Okay...maybe you've seen the movie "Ghost Ship", a B-film from 2002
that had an intriguing premise and a spooky setting, but wasn't a
lasting cinematic moment when it's all said and done. Perhaps you are
familiar, if ever so faintly, with the legend of the "Flying Dutchman."
Maybe not. The Flying Dutchman legend is more famous than the Mary
Celeste, but legend is all that it is. A ghost story told by wizened
old sailors, long ago dead. It's a story that captures the
imagination...but as is so often the case, truth is stranger than
fiction.
The tale...the imagery...the contemplation of a ship adrift at sea...without a crew, is gripping. It's gripping because the sea is gripping. It is immense. Powerful. Vast. Uncaring. Menacing, even.
Say what you will about the various branches of the Armed Forces...I have always been a Navy fan. (Okay...my Dad served on a submarine) Yeah...sure...the fly boys get all the glory. But the sea...the ocean...is nothing to mess with. It can mess with you, if it chooses to do so, but you can't mess with it. It is implacable. It was especially so in the time before radio communications. Once you were beyond sight of land, you were on your own.
I'm going to tell you all a story, and it is (mostly) fact, about a ship that turned up derelict...a true ghost ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on 1872. Well...maybe not the middle, but it was discovered listing, without crew, between the Azore Islands and some 600 miles away from the mainland of Portugal, and it created quite a historical and literary stir. It was a true "Ghost Ship." For decades, it was the maritime equivalent of the fate of aviation's Amelia Earhart. Earharts plane was never discovered, but the Mary Celeste was discovered intact...unmanned...still seaworthy. Simply abandoned, for reasons unknown.
The tale...the imagery...the contemplation of a ship adrift at sea...without a crew, is gripping. It's gripping because the sea is gripping. It is immense. Powerful. Vast. Uncaring. Menacing, even.
Say what you will about the various branches of the Armed Forces...I have always been a Navy fan. (Okay...my Dad served on a submarine) Yeah...sure...the fly boys get all the glory. But the sea...the ocean...is nothing to mess with. It can mess with you, if it chooses to do so, but you can't mess with it. It is implacable. It was especially so in the time before radio communications. Once you were beyond sight of land, you were on your own.
I'm going to tell you all a story, and it is (mostly) fact, about a ship that turned up derelict...a true ghost ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on 1872. Well...maybe not the middle, but it was discovered listing, without crew, between the Azore Islands and some 600 miles away from the mainland of Portugal, and it created quite a historical and literary stir. It was a true "Ghost Ship." For decades, it was the maritime equivalent of the fate of aviation's Amelia Earhart. Earharts plane was never discovered, but the Mary Celeste was discovered intact...unmanned...still seaworthy. Simply abandoned, for reasons unknown.
