<DIV>True stories of Keys wreckers, the daring seamen who saved lives and property from ships cast up on the Florida reef in the passage south of the Florida Keys, one of the most dangerous in the world, having claimed thousands of ships and lives. In the 1850s, the heyday of the wreckers, ships were piling up on the reef at the rate of nearly one a week. Salvaging these wrecks was a highly competitive and hazardous gamble of the lives, limbs, and vessels of the wreckers against an often elusive gain.</DIV>