Carysfort is a

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

located within the

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 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 e ...

. It lies to the east of Key Largo, within the Key Largo Existing Management Area, which is immediately to the east of

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is a Florida State Park located on Key Largo in Florida. It includes around of adjacent Atlantic Ocean waters. The park is roughly long and extends into the Atlantic Ocean along the prominent Hawk Cha ...

. This reef is within a Sanctuary Preservation Area (SPA). The reef is northeast of The Elbow. The Carysfort Reef Light is near the center of the SPA. The reef is named after , which ran aground there (but did not sink) in 1770. Several charts and other publications of the late 18th and early 19th centuries spelled the name of the reef as "Carysford", with some sources giving the ship's name as ''Carysford'', but "Carysfort" was standard for the reef by the middle of the 19th century. The reef is one of the most dangerous on the Florida Reef tract which parallels the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...

. Of the 324 ships that were known to have wrecked on the Florida Reef from the beginning of 1833 through 1841, 63 did so on Carysfort Reef. The

United States Lighthouse Board The United States Lighthouse Board was the second agency of the U.S. federal government, under the Department of Treasury, responsible for the construction and maintenance of all lighthouses and navigation aids in the United States, between 18 ...

reported in the 1850s that "Carysfort Reef picks up twenty percent of all the wrecks between Cape Florida and the Tortugas, a space of ." A well-known early wreck, discovered in 1939, is that of , which was driven onto the reef in 1695 by a hurricane. Only eight of the 350 crew aboard survived the wreck. After the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1821, it began building

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

s along the Florida coast. A survey of the Florida Keys in 1823 identified the need for a navigational light at Carysfort Reef, but construction of a lighthouse on the exposed reef was considered impractical, and the surverors recommended that a lightship be stationed there. The ''Caesar'' served as a lightship at Carysfort Reef from 1826 until 1830, and was replaced by the ''Florida'', which was stationed at the reef from 1831 to 1852, when a lighthouse was finally built on the reef.

Gallery

File:Carysfort Reef Acropora palmata fig9.jpg, ''Acropora palmata'' at Carysfort Reef prior to the 1970s. Photo by Phil Dustan. File:Carysfort reef 20240430.jpg, Carysfort reef and Lighthouse in 2024

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