Spiegel Grove Shipwreck Turns 20
Dozens of recreational divers submerged in the Florida Keys Sunday, May 15, 2022, on the 510-foot-long Spiegel Grove shipwreck, honoring the upcoming 20th anniversary of the iconic vessel’s sinking May 17, 2002, to become an artificial reef off Key Largo.
A commemorative plaque was affixed to the ship’s bridge, recognizing the multi-million-dollar project’s supporters and military personnel who served on the U.S. Navy landing ship dock that was commissioned in 1956.
Decommissioned in 1989, Spiegel Grove sat in a “mothball fleet” in Virginia’s James River before being towed to the Florida Keys in 2001 for an intense cleansing before its planned scuttling, ultimately to create the backbone of a new reef ecosystem 6 miles offshore.
Rob Bleser, a Key Largo dive operator and the sink project’s manager, recalled the saga of the vessel’s journey from the surface to the sandy bottom 130 feet below.
“Ultimately, the Spiegel Grove is a story that Hollywood would never have been able to script in a million years,” Bleser said.