We finally made it out to snorkel on the remains of the U.S.S. Adirondack that was wrecked on the reef off Man-O-War Cay in 1862, just six months after its launch. Since this was a wooden ship, there is not much left of it after 149 years underwater. The Adirondack was a three masted, steam auxiliary schooner of approximately 220 feet. She was commissioned by the Union Navy to blockade the Confederate ports during the Civil War. Hence, it had numerous cannons of varying sizes, and that's what we got to see on the reef. Dave counted seven of them strewn around the bottom. When we anchored in a sand patch nearby, I jumped in the water to see two of them (about 10 ft. apart from each other), just below us.
Several smaller cannons were piled together on the reef line, right in the breakers.
Dave also found an engine connecting rod...
...what we think is part of an engine boiler...
...and unknown pieces of wreckage.
Also still left is the anchor capstan, which you can still see where the holes are that large wooden spokes were inserted into, and the crew could manually winch up the anchor and chain.
Click
here for the link to the Adirondack's history.
The reef surrounding the wreck was quite spectacular also.
Many thanks to Jay and Hasty and the crew of Turnbuckle for allowing us to tag along and find this historical spot.
Another successful mission accomplished!
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