USS Spiegel Grove wreck
— a grey ship the sea finally claimed.
Not only on a wall.
USS Spiegel Grove wreck, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A 510-foot Navy landing ship, sunk on purpose six miles off Key Largo in May 2002 as an artificial reef. The Spiegel Grove came down sideways at first and rolled upright three years later when Hurricane Dennis pushed it over. Now the deck sits around 80 feet down, the hull resting on sand near 130. Goliath grouper hold under the bridge. Schools of horse-eye jacks wheel through the kingposts. Most divers come up saying the same thing — that the scale of it doesn't read from any single angle. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
The USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32) was a 510-foot Thomaston-class dock landing ship that served the U.S. Navy from 1956 until decommissioning in 1989. After years of preparation by local dive operators and Monroe County, the hull was scuttled on 17 May 2002 about six miles off Key Largo to create one of the largest intentionally sunk artificial reefs in the world. The wreck sits within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in roughly 130 feet of water, the main deck around 60 to 80 feet below the surface.
The Spiegel Grove came down badly and settled on its starboard side, then on its bow, leaving the hull partially inverted for three years. In July 2005 Hurricane Dennis pushed enough current across the site to roll the ship fully upright onto its keel — exactly the orientation operators had hoped for on day one. Divers now find the bridge, kingposts and well deck oriented as the Navy left them, with visibility on the reef line typically 40 to 80 feet and warm Gulf Stream water moving steadily across the wreck.
This is an advanced dive. The deck depths put most of the wreck below recreational limits for open-water-only certifications, and the prevailing current along the reef edge often pushes one to two knots across the superstructure. Charter operators out of Key Largo generally require Advanced Open Water certification with nitrox preferred, and many ask to see a recent logged dive before booking. The site sits inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; mooring buoys are maintained and anchoring on the wreck itself is prohibited.
