Wreck Hunting

A wrecked ship or boat is a forlorn site. Never to put to sea again, glory days past. I have a love of searching for wrecks of the nautical variety. My favorite finds are wooden ships. These are hard to come by now, as their age has past. The bones of these old ships remind me of dinosaur bones, poking up from the sands of time.

The featured image is the Howard W. Middleton, wrecked in 1897.

Let old’ Jack tell you how the ship met his fate:

“It was a foggy evening, near zero visibility. Still, the ship continued under sail, the captain and crew anxious to make port. In the pea soup fog, the ship strayed off course. With a grinding boom, the vessel struck a ledge in the bow below the waterline. The ship made shore but was written off, with most of her cargo of coal going to the Maine locals. The ship sits on a beach in Maine, USA until she is taken forever by the forces of the sea.”

Only visible at low tide, I had to plan my trip to coincide with the low ebb, and then locate it when I arrived. While Howard has lovely bones, his location was rather uninteresting. I needed some rocks to describe how he met his fate, so I transported” the wreck across the beach a few hundred yards. He looks happier here doesn’t he?