Emily Chan
According to the written records, the crew tried to lighten the ship when it ran aground. They got the vessel to float again for a brief time before it finally sank in the shallows.
The cannons were located 500 yards from the wreck, and it appeared that they were thrown overboard when the ship hit the reefs.
After the ship became submerged, the 300 members of the crew were left stranded on Garden Key for 66 days.
Garden Key gets a lot of visitors now, but back then, it was a deserted island. While on the island, they suffered from thirst, extreme heat, and mosquitoes. They built vessels from the driftwood of the shipwreck to try to escape.
Then, they burned the Tyger’s remains to ensure that the Spanish would not be able to use it. Once they departed from the island on their makeshift boats, they traveled 700 miles across enemy waters to Port Royal in Jamaica.
The discovery of the wreckage underscores the value of preserving historical sites. As technology grows more advanced, future generations of archaeologists can uncover more information from the sites that hadn’t been able to come to light before.
“Archaeological finds are exciting, but connecting those finds to the historical record helps us tell the stories of the people that came before us and the events they experienced,” James Crutchfield, the park manager at Dry Tortugas, said.
“This particular story is one of perseverance and survival. National parks help to protect these untold stories as they come to light.”
The study was published in The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.
