Elliot Key

Elliott Key is a state park located in Biscayne Bay which features a visitors center, rest rooms, camping facilities and a harbor on the bayside of Elliott Key. The reefs offshore this barrier island are teeming with fish, lobsters and healthy coral populations. Just south of Lewis Cut on the ocean side is an inner reef known as Bache Shoal. Here the reef rises sharply from 20 to less than 3 feet. Look carefully for distortion of mixing water -- there are fresh water springs here.

Just to the southwest of Bache Shoal the remains of the cement barrel wreck can be found. This 1850s ship was bound for Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas beyond Key West loaded with cement. The wreck lies with her bow pointed southwest just west of Hawks Channel on the grass bottom. It's 11 feet deep around the wreck and cement barrels are only three feet below the surface in the wreckage. Lobsters, tropical fish and eels are found among the corals now formed around the ship's rotting timbers.