Fort de Soto Park - Dive Site Map of Florida & Bahamas from www.ScubaLessonsInc.com (sitios de interés)

The park it self is not a dive site but very close there is one.

Roughly two miles west of Fort De Soto Park, in about 18 feet of water, lies what's left of the USS Narcissus, a Civil War tugboat that exploded after hitting a shoal in 1866, killing all 29 people on board.

When the state started surveying the wreck in the 1990s, there wasn't much for divers to see in this particular spot in the Gulf of Mexico – basically only part of the ship's steam engine.

But as time passed, the sand surrounding the wreck shifted. Maybe the busy 2005 hurricane season had something to do with it. Maybe nearby dredging, designed to re-nourish Pinellas beaches, played a part.

In any event, when another group of divers associated with the Florida Aquarium took a look a few years ago -- thanks to a state grant -- it found substantially more was now visible.

"We went out and discovered the vast majority of the site had been uncovered," said Mike Terrell, the dive training supervisor for the aquarium. "We discovered the entire engine, the propeller and part of the boiler that exploded were exposed."

That's one major reason why the aquarium and a handful of archaeologists are asking the state to designate the shipwreck site Florida's 12th Underwater Archaeological Preserve.