Cristóbal Colón

Bermuda's largest shipwreck died of misread lights and a civil war. The Cristóbal Colón, a 152-meter luxury liner of the Compañía Transatlántica Española, was steaming from Cardiff toward Mexico in October 1936 (with a skeleton complement and no paying passengers, in the opening months of the Spanish Civil War) when she drove onto the northern barrier reef at nearly full speed, apparently having mistaken her position off the low island. Everyone aboard got off safely, and for a while the stranded liner sat upright on the reef crest, so temptingly intact that Bermudians salvaged her fittings with enthusiasm; furniture from the Colón still surfaces in island houses. During the Second World War the hulk served as a bombing target, which finished the job of spreading her across the seabed. Today her remains sprawl over an enormous area on both sides of the reef in 5 to 17 meters: boilers, propellers, driveshafts, gears and acres of plating in gin-clear water. She is less a ship than a steel reef system, ideal for long, shallow wandering dives and even snorkeling on calm days.

How she sank: Ran onto Bermuda's northern barrier reef at speed on 25 October 1936.

Condition: Fully broken and dispersed: boilers, shafts and props recognizable amid vast plating fields

Penetration: None. Nothing enclosed remains; the site is an open debris field.

Recommended certification: Open Water

Current: Mild · Visibility: 15–30 m

Marine life: Parrotfish and blue angelfish graze the plates, gray snapper school in the boiler shadows, barracuda hover over the machinery, and hard corals grow straight from the steel.

Hazards: Surge over the shallow reef and sharp coral-crusted steel

Protected historic wreck of Bermuda: nothing may be lifted or disturbed

Bermuda's wrecks fall under the island's historic-wreck legislation; artifact recovery without license is illegal.