Molasses Reef

When we arrived at Molasses reef mid-morning, it was partly sunny over us, but there were rain clouds heading in our direction. We closed up the boat just in case, then dove in. There was quite a strong current, for me anyway, so we only explored very close to the boat. The lighting wasn’t as good because of the overcast but the visibility was still pretty good. This was our first larger reef on the edge of the Florida Straits, so there were more numerous larger fish rather than the mostly juveniles on the other reefs. The rain came sooner than we thought, but didn’t diminish visibility much because it was a light rain. It’s cool seeing the rain hit the surface from under water. We spent about an hour exploring and returned to find the skies darker, the rain falling steadily, and a 3-4 foot surge. The surge was washing up to the second step of the sugar scoops which made getting out of the water and onto the boat interesting, but we managed. We had lunch hoping the seas would settle, but they didn’t, so there was no second dive on Molasses. 

There was a bunch of metal debris on the bottom at Molasses reef. It belonged to the Austrian ship Slobodna that sank in 1887 while hauling cotton from Louisiana to Estonia. We did not see the big stuff we’d read about- a winch, gears, ballast and mast pieces; they were at another part of the reef. I hope we get a chance to go back there because In 2018 Hurricane Irma moved a bunch of sand and rock exposing even more of the wreck, so now there’s even more to see.

I’m enjoying revisiting my underwater pictures and videos while making these video slideshows for the blog. Here’s the one for Molasses reef. Enjoy! 

Author: Indigo Lady

I am a retired educator married to a retired chemist/engineer/educator. We will be living aboard our solar electric catamaran for as long as possible. View all posts by Indigo Lady