Sable island that moves. Drifting Sable Island - the last refuge of thousands of sailors, the northern Graveyard of the Atlantic
Southeast of the Canadian port of Halifax, in the waters of the North Atlantic, there is the legendary Sable Island, which is notorious among many generations of sailors. It is believed that this island got its name from the French word saber, which means “sandy”. According to another version, Sable can be translated from English as “terrible”, “gloomy”. The sailors, in turn, nicknamed this piece of land "".
Sable Island barely protrudes above the surface of the ocean, its most high point(Rigging Hills) does not exceed 34 meters above sea level. This area is characterized by storms and thick fogs, the waves can rise so high that they cover the entire island.
Scientists have noticed one strange feature - Sable is a “drifting” island; in a year it manages to move about 230 meters to the east. The island owes its ability to move to two powerful currents - the cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream. These two currents constantly influence the sandy structure of the island, “building up” it east coast and at the same time undermining the Western one.
Why is Sable Island dangerous?
Usually, if a ship is smashed to pieces on the shore, and the crew is lucky enough to get to land, then we can talk about luck and salvation. However, this rule does not apply in the case of Sable Island. Marine vessels, thrown onto its shore by powerful ocean waves, became prisoners of Sable, ending up in ships capable of swallowing not only a light sailing ship, but also a solid ship with a displacement of up to 5,000 tons.
Scientists and geographers have found that in addition to Sable Island, there are several other places on our planet that could be called quicksand reserves. First, there is Cape Gateras, located on the east coast of the United States, where shifting sands sometimes expose the rusty sides of steamships and the rotten hulks of sailing ships. Secondly, the Goodwin Shoals, located six miles southeast of England, are considered a “ship graveyard”. The Goodwin Shoals are all the more dangerous because the color of the sand here matches the color of the sea water.
But if the Goodwin Shoals are capable of swallowing a ship in literally a matter of minutes, then the quicksand of Sable Island can suck in its victim for quite a long time - for one to two months. It is also believed that some areas of the island are sinking faster than others.
The nature of quicksand
Physicists have developed a theory that explains the action of quicksand by peculiar electrical effects. According to their theory, grains of sand can be imagined as microscopic single-charge magnetic balls that have the ability to form free space around themselves.
Sand grains repel each other, thus acquiring the property of fluidity. Any object that impacts the surface of quicksand is surrounded by particles charged with positive ions. It sinks easily into the ground, experiencing virtually no friction. However, those who like to travel have nothing to fear - this is considered extremely rare.
video from the "dark" Sable Island
Sable Island located 110 miles southeast of Halifax, near the mainland shoal, in the southern part Atlantic Ocean. This is where the warm waters of the Gulf Stream meet the cold Labrador Current.
In its shape, Sable Island really resembles a saber or tentacles, depending on what you see. It stretches from east to west for 24 miles. Experienced sailors are mysterious and mysterious place nicknamed " tomb of the Atlantic».
Puzzles Saber Islands scientists have been interested in for a long time. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was determined that the western part of the island was subject to a strong constant current. Multi-ton waves, driven by strong winds, hit the shore of this island without rest. But East End The shores, like an antipode, are always quiet and calm. New sand deposits are constantly growing there, which, logically, have nowhere to come from, but they keep coming and coming...
The most interesting thing is that the size of the island has hardly changed over the years. On the one hand, the island is eroded by waves, on the other, it grows due to sand deposits! And over the years, this island, like a tired snake, slowly moves eastward. Researchers were able to find out that over the past 200 years, Saber Island has quietly and unnoticed passed more than ten nautical miles of the world's oceans! The island is moving at speed 200 meters per year!
But this is not the only thing that surprised scientists so much. As a rule, any island is the top of a mountain. The mountain itself rests on one of the giant tectonic plates that form our planet. It would seem that Sable Island should drift at a speed no greater than the speed of movement of the tectonic plate. The average speed of movement of a tectonic plate is several millimeters per year. The movement of Saber Island is much faster. 
In addition to its high-speed movement, Saber Island is also famous as a kind of quagmire. The fact is that one part of the island is covered by quicksand. Sailors claim that these sands are practically indistinguishable from sea water, acquiring the color of a wave, they mislead sailors. The treacherous sands of this island swallow up approaching ships. It is known for certain that the Sable Islands floating towards the shore big ships(100-120 meters long, with a displacement of five thousand tons) were completely immersed in the sands for two to three months.
Throughout the year, there is terrible bad weather over Saber Island. Just one month (July) things are more or less good here weather. During this period, the island is favorable for mooring ships and boats. True, there are not so many people who want to visit this island; there are too many shoals and sharp reefs in the area. Surprisingly, these dangers can also hide, taking on the color of sea water. 
Sable Island is now part of Canada. It is inhabited, 15-25 people live here. These are workers and specialists of the Canadian Department of Transport, monitoring the island's hydrometeorological center, radio station and lighthouses. Their responsibilities include saving people, shipwrecked within the island.
