The Graveyard of the Pacific by Anthony Dalton

Author:Anthony Dalton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SS Valencia ran out of sea room in January 1906. Instead of cruising through Juan de Fuca Strait, she crashed into the rocky shore of Vancouver Island with a huge loss of life.

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CHAPTER

9

Soquel’s Misfortune

Three years after the Valencia tragedy, another ship lost its way in bad weather in the Graveyard of the Pacific. The American-registered, four-masted wooden schooner Soquel, weighing 767 tons, left Callao, Peru, on December 11, 1908. She was in ballast and bound non-stop for Port Townsend, Washington. Soquel’s demise was the result of a series of accidents that would have appeared almost slapstick if they had not been so tragic.

On January 22, 1909, in a snowstorm and high winds, Soquel arrived off the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait. On board were Captain Charles Henningsen, his wife and three-year-old daughter, plus a crew of 12. The long voyage from the southern hemisphere had been routine, and everyone on board was looking forward to getting into port in a few hours.

Through the gloom, a light could be seen off Soquel’s starboard bow. The captain decided it was the Cape Flattery light and set a course to take his ship into the strait. Before he knew what was happening, Soquel ran up onto Seabird Rocks, at the entrance to Pachena Bay on Vancouver Island. He was 30 miles northwest of where he expected to be. Somehow, probably due to faulty navigation by dead reckoning, Henningsen had missed Cape Flattery completely and mistaken the light from Pachena Point for the light on Tatoosh Island. The three main Seabird Rocks, named for their breeding colonies of auks, cormorants and gulls, stand guard at the entrance to Pachena Bay.

Big waves pounded the schooner and pushed her over the first rock and far up on the others. The initial crash woke Mrs. Henningsen, who was in bed in the master’s cabin. Although her husband called down and ordered her to stay below, she dressed quickly, wrapped a blanket around her child and went on deck. For some reason, the furled sails had been let down. Flapping wildly, they would have added to the general air of noise and confusion. The foresail blew away while the captain was busy helping crew members prepare a lifeboat. Taking his daughter in his arms, he helped his wife into the boat. The schooner hung there on the rocks, swinging crazily from side to side and banging her keel up and down as the seas smashed into her hull.

A comber broke hard against the ship, causing it to roll almost onto its beam, and Mrs. Henningsen cried to her husband, “This is death: kiss me, Carl.” He did so and was about to hand the child to her mother when the storm snapped the mizzen and jigger masts and brought them crashing down. A spar hit the captain’s daughter on the head and crushed her skull, killing her instantly and tearing her from the captain’s arms. It also knocked him off his feet and injured his back. The end of the same spar swung down to kill his wife and wreck the lifeboat.

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