A screw-pile lighthouse is a lighthouse which stands on piles that are screwed into sandy or muddy sea or river bottoms. The first screw-pile lighthouse to begin construction was built by the blind Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell. Construction began in 1838 at the mouth of the Thames and was known as the Maplin Sands lighthouse, and first lit in 1841. However, though its construction began later, the Wyre Light in Fleetwood, Lancashire, was the first to be lit.
Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is by tradition an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, but is now often produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar.
Cockburn Town is the capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands, spreading across most of Grand Turk Island. It was founded in 1681 by salt collectors.
The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is a U.S. National Marine Sanctuary in the Florida Keys. It includes the Florida Reef, the only barrier coral reef in North America and the third-largest coral barrier reef in the world. It also has extensive mangrove forest and seagrass fields. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, designated in 1990, is the ninth national marine sanctuary to be established in a system that comprises 13 sanctuaries and two marine national monuments. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary protects approximately 2,900 square nautical miles of coastal and ocean waters from the estuarine waters of south Florida along the Florida Keys archipelago, encompassing more than 1,700 islands, out to the Dry Tortugas National Park, reaching into the Atlantic Ocean, Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Shalabi Effect is a mostly instrumental band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The band was originally formed in 1996 as a duo composed of Anthony Seck and Sam Shalabi. Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian musician who is also the founder of Swamp Circuit, Detention, Nutsak, The Dwarfs of East Agouza, Moose Terrific and the orchestra Land of Kush. Seck is a filmmaker and member of the supergroup Valley of the Giants.
Alligator Reef Light is located 4 nautical miles east of Indian Key, near the Matecumbe Keys of Florida in the United States, north of Alligator Reef itself. The station was established in 1873. It was automated in 1963 and was last operational in July, 2014, and is being replaced by a 16' steel structure with a less powerful light located adjacent to it. The structure is an iron pile skeleton with a platform. The light is 136 feet (41 m) above the water. It is a white octagonal pyramid skeleton framework on black pile foundation, enclosing a square dwelling and a stair-cylinder. The lantern is black. The original lens was a first order bivalve Fresnel lens. The light characteristic of the original light was: flashing white and red, every third flash red, from SW by W 1/2 W through southward to NE 1/8 E, and from NE by E 3/4 E through northward to SW 3/8 S; flashing red throughout the intervening sectors; interval between flashes 5 seconds. It had a nominal range of 14 nautical miles in the white sectors and 11 nautical miles in the red sectors. The new light has a range of approximately 7 nautical miles.
Fowey Rocks Light is located seven miles southeast of Cape Florida on Key Biscayne. The lighthouse was completed in 1878, replacing the Cape Florida Light. It was automated on May 7, 1975, and as of 2021 is still in operation. The structure is cast iron, with a screw-pile foundation, a platform and a skeletal tower. The light is 110 feet above the water. The tower framework is painted brown, while the dwelling and enclosed circular stair to the lantern is painted white. The original lens was a first-order drum Fresnel lens which stood about 12 feet (4 m) high and weighed about a ton (tonne). The light has a nominal range of 15 miles in the white sectors, and 10 miles in the red sectors.
Carysfort Reef Light is located approximately six nautical miles east of Key Largo, Florida. The lighthouse has an iron screw-pile foundation with a platform, and a skeletal, octagonal, pyramidal tower, which is painted red. The light is 100 feet (30 m) above the water. It was the oldest functioning lighthouse of its type in the United States until it was decommissioned in 2015, having been completed in 1852. Carysfort Reef is named for HMS Carysfort (1766), a 20-gun Royal Navy post ship that ran aground on the reef in 1770. The light currently installed is a xenon flashtube beacon. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park located on Key Largo in Florida. It includes approximately 70 nautical square miles (240 km²) of adjacent Atlantic Ocean waters. The park is approximately 25 miles in length and extends 3 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first underwater park in the United States. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1972. The primary attractions of the park are the coral reefs and their associated marine life.
The unmanned reef lights of the Florida Keys were navigational aids erected near the Florida Keys between 1921 and 1935. They were intended to mark local hazards and did not need to be visible for as far as the reef lights that were erected near the Keys during the 19th century. By the time the lights in this list were erected, older lighthouses were being automated, and these new lights were designed to be automated from the start. The lights resembled the older reef lights in having a wrought iron skeletal pyramidal structure on a screw-pile foundation. They all originally had lanterns on their peaks, so that they looked like smaller versions of the older reef lights, but had no keeper's quarters.
A pile lighthouse is a type of lighthouse found in Australia and the United States. In the United States they are found primarily in Florida, including on open reefs adjacent to the Florida Keys.
Osborne Reef is an artificial reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Originally constructed of concrete jacks, it was the subject of an ambitious expansion project utilizing old and discarded tires. The expansion ultimately failed, and the reef has come to be considered an environmental disaster—ultimately doing more harm than good in the coastal Florida waters.
The Florida Reef is the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States. It lies a few miles seaward of the Florida Keys, is about 4 miles wide and extends 270 km (170 mi) from Fowey Rocks just east of Soldier Key to just south of the Marquesas Keys. The barrier reef tract forms a great arc, concentric with the Florida Keys, with the northern end, in Biscayne National Park, oriented north-south and the western end, south of the Marquesas Keys, oriented east-west. The rest of the reef outside Biscayne National Park lies within John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Isolated coral patch reefs occur northward from Biscayne National Park as far north as Stuart, in Martin County. Coral reefs are also found in Dry Tortugas National Park west of the Marquesas Keys. There are more than 6,000 individual reefs in the system. The reefs are 5,000 to 7,000 years old, having developed since sea levels rose following the Wisconsinan glaciation.
Molasses Reef is a coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It lies to the southeast of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately to the east of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. This reef is within a Sanctuary Preservation Area (SPA).
Dry Rocks is a coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It lies east of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately east of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. The reef lies within a Sanctuary Preservation Area (SPA). It is close to Grecian Rocks and The Elbow.
French Reef is a coral reef located within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It lies 11 km southeast of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately to the east of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. French Reef is northeast of Molasses Reef. Part of the reef lies within a Sanctuary Preservation Area (SPA), which is 37 ha in area. A number of caves and arches in a spur and groove formation are included in the SPA.
The Molasses Reef Shipwreck is the site of a ship which wrecked in the Turks and Caicos Islands early in the 16th century. It is the oldest wreck of a European ship in the Americas to have been scientifically excavated.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia's articles on recreational dive sites. The level of coverage may vary:
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.
