Hard Aground

The year 1954. One summer evening I happened to be at Flower's Cove. The occasion was that my wife was expecting our first baby at the hospital there. We had been staying a few days at the Marine Beacon Site on Flower's Island, where my brother-in-law, Frank Davis, was resident operator. The nurse admitted my wife into the hospital that evening;I stayed with her awhile and then went with Richard Dempster and family of Nameless Cove, overnight

Toward evening a dense fog rolled in from the Straits and blanketed the area, so that it was difficult to see even the houses next door. I went to bed at about ten o'clock, and lay there in my upstairs room, aware of the eerie silence that windless, thick fog produces. I was relaxing and drifting off to sleep when a sound alerted me. It sounded like the blast of a vessel's foghorn. The lighthouse was operating on Flower's Island, but there was no fog alarm. I listened as the sound was repeated at intervals and seemed to be drawing near.

I imagined the deck of a vessel shrouded in fog. The engine is running slowly and the vessel creeps through the dense mist. The captain is aware that according to his charts they are approaching the vicinity of the treacherous Flower's Island Ledges. Here the straits narrows, and the tides are swift and variable. The reefs gradually ascends to shallows not readily discerned even in moderate weather. The captain has set a man on watch up front and another to operate the foghorn.

When I was a child I used to hear my mother sing a song about, "the Northfield and the Raleigh was just ten miles apart." The Northfield, loaded with coal, was ashore on the Flower's Ledges, while the Raleigh, a large British warship was ashore on an equally dangerous reef across the strait near Forteau. Neither of the ships survived the groundings.

I was drawn from my reverie; something had changed ...the foghorn had ceased. There was one long blast and it stopped. Outside the fog was still as dark as ever. I though: did she run upon the reefs?. If so, it being a moderate night and with no sea on, the vessel might not have come to any harm moving at low speed. Or, maybe they turned off their foghorn.I settled back down in bed. After a while I dozed off and slept all the way through the night.

I awoke at about 8.30. It was sunny outside and looking out the window from my view I saw the sea, serene. However, on going downstairs, Mr Demster shared the local news with me, and it wasn't pleasant. "There's a vessel ashore out there this morning", he said. "She went up on the ledges sometime last night; she has a full load of lumber on board. They say she don't look too bad, but she's solid aground. They're waiting for high tide, then they'll try to get her off."

In the afternoon when the tide was at its highest, they may have attempted to move the vessel, but with the rising of the tide it soon became obvious that she was ruined. The owners and the insurance company were contacted and the cargo was transferred to shore by local boats. Perhaps twenty or more boats, maybe a hundred men were standing by to help if needed, and to salvage what they could for themselves if the ship was declared a wreck, and abandoned. My brother-in-law and I went out at about three o'clock to look around. The unloading of the cargo was then under way, and so many boats and men were there that in about an hour or two all the lumber had been taken away. When the cargo was removed it revealed evidence that if the schooner came off the reef she would sink: the bottom had been irreparably damaged. The old ship was doomed!

The captain and crew collected their belongings and valuables that they could take with them, and left the area to return to their homes. Late in the evening my brother-in-law and I went out to view the vessel again. It was now a wreck and would never sail the briny seas again.

Two days later my beloved wife presented me with a sweet baby boy; we named him Richard Gary.

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Updated 7 2006