Wreckage of the USS Narcissus

When I was in high school in Flordia, before I learned the error of my ways and become a sailor, I ran all over Boca Ciega Bay and the around the mouth of Tampa Bay in an outboard motor powered skiff.  One place I was particularly fond of was Egmont Key, just off the shipping channel into Tampa Bay. At one end of the island was the lighthouse and the pilot’s station where the harbor pilots waited for ships entering from the Gulf of Mexico.  Along the Gulf-side beach were old gun emplacements from the Spanish-American war as well as lumbering gopher tortoises and waters full of pods of dolphins, black fin sharks and schools of rays.

Just off Egmont Key is also the wreck of the Civil War wooden steam tug, USS Narcissus, which has emerged from the Gulf sands that swallowed her after she sank in 1866.  The wreck is about 2 miles off the northern end of the island in only 15 feet of water.  State officials have proposed making the shipwreck site Florida’s 12th underwater archaeological preserve.

USS Narcissus, Civil War shipwreck off Egmont Key, could become Florida’s 12th underwater preserve

The Narcissus, which saw action at the Battle of Mobile Bay, was nominated for the preserve designation last year by the Florida Aquarium and South Eastern Archaeological Services. The wreckage has been mapped and photographed as part of the Tampa Bay Historical Shipwreck Survey.

Major features of the vessel are exposed, including the steam engine, drive shaft, propeller and a portion of the wooden hull. The wreck site has become a refuge for marine life, including hard and soft coral, cobia and goliath grouper.

The Narcissus, a wooden-hulled steam tugboat, was built in 1863 in East Albany, N.Y. The Navy bought the ship, then called the Mary Cook, and commissioned it as USS Narcissus in 1864.

The ship was present during the Battle of Mobile Bay, when Union Adm. David G. Farragut uttered the famous words, “Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!” After the war, the Narcissus had outlived its purpose helping blockade Southern ports. On Jan. 1, 1866, the tugboat left Pensacola, bound for New York to be decommissioned and sold.

Three days later, the vessel ran into a storm off the Pinellas coast. Traveling at full speed, it hit a sandbar about 2 miles north of Egmont Key. The boiler exploded. The ship sank.

The wreckage had been mostly forgotten until the late 1990s when divers notified the state about it, said Terrell. But little investigation of the site occurred until about four years ago when the Florida Aquarium began getting state grants totaling $200,000 to do underwater exploration in the Tampa Bay area.