It is said that the history of the Octavius is inscribed in the legend, and that it is difficult to determine where the authentic truth is, but what is really hidden behind this sad story of navigation, is the valia and the commitment of man to find new maritime routes and to face the ever powerful nature.This story has its stage in the eighteenth century, at which time the shipping companies were looking for a shorter path between the Atlantic and the Pacific.One way to improve trade between Europe and Asia.
One of the strategic points was the so-called "Cursed Pass or Northwest Passage", a route where the objective was to cross neither more nor less than the Arctic ocean.It is said that the first to get it was a ghost ship, the «Octavius»
The encounter with a ghost ship
It is said among sailors that it is quite common, that who spends much of his life in the ocean with his eyes on the waves and his loneliness, has been found sometimes with ships ghost .Abandoned ships that drift and tell, in their wounds, the story of a disaster.Of an accident.
August 12, 1775, the Herald, a Greenlandic whaler warned of a great shadow making its way just a few kilometers away from them.His sails waved slowly while the lookout was already giving the first shout to warn of the discovery.
It was a chilly morning despite being in summer, the North Atlantic never forgives, and the silence of that scenario creaked from time to time with the movement of some iceberg, or with the breakage of the Frost falling through the sails.When the captain of the Herald set his sights on the spyglass, he couldn't believe his eyes.The ship in front of him looked like to be wrapped in glass. The brightness blinded him and for a moment, that ghost ship seemed to him an appearance from another world.It was almost covered by ice.Without anyone moving inside.
The crew of the Herald , could not but stand up in fear and dread.That was not a good omen at all.But they did not hesitate for a moment to obey their captain when he asked for eight of his men to accompany him to the bow of the ship in front of them.
It was "The Octavius" , a ship they had never heard of., were received only by the crackling of the wood, by the whistle of the wind and the movement of those frayed candles loaded with frost.There was no one on the surface, so, drawing strengths of weakness, they decided to enter and n the interior...
The enigma of the «Octavius» and the courage of its captain
Already in the cabins they found nothing more and nothing less than twenty-eight frozen people.They were lying in their beds, covered in blankets and with their calm faces ...as if death had come to them peacefully while they were resting.And what they found in the captain's cabin was almost the same.
The captain of the Octavius rested in a lifeless dream in front of his desk, with his hands entwined on his legs.Beside him, and on the bed, there was a young woman.In a corner of the room, a man who seemed to be trying to light a fire, but fatigue or dejection had brought him down.He also found a little boy hugging a rag doll. A composition of the tragedy suspended in a cold wind, a whole ship plunged under the influence of cold and freezing that seemed to have covered them for an eternal dream.
The sailors of the whaler Herald urged their captain to leave the Octavius as soon as possible, but he, unable to leave the ship without giving an explanation to what happened, decided to stay a little longer and read the logbook.Surprised, he could not but Out of breath to discover what was being said there.
They had left England with towards China on September 10, 1761.That is to say, about fourteen years of that The last page of the notebook was dated November 11, 1762 and said the following:
«So far we have been trapped in the ice for 17 days.Our approximate position is Longitude 160 O, Latitude 75 N.The fire finally died out yesterday and the master has been trying to light it again but without much success.He has given the stone to one of the sailors.The son of the master died this morning and his wife says he no longer feels the The rest of us do not feel the same in this agony »
The captain of the Herald was amazed to read that.The coordinates they indicated showed that they had been trapped right in the« Damn step », North of Point Barrow in Alaska, on the other side of the American continent.That is, the Octavius had actually been the prim er ship to achieve surpass the legendary Northwest Passage. Something they had been trying to achieve for hundreds of years.
Image: ansilta grizas, Simon Ingram
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