The Isle of Bones

Discovered by the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León and claimed for Spain in 1513, a small island he called Las Martines rests approximately 90 miles north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida. It is believed the island’s native Calusa and Tequesta tribes used the cay [small island] as something of a communal graveyard prior to its Spanish discovery, earning it the name Cayo Hueso by early settlers, which is roughly translated as “bone island.”