The Abandoned Beached Sailboat at Fort Desoto -- Near Shell Key Island

There was something about the tilt of the distant sailboat's mast that grabbed my attention like a sudden squall popping into a spinnaker. From my camping location at Fort Desoto, in St. Petersburg, Florida, I was able to look west, out across the body of water to an island maybe a mile away. On the island's furthest western edge was an unmoving pole… what looked like a tilted mast. I remember pointing to it and telling my brother-in-law, "Hey, look at the shipwreck over there!"

A shipwreck. Now wouldn't that have fit into a nice little adventure while camping with family? I debated on trying to take a picture. Would that mast - if it even was one -- even show from this far away? Probably not. As the sun sank with dark, pink hues into the Gulf of Mexico, I spotted what looked like a campfire on the far away island, near the supposed shipwreck. This further convinced me that the mast probably belonged to a smaller beached vessel, maybe a Hobie Cat or small catamaran.

I was wrong.

The Discovery of Aurora

The next day, half of our family drove by land to the north beach of Fort Desoto. The other half went via sea, climbing aboard my brother-in-law, Ty's, cleverly named outboard boat, Down Tyme. The two groups met up about half an hour later as Ty's boat appeared at the beach. As it motored closer, I joined everyone else out in the waist deep water, snapping photos of Down Tyme as it bobbed up and down in the gentle swells.

"I got a pretty good look of the shipwrecked sailboat," Ty calls to me from behind the console.

"What?" I shot him a puzzled look. "The tilted mast? It's really a marooned sailboat?"

"Sure is. Want to go see it?"

Put me down for that adventure! I climbed onto Ty's boat along with my two other brother-in-laws, and the four of us headed off to explore this mysterious beached sailboat.

Approaching it from the south, my first thought was, "That's a pretty big boat." The light surf lapped against the sailboat's blue hull, wrapping lazily about the boat's rudder. Blue letters across the transom proclaimed the boat's name as: Aurora. Under the name: "Laurel, FL". Ty dropped anchor and chose to stay with Down Tyme while the rest of us jumped into the warm gulf water and waded up to the curving hull. I was struck by the size of the corroding 2-bladed propeller. It seemed far too small to drive such a large boat at any speed. I gave it a spin with my foot and was surprised that it actually moved a quarter turn.

"Look at this!" my brother-in-law Matt called out from the far side of the sailboat.

I moved to the other side and took note of a seat swing that had been fashioned from the mainstay - a thick wire that usually runs from the bow to the top of the mast. The mainstay had been disconnected from the boat's bow and swung out to port. Matt put his weight on the swing and then swung toward the hull. The boat and mast never budged. This was one stuck ship. I took a try on the swing too as a barefoot kayaker approached us from the north side of the island. I decided to see what I could learn.

"Do you know how long this sailboat has been here?" I called out.

"Quite a while. At least a month. Maybe more. I'd heard that someone just abandoned it at sea and left it to drift."

The sailboat's list in the sand allowed me to peek inside the front hatchway. On tiptoes I spied the forward berthing area and what looked like a door leading to the head - aka the bathroom. From the cockpit, the galley looked fairly ransacked, leading me to believe that it had either been looted while ashore or perhaps, as the kayaker had suggested, while abandoned at sea. I held my small Canon camera down inside and randomly took pictures.

A gust of breeze brought the sound of sail. I guess I had been so wide eyed at seeing the hull that I hadn't even noticed the tumble of white sail pooled around the deck. I dug into the crinkling sail and revealed a little bit of red identification numbers (See picture 5 for a better look). What was it like to sail this craft? Hoist this sail? My untrained eyeball guessed that the boat's length was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 feet. Seeing a sailboat of this size up close immediately reminded me of Robin Lee Graham's sailboat, Dove … and he sailed that around the world at the age of 16! Amazing!

Back at the camp, I started Googling, looking for anything on this stuck sailboat. The Internet revealed no clues, but later in the day I met a fellow camper, a retired Coast Guardsman, who told me he thought the Aurora had been stuck ashore for nearly two months.

"If the boat isn't floated off during high tide," he told me, "they'll likely have to bring a salvage company out to try and break it free. They might even have to break it apart to get it out of the sand."

I don't know your full story, Aurora -- where you came from or where you've been -- but I wish it were possible to kick back on your deck as you float free, with the wind and the waves all around, and listen to your tales of the sea. I'm sure you have some to tell.

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The Sailboat Aurora's Location:

Bing Map of sailboat Aurora's location
Google Map of sailboat Aurora's location
Fort Desoto's Official Page

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More Photos:

For more photos of the sailboat Aurora, visit my page on Facebook:
Ron Masters Photography

TBO -- Tampa Bay Online -- also has a photo of the stranded sailboat

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Some of my Other Nautical Adventures:

White Squall - The Sinking of the School Ship Albatross - (Click here)
White Squall II -- The Sinking of the School Ship S/V Concordia - (Click here)
History's Worst Maritime Disaster - Would you believe an estimated 10,000 died on this Ship? (Click here)
The story of 16-yr old Robin Lee Graham's Solo Sail Around The World. (Click here)
The Search for 12 Lost Submarines from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - (Click Here)
The Uninvited Wedding Guest - A Ski Boat! (Click here