In the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 180 km southeast of the coast of Canada, the “nomadic” crescent-shaped Sable Island drifts. This island is considered one of the most dangerous and mysterious islands in the world. Geographical coordinates Sable Islands: 43°55′57″ N 59°52′48″W
Since this small island was discovered by Europeans, it has struck genuine terror into the hearts of even the bravest sailors. As soon as they called it: “shipwreck island”, “deadly saber”, “ship devourer”, “ghost island”...
These days, Sable Island is called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” By the way, its official name in English means black, mourning color (sable).
It was not by chance that this land ringed by water received its notorious fame - shipwrecks actually happened here all the time. Now it’s difficult to say for how many ships it became the last harbor...
The fact is that in the coastal waters of Sable, navigation is very difficult due to two currents found here - the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Lambrador. The currents create whirlpools, huge waves and the movement of the sand island.
Sable Island is constantly moving in the ocean waters. The western end of the island, under the continuous action of currents and powerful waves of the Atlantic, is gradually eroded and disappearing, while the eastern end is washed out and lengthened, and thus the island continuously moves east, gradually moving away from the shores of Nova Scotia.
It is estimated that over the past two hundred years, Sable has “walked” almost ten nautical miles across the ocean. The current speed of its movement is also known - about 230 meters per year. Moreover, along with the position of the treacherous island, which is poorly visible due to constant fog and giant waves, its size is constantly changing.
If we look at maps of the 16th century, we will see that its length was about 300 km, but now it has decreased to 42. It was assumed that the island would soon completely disappear, but over the last century, to the surprise of many inquisitive minds, it, on the contrary, began to increase.
A storm on Sable is usually preceded by an unusually dazzling sunrise. It would seem that a wonderful morning should end with an equally beautiful sunset. But God knows where a veil of thunderclouds appeared from, covers the sun, the sky turns black, and now the wind whistles subtly in the dunes. It grows stronger, howls, tears sand from the tops of the dunes and drives it across the island into the ocean... Because of this cutting sand, there is not a single tree on the island, not even a bush. Only in the valley between two ridges of dunes do stunted grass and wild peas grow.
The main danger that awaits ships near Sable is the quicksand of the shallows, a kind of “ocean quagmire.” Sailors and fishermen seriously say that they tend to take on the color of ocean water. The swells of the treacherous island literally swallow the ships that are captured by them. It is reliably known that steamships with a displacement of five thousand tons and a length of 100-120 meters that found themselves on the shallows of Sable Island completely disappeared from view within two to three months. These sands became a natural talisman for sunken treasures and an eternal grave for someone's remains.
The last victim of the insatiable and mysterious island was the American steamship Manhattan in 1947. After this tragedy, 2 lighthouses and a radio station were installed on Sable - since then, disasters have finally stopped.
Now about 20-25 people permanently live on Sable Island - all of them maintain the lighthouses, radio station and local hydrometeorological center, and are also trained to carry out rescue operations in case of a shipwreck.
These people work in very difficult conditions, and not only because of heavy fog and hurricane winds - many of them say that they sometimes see the ghosts of dead sailors. Not surprising, because they literally live on bones.
One of the workers even had to be evacuated from the island, because every night he was begged for help by a ghost with the schooner Sylvia Mosher that was wrecked here in 1926...
- More than one sailor who has plied the waters of the Atlantic Ocean can tell the story that before a storm, an extremely bright sunrise is often observed near Sable. But just a few hours are enough for the beautiful sunny weather to turn into a real nightmare.
- People who are part of the staff servicing the lighthouses and the meteorological station are constantly over the bones of the sailors who died on the island (we are talking about thousands of corpses). The very understanding of this requires a very stable psyche. The caretakers have spoken about ghosts more than once. Moreover, in the 50s. one of the lighthouse keepers had to be urgently returned to the continent. He claimed that he was haunted by the ghosts of the ship "Sylvia Mosher" and asked to save them... Could you live in such a place?
- Everyone who works at Sable has their own collection of relics with lost ships. Many have gold coins and rare antiques.
- Since 1920, only two people can boast that they were born in the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
- Sable Island horses are featured on 2005 Canadian stamps and coins.
Photo - Sable Island
Video - the mystery of Sable Island
It just so happened that Sable Island(Sable Island) is considered one of the most dangerous and mysterious islands peace. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean and belongs to Canada. It lies southeast of Halifax (Nova Scotia). The area of the island is small, but for the sake of uniqueness, let’s say that its length is 42 km, and its width... no more than 1.5 km. From the air, Sable resembles some kind of huge worm. Although size is a relative thing for an island... The fact is that Sable is living island! Alive in the sense that it moves! No typo, the island really moves. If you look at the old nautical charts XVI-XVII centuries, you can see that the size of Sable is much larger than today - 270-380 km.
For almost five