Exploring the Unknown: Two if by Sea

Mysterious Water Locations/ Part One

Ghost ships. You know their out there, lurking, circling, trying to make it to safe harbor. With or without their crew.

Creepy, right? Sightings around the world of these so called ‘Ghost Ships’ have been reported for centuries. So what is a ghost ship, you say? Glad you asked, my friends! A ghost ship, sometimes referred to as a phantom ship, is a vessel at sea with a strange twist… there is no living crew aboard. It may be a ship without a crew, a vessel found with dead crew members aboard, or merely a ship that slipped its ropes, only to be carried away by the pulse of the waves or the strength of a mighty wind. Today, we will be discovering the eerie facts surrounding three such ghost ships: The Flying Dutchman, The Mary Celeste, and Octavius. Then, just because I freaking love Gordon Lightfoot, we will end with a look at the tragedy of The Edmund Fitzgerald, which occurred closer to our lifetime than the others.

Bonus points if you can give me the month and the year 😉 (psst— don’t look now, but the month is in the lyrics)

We start with The Flying Dutchman. The year was 1641 (such a fun time, when there was no pressure about life expectancy since everyone died before waking up to their first wrinkle. Unless, of course, the typhoid or scarlet fever or syphilis got ya first!) Back in the day, passage around Africa was a necessary but dangerous route for ships to sail as they delivered their cargo. Hendrik van der Decken, captain of The Flying Dutchman, found himself in the unenviable position of navigating his vessel around the treacherous outcropping of rocks that made up The Cape of Good in South Africa. This cape, also called The Cape of Storms for its temperamental weather, had become the final, watery grave for many a ship caught in one of its infamous storms. On this day in 1641, the crew, aware of the danger, begged Captain van der Decken not to sail into the storm. But, like any other narcissitic, bull-headed sea captain— not that I have anything against sea captains in general, mind you :)— he did it anyway, believing he could tame the brutal winds and driving rain. In fact, even in the face of doom, legend has it he swore at the heavens, vowing to continue to sail around the cape for all eternity if need be, in order to make it safely to shore.

Be careful what you wish for.

The vessel was deemed lost, never to surface again. Except, of course, as a ghostly sighting. The Dutchman is said to be cursed, and anyone who sees it will be in for some terrible luck. Many believe the doomed ship continues in an eternal loop, forever damned to sail ‘round and ‘round, never reaching a safe harbor.

Bummer.

The Mary Celeste is one of the more unsettling mysteries of the sea, in my humble opinion. It was in 1972 when Captain Benjamin Briggs, along with a small crew and the Briggs’ family, left New York on The Mary Celeste, a merchant ship laden with industrial-grade alcohol, bound for Genoa. A month later, the ship was discovered, abandoned and adrift, on the coast of Portugal. It was completely unscathed, its sails in place, and the only thing missing aside from the crew was the captain’s log and the single lifeboat.

There were strange marks, gouge-like injuries to the wood, and what may have been blood, found on the floating ship. The lone lifeboat was missing, leading investigators to believe the disappearances of the crew could have been due to a mutiny, with the guilty crew members escaping in the lifeboat. Another theory was that pirates, or the men from the ship who discovered the abandoned craft, were the ones who killed the crew, hoping to take their booty. (Booty as in loot, cash, cargo. Get yer minds outta the gutter, people😛.) The problem with that theory? The ship hadn’t been looted at all.

There are also those who theorize The Mary Celeste encountered a problem of the Third Kind. Yep, some folks point to the absence of both bodies and witnesses as evidence of little green men whisking the crew away to their spaceship. Personally, I think the chances of that are astronomical. (Get it? Astronomical? 😁)

The most ‘popular’, and perhaps plausible, theory is simply the ship ran into trouble on the seas in the form of a waterspout. Waterspouts are like vicious tornadoes at sea, ones that cause colossal damage with gale-force winds and a pounding deluge of water. The crew, maybe fearing The Mary Celeste would sink, abandoned her temporarily, transferring into a lifeboat that subsequently capsized. Makes as much sense as anything else.

How’s this for terrifying? Imagine you are a sea merchant in 1775, sailing your way merrily across the Arctic, when you encounter a three-masted schooner, unmanned in the middle of the ocean. You board the seemingly abandoned vessel and begin a search for survivors. Instead, you find the entire crew of men, along with a woman and small child, below deck… frozen solid, perfectly preserved, posed in their final moments of death.

Congratulations…you have boarded the ghost ship Octavius.

But here is where it gets really weird. The captain of the Octavius was found at his desk, a pen in his hand, as if actively writing in his journal. Behind him, tucked neatly in blankets, lay his wife and child, frozen. Well, as you can imagine, this sight wigged out the men who had come aboard to search the ship and they beat feet, taking only the captain’s log with them. The final entry in that log? November 11, 1762. You know what that means? It means that ship was out there in the arctic, with a dozen or more frozen corpses, for 13 years! After reading the entries in the log, it was determined that the ship became trapped in ice after attempting to navigate through the Northwest Passage. Whether they simply froze to death or died from both exposure and hunger is anyone’s guess.

Finally, we have the Edmund Fitzgerald. You know, I hear tell that the legend lives on from the Chippewa on down… But seriously, what a tragic tale. Lake Superior, November of 1975 (did you get the answer right?😁) A storm was brewing as the Fitzgerald left Duluth, Minnesota, enroute to Detroit, Michigan. There was another ship, a freighter called the Arthur M. Anderson, traveling about 15 miles behind the Fitzgerald.

Both ships remained in contact as the strong storm picked up, the Fitzgerald warning the Anderson about the fierce winds and water damage it was taking, the Anderson attempting to help the ailing ship navigate the remaining trip to Whitefish Bay. Less than 10 miles from safety, radio communication from the Fitzgerald ceased. The last message was a crew member telling the Anderson they were in “One of the worst sea’s I’ve ever seen. We are holding our own.”

Then, nothing. Radio silence, as well as the disappearance of the Fitzgerald on the Anderson’s radar screen.

Twenty-nine lives were lost that day, their remains never recovered. Massive 90 feet waves, known as the “Three Sisters”, are believed to be responsible for sinking the ship. The name Three Sisters refers to a series of waves, one after the other, typical for the unforgiving Lake Superior. In a nutshell (or a ship hull, as the case may be) several waves hit a vessel in quick succession, pounding the ships hull and filling the decks with an overwhelming amount of water.

In 1995, a dive team recovered the ship’s bell, and the names of those lost were engraved on the side. Other than that piece of her, the Edmund Fitzgerald remains 500 feet below the surface of Lake Superior, broken into two, never to be seen again.

Unless, of course, we are counting the dozens of ghost sightings reported since 1975, right in the area of where she lay.

Yeah. Ghost Ships.

Next time on Exploring the Unknown: Two if by Sea, we will take a look at some other phenomena associated with our vast oceans. Namely, the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis. Til then, avast ye maties!