Coast: Our Island Story: A Journey of Discovery Around Britain's Coastline by Crane Nicholas

Author:Crane, Nicholas [Crane, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781409074557
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2010-10-30T23:00:00+00:00

6.

The Saviours: Beacons, Lighthouses, Lifeboats and Coastguards

FIVE, THEN TEN metres we sank beneath the sea’s ceiling, weighted by 28 pounds of lead and an 83-cubic-foot air cylinder. Scuba diving is one of those dreams that never lasts long enough. Up there, in the real world, it’s all a jostle of waves and wind and awkward gear; down below, you share a silent netherworld of zero gravity with mute and wonderful life forms whose stories are far older than the beasts of the forests or the air.

A field of long golden fronds rose to meet our fins, and in a small clearing of sand, a somniculous starfish repositioned one of its limbs. Stewart Tattersall, my diving instructor, slowly finned his way over the waving tendrils, then tipped downward, over the lip of a broken cliff. Ahead of him, a dark triangle formed on the seabed. Revolving like a curious seal, he circled the structure, then reached out and tapped it with the hilt of his knife. Through the silvery bubbles I heard the unmistakable ‘clonk’ of metal, rather like a church bell that’s been tapped with a bare knuckle. It was a wreck.

Missouri was only five years old when she went down. And she was big; 425 feet from prow to stern. Deep in her guts pounded a 600-horsepower steam engine, and she carried four masts to make the most of Atlantic westerlies. Bound for Liverpool, she’d left Boston loaded to the Plimsoll Line with 395 head of cattle, 3,000 bales of cotton, 4,000 sacks of flour, palm oil, tallow and general provisions which included bacon, walnut logs, bales of leather, drawing chalk and a Canadian-made bellows organ. The ship’s master was 45-year-old Captain Reuben Poland, a Sussex man who had gained his Master’s Certificate at the age of 27. Eleven days out of Boston, on Sunday, 28 February 1886, Missouri rounded Fastnet Rock off the southern tip of Ireland, and began the final leg of what had been an uneventful voyage; it was the fourth Atlantic crossing Captain Poland had made in Missouri since Christmas. Up on the Old Head of Kinsale, the Irish coastguard watched the four-master pushing north-eastwards through the weather towards St George’s Channel. At 8pm, Captain Poland took a bearing on Tuskar Rock and ordered a change of course to NE by E¾E. To allow for the building gale, he added another compass point.

On the seabed off Porth Dafarch, Stewart finned across the wreck. The eroded carcass of the ship lay across the rocks. I followed, over ribs and plates with rivet holes large enough to take a thumb. A boiler loomed out of the glittery void, and a mooring bollard sprouting mauve foliage. In dark metal caves, spider crabs sent irritable semaphore messages with their pincers. I ran my fingers along a bone of brown iron, raising a pollen cloud of rust.

Captain Poland’s mistake had been to add that extra compass point for leeway. He had also underestimated the eastward pull of the tide. There was another factor, too.

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