Great white sharks that are spotted off Massachusetts migrate to the Gulf of Mexico and other interesting Gulf of Mexico facts

Last year, researchers followed one shark via radio tags to a spot off Matamoros, Mexico, in the Gulf of Mexico. The shark, named LeeBeth, swam from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Chatham.

More interesting Gulf of Mexico connections:

Before the start of the Civil War, the War Department ordered construction of a fort on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi coast. Construction halted when the ultimately failed Confederacy took over the island and installed some cannons - with which it then battled the USS Massachusetts. After the war, the government resumed construction of the fort, which was named for the ship. Today, you can visit this Gulf of Mexico site.

In 2022, researchers found a Massachusetts whaling ship that sank in the Gulf of Mexico south of Pascagoula, Mississippi, in 1836 - the only Massachusetts whaler known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1909, Congress decreed the creation of the Intracoastal Waterway to let ships safely navigate along the coast between Boston and the mouth of the Rio Grande in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some of the tugboats and other working craft in Boston Harbor were built along or started in the Gulf of Mexico.

Most of the Boston area, along with much of the East Coast north of the Mason-Dixon Line, has bedrock consisting of really ancienty pre-Cretaceous rock. But the area along the Gulf of Mexico - and even Cape Cod - consists mainly of much newer Cenozoic rock.

Despite its name, Boston Sword and Tuna also sells fish from the Gulf of Mexico. Boston Bluefin will also sell you wholesale quantities of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, such as snapper and red crab.

And while chowder is associated with New England, one woman recounts developing a love for clam chowder on visits to Galveston, on Texas's coast on the Gulf of Mexico.

Want to get away? You can drive from Boston to Tampa, which is on the Gulf of Mexico. Don't want to drive all the way down I-95? You can also get to the Gulf of Mexico by plane. But why stop there? You can also fly from Boston to Cancun on the Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico.

You can charter a private jet to fly from Logan to Cape Coral on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, although it'll cost you at least $31,865.

Oh, hey, you know what's on Cape Coral on the Gulf of Mexico? Fort Myers, where the Red Sox play their first spring-training game against the Northeastern Huskies on Feb. 21.