Urca de Lima Underwater Preserve

A 1715 hurricane drove the Urca de Lima, a Spanish storeship sailing with a convoy of 11 vessels bound from Havana for Spain, aground near present day Fort Pierce.

The state's Museums in the Sea site, which the Florida Public Archaeology Network manages in partnership with the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, says the ship was originally called Santisima Trinidad and took its nickname because it was a storeship, or urca; it describes a 305 ton, Dutch built vessel that was left relatively intact when it grounded near Fort Pierce (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck). On that account, the urca's stores provisioned survivors of the other wrecked ships for thirty-one days, until supplies reached them from Havana.

The cargo was merchant goods and private silver rather than royal treasure. The National Park Service lists vanilla, chocolate and incense among products from Mexico and Manila aboard, and says there was no royal treasure on the Urca de Lima, only private chests of silver (NPS Urca de Lima article). The Museums in the Sea page adds hundreds of uncured cowhides and sassafras to the cargo, and both sources say the Urca de Lima was among the first wrecks the Spanish salvaged before burning its hull down to the waterline so that English freebooters could not locate it.

That 1715 disaster gave the region its name. The City of Fort Pierce describes itself as situated on the Treasure Coast, named after the famed sinking of a Spanish treasure fleet in 1715 (About Fort Pierce page).

After decades of salvage, the Fort Pierce wreck was mapped by state archaeologists in 1985 and in 1987 became the first site in Florida's Underwater Archaeological Preserve system, later joining the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

The state account picks up in 1928: a search paid for by the City of Fort Pierce relocated the fleet, and 16 cannons and 4 anchors came up from the wreck to be displayed around the city (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck). The first salvage permit followed in 1932, and the page says salvage efforts were only marginally successful because the ship carried private silver rather than royal treasure. The National Park Service says the wreck was heavily salvaged for the 50 years after its 1928 rediscovery, and that in the 1980s the state of Florida stopped issuing salvage permits on it and opened it to the public (NPS Urca de Lima article).

In 1985, the Museums in the Sea page says, state archaeologists mapped and recorded the surviving hull structure because the St. Lucie County Historical Commission had asked for it, hoping to create an underwater park (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck). The program's history page dates the start of the Underwater Archaeological Preserve program to 1986, under the Florida Department of State's Bureau of Archaeological Research, and lists the Urca de Lima in 1987 as Florida's first preserve, followed in 1988 by the San Pedro in the Florida Keys (Museums in the Sea history page).

A bronze plaque placed in 1987 marked the official dedication of the preserve, according to the National Register nomination, which also describes a management agreement for a 300 yard radius around the site meant to take in material that waves and currents have dispersed from the timbers and ballast (NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima).

Federal and state sources place the Urca de Lima about 200 yards offshore and about 1,000 yards north of Pepper Park, north of the Fort Pierce Inlet, in 10 to 15 feet of water, while the county park page gives about 20 feet.

Sources for the rows: the NPS Urca de Lima article, the NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima, the Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck and the St. Lucie County Pepper Park Beachside page. Two differences stand out on the Fort Pierce wreck: the county gives a deeper figure than the three federal and state records, and the nomination places the site on the second offshore reef while the state preserve page says the first offshore reef. The state page lists coordinates of 27 30.317 N, 80 17.950 W, and the nomination says the long axis of the wreck runs northeast to southwest.

The nomination's location block reads 200 yards offshore Jack Island Park, north of Ft. Pierce Inlet, and places the wreck on submerged lands belonging to the State of Florida (NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima). The NPS article spells the reference park Pepper Beach Park, which the county lists as Pepper Park Beachside.

What a diver sees at the Fort Pierce preserve is a ballast mound about 100 feet long and 50 feet wide over buried hull timbers, five replica cement cannons, an anchor, mooring and marker buoys and a bronze plaque.

The National Register nomination lists the ballast mound and hull timbers, which are generally covered with sand, as the historic remains, and lists the five replica cement cannons, an iron anchor from one of the 1715 wrecks, one marker buoy, three mooring buoys and the bronze plaque as non-contributing resources (NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima). It says the replica cannons were placed south of the ballast mound to simulate the ordnance spill, and the submerged plaque, mounted in cement, sits north of it beside the marker buoy.

The National Park Service notes that bottom sediments constantly cover and uncover the vessel through wave action, storms and currents, and calls the wreck well preserved and stabilized (NPS Urca de Lima article). The nomination describes the setting off Fort Pierce as a dynamic, high energy environment, with a coarse quartz sand bottom and a reef of dead coral heads, live soft corals and sponges on a massive coquina rock outcrop, and says water clarity varies with weather and tidal conditions (NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima).

Marine life is part of a visit to the Urca de Lima. The Museums in the Sea page names wrasse, sailor's choice, flounder and reef urchins among the species living on the wreck, along with Caribbean spiny lobster, damselfish, porkfish and sea cucumbers in its habitat guide, and it warns that rock boring urchin spines can puncture skin (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck).

The preserve is free and open all year, and the state's route is A1A north from the Fort Pierce Inlet to Pepper Park, then about 1,000 yards north on foot along the beach.

Those directions come from the Museums in the Sea dive notes for the Urca de Lima, which add that the wreck lies on the first offshore reef and ask visitors to use the mooring buoys to avoid anchor damage, to take only photos and to leave only bubbles (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck). The same Museums in the Sea page offers a downloadable brochure, a downloadable underwater guide and an underwater tour of three numbered stops: the anchor, the cannons, and the plaque and structure.

According to the National Park Service, there is no charge to visit, the preserve stays open all year, the mooring buoy should be used in lieu of anchoring, and that a laminated underwater guide is available (NPS Urca de Lima article). On shore, St. Lucie County lists Pepper Park Beachside at 3302 North SR A1A, Fort Pierce, Florida 34949, open 24 hours, 7 days a week, with an information line at 772-462-1522, and notes several shallow nearshore reefs less than 100 yards off the beach (St. Lucie County Pepper Park Beachside page). The Pepper Park guide covers the beach park itself.

State law governs anything found on the bottom at the Urca de Lima, which the nomination places on submerged lands belonging to the State of Florida. Under Section 267.061 of the Florida Statutes, it is state policy that abandoned treasure trove and objects of historical or archaeological value on state-owned sovereignty submerged lands are state property, titled to the Division of Historical Resources (Section 267.061, Florida Statutes). Section 267.13 allows the division to seek an administrative fine of up to $500 a day from any person or business that, lacking its written permission, explores for, salvages or excavates sunken or abandoned ships or other historical objects on state land, including sovereignty submerged land (Section 267.13, Florida Statutes).

The National Register nomination finds the Urca de Lima nationally significant as one of the most intact remains of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet disaster and as the only known surviving example of the flat bottomed Spanish storeship type called an urca.

The nomination lists significance at the national level under Criterion A in commerce, maritime history and transportation, under Criterion C in architecture and under Criterion D in historic non-aboriginal archaeology, with 1715 as the period of significance and the First Spanish Period as the cultural affiliation (NRHP nomination, Urca de Lima). It records the site number 8SL00024 in St. Lucie County, and among other names lists Urca de Lima State Underwater Archaeological Preserve and Wedge Wreck.

The Museums in the Sea page gives 2001 as the year of the National Register listing (Museums in the Sea entry for the wreck), and the National Park Service notes that the wreck is the subject of a Teaching with Historic Places lesson plan from the National Register program (NPS Urca de Lima article). Last verified: October 22, 2026, by re-reading the NPS article and the National Register nomination for the Fort Pierce wreck, both Museums in the Sea pages, the county Pepper Park page, the City of Fort Pierce About page and Sections 267.061 and 267.13 of the Florida Statutes.