For almost three years, the freighter Amaryllis slowly rusted apart while beached on Singer Island, approximately four miles north of Palm Beach. Enroute from Manchester, England, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Greek‐owned freighter ran aground on September 8, 1965, due to storm-chumed seas created by Hurricane Betsy. For four months, a fleet of tugs unsuccessfully worked to pull the ship off the beach. Once the expense of saving the ship exceeded its value, Lloyd's of London paid off the insurance claim and the freighter w a s abandoned where she rested. In December 1965, Samuel McIntosh of Miami paid $25,000 for the beached ship. He, too, gave up efforts to refloat the ship and abandoned the project.

Over the next 32 months, the Amaryllis remained on the beach. As both an eyesore and an environmental threat, politicians and local business owners demanded the hulk be removed. In late January 1967, the security guard hired to watch the wreck at night, Clifford S. Valentine, 52, was arrested on charges of contributing to the delinquency of juveniles. He was accused of allowing local teenagers to use the abandoned freighter for late night parties. Approximately two weeks later, a suspicious fire broke o u t on the evening of February 12, 1967. The fire apparently began in the number t w o hold and burned for over a day. Finally, the US. Army Corps of Engineers proceeded to cut the Amaryllis's superstructure away from her hull in order to lighten the ship. They then successfully managed to pull the remaining hulk off the beach in late August 1968. She was towed off shore, where upon her seacocks were opened and she was allowed to sink stern-first in 90feet of water. The Amaryllis was originally built as the Cromwell Park by the Burrard Dry Dock Company, Limited, of Vancouver for the Canadian government in February 1945. The freighter was 442 feet in length, 57 feet in beam, and displaced 7,147 tons. In 1946, she w a s sold to the Canadian Transport Company and renamed the Harmac Vancouver. The vessel was sold yet again in 1948 to the Amaryllis Steamship Company, Limited, of Piraeus, Greece, and renamed the Amaryllis due to the extensive scrapping prior to her sinking, the wreck of the Amaryllis now resembles a 400-footlong canoe as she sits on the bottom. With her bow pointing southward, the Amaryllis comprises a portion of an artificial reef site off Palm Beach known as ”The Corridor,” which also includes the yacht Mizpah, the patrol craft U.S.S. PC‐1174 (U.S.S. Fredonia), an 80-footlong barge, and piles of concrete pilings, all of which are linked by lines of limestone boulders. As the Amaryllis lies just north of the Palm Beach Inlet, it is best to dive it during flood tide, as an outgoing tide will pull murky water from the inlet directly over this area.