, many of these men went to Cuba.
Georges Biassou chose St. Augustine and lived on St. George Street with his large family until he died. It seems he made the right decision. It was unfortunate what happened to the other men. By the time they got to Cuba word had spread amongst the Spanish and now the governor’s were all scared of these ruthless soldiers.
They were turned away when they reached land and I imagine these events coincided with one of the Black Caesar legends, the one where he started out as a slave in Haiti… This man would have known of pirates for sure being from Tortuga himself.
The other legend seems like one that Black Caesar may have made up for himself. At any rate, armed with a galleon ship, a crew, money, a taste for revenge against the scheming Spanish, and no place to go. It seems only fit that the infamous Black Caesar of the Florida Keys would have been right at home there. On Elliot Key to be exact.
He was a bloodthirsty pirate, legend had it he was a great African chief, captured by slave traders and he overthrew them, stealing their boat and turning to piracy. It was a good story. What is true is that he raided many, many ships along the Keys and south Florida coast amassing millions of dollars of treasure. Treasure that is rumored to be buried somewhere around the Keys.
Pirates on the River. There are many tales of pirates employing Florida’s many inland rivers to access islands, cross the state, run from the law and hide treasure. One of these rivers may still hold the prospect of finding lost treasure. If not pirate treasure than definitely some old junk…
The Escambia River runs south out of Alabama into Pensacola and is Florida’s fourth largest river. Somewhere between the towns of Molino and Century there were Native Indian mounds along this river.
According to the tribe that made those mounds, pirates wrecked a ship here and buried their treasure upon bailing out. The tribe apparently watched this happen, told someone, and so began a lust for Escambia river pirate treasure and the search for the wreck, that continues on to this day.
Though the rivers were well occupied, pirates were all over the east and west coasts of Florida. On the west coast, Gasparilla was a known figure and possibly fictional pirate in the Tampa area. Fiction or no, Tampa has the only known pirate graves in the state at the Oaklawn Cemetery in downtown.
Jean Lafitte, the notorious pirate from New Orleans was documented to have used Seahorse Key to bury his treasure.
On the east coast it was Sir Francis Drake and Robert Searles in St. Augustine, the latter being the cause of the fort being built; and up in Fernandina Beach they claim Luis Aury, Captain Kidd, and Blackbeard.
They also say that Jean Lafitte hung out here as well. It’s not that far fetched. Amelia Island was a sort of base for pirates and scoundrels of all kinds. It is said that at one point there were almost 70 pirate ships pulled up to dock at the island.
While the kind of pirates that are written about here are now a thing of the past. I tell you piratry is still alive and well in the state of Florida. Make sure you lock your doors and watch the politicians…
Bermuda Triangle, Miami Circle, Bimini Road
Now here is where two oddities solidly meet. Pirates and the Bermuda Triangle. While pirate attacks was a theory about the missing ships in this mysterious portion of the Atlantic, it would not account for the mishaps that occurred in the 1900’s and beyond.
I could find no pirate legends about the triangle short of Disney but it would be interesting to know if they spoke about it or ever disappeared in it…
Many people do not realize that one of the great mysteries of the world lies right off of the coast of Florida. In fact, many cruise ships and cargo liners sail through it daily. Yes, they go through the Bermuda Triangle all the time.
Everyone knows that the Bermuda Triangle is a place in the Atlantic where ships, planes, and crews simply disappear. Poof! Into nothing. Scientists have tried to find many reasons for this random and strange occurrence because while 500 ships a day may sail through the triangle, if one disappears without a trace its big news.
Pirates, rogue waves, electromagnetic energy, plate tectonics… Everything all the way to aliens have been explored but I wonder…
We actually have 3 ancient mysteries out there off our beautiful coastline. The Triangle with it’s singular point in Miami, The Bimini Road, just straight out across the way from Miami, and then there is the Miami circle, technically not actually in the ocean, but right next to it.
With all this going on around the southern tip of Florida, it made me think about Atlantis which according to Edgar Cayce the Sleeping Prophet, could very well be off the coast of the fine state.
Especially given the prehistoric geological changes that the entire area has gone through. There is definitely something showing up on satellite imagery that clearly looks like some sort of underwater structure complete with stairs right around the tip of Florida and going all the way towards Puerto Rico.
It’s all theoretical but the Bimini Road is thought to be an ancient roadway or wall under the water and some think could possibly be a part of a destroyed Atlantis.
The Miami Circle is actually much more recent than either the Bermuda Triangle or the Bimini Road. It was discovered in 1998 and it’s origins and age have both been wildly debated. That’s going to be par for the course (wink wink) when any developer in Miami is set to lose millions of dollars worth of property and future income.
An apartment building with one awesome view of the ocean sat right on top of this stone circle with constructed holes set in it. Archaeologists surmise that the stone circle with it’s holes for wooden poles probably used as roof poles, was built and used by the local Tequesta tribe as a ceremonial structure.
That is an interesting theory since the Tequesta were all over South Florida and this is the only ancient structure like this in the entire state. While it’s origins and uses are still an ongoing mystery, one thing is for sure, it is safe. The county owns it and has turned it into a park.
Sharks
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/us/florida-shark-attack-capital-trnd/index.html
https://www.ocearch.org/tracker/?list
Starfish
https://www.thoughtco.com/facts-about-sea-stars-2291865
http://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/wakullaco/2018/04/06/starfish/
https://myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/sea-shells/
https://www.floridasmart.com/articles/florida-laws-harvesting-marine-life-and-sea-shell-collecting
Sand dollars
https://www.fortmyers-sanibel.com/visit/editorial/what-is-a-sand-dollar-and-where-you-can-find-them
https://seasyourday.com/facts-legend-sand-dollar-poem/
Conchs
https://www.conchtourtrain.com/conch.html
https://www.whitesandsbeachresort.com/florida-shell-guide
http://www.communityconch.org/why-conchs/conch-facts/
https://www.nationaljeweler.com/blog/6329-5-things-to-know-about-conch-pearls
Mermaids & Manatees
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/magazine/the-last-mermaid-show.html?ref=oembed
https://weekiwachee.com/about-us/history/
Pirates
http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/piracy-history/piracy-timeline/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-legend-of-black-caesar.html
http://www.fivay.org/anclote.html
https://thebradentontimes.com/sunday-favorites-a-pirate-tale-p20164-133.htm
https://cedarkeynews.com/Archives/OLDSITE/Features/278-315.html
https://www.tampabay.com/arts-entertainment/2020/02/18/are-pirates-buried-in-these-tampa-graves/
Bermuda Triangle
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article211388119.html
https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings/ancient-mysteries/atlantis/