Deep Blue Chronicles

06/26/2026

06/26/2026

🙋🏼‍♀️🌊☀️🏖️✌️

06/26/2026

06/26/2026

Rain dance worked last night…finally! ☔️

06/26/2026

TGIF 🩵

06/26/2026

Captain John Whalton was in command of the lightship Florida (LV-BB), stationed at Carysfort Reef, when in June 1837, Captain Whalton and 4 of the crew went ashore at Garden Cove on Key Largo. There a large party of Seminoles attacked them, killing Whalton and one crewman, and wounding two others.
The reasons, and the date, for the trip to Garden Cove differ. In Tom Taylor’s ‘Lore of the Reef Lights: Life in the Florida Keys’, he states that, with his family visiting him from Key West, ‘To provide a special treat for them, on June 26, 1837, Whalton decide to go ashore on Key Largo. Here the men had cultivated a vegetable garden to supplement their meager provisions from Key West.’
John Viele, author of several books on Florida Keys history, maintains that on June 23rd, 1837, Whalton and the men were killed ‘…as they stepped ashore on Key Largo to gather wood for the ship’s cook stove’ In ‘The Florida Keys: A History of the Pioneers’, Mr. Viele says, ‘As the boats beached and the crew began stepping ashore, a volley of musket fire erupted from behind some water casks left on the beach. The Indians pursued the surviving crew members, but the three escaped when the Indian’s muskets misfired.’
To further confuse the matter of dates, Mr. Viele, in his book "Tales of Yesterday’s Florida Keys' includes an image of the raid with the date as June 25, 1837.
This incident occurred during the Second Seminole War and was not the first time Indians had affected the lightship crew, in October 1836, Seminoles had destroyed the garden on Key Largo. It was also less than a year since the July 23rd, 1836 raid at the Cape Florida lighthouse.
The Second Seminole War ended in August 1842.
(Image: 'Seminole warriors in ambush on Key Largo beach killing captain and crewman from Carysfort as they came ashore, June 25, 1837'. Source: 'Tales of Yesterday's Florida Keys' by John Viele p139)

06/26/2026

06/26/2026

77° & sunny now in Tampa Bay

6:55 a.m. Friday, June 26, 2026
Happy Friday!!! Temperatures🌡range from 65 degrees in Sunniland to 85 degrees in Key West. What is the temperature where you live this morning?

06/25/2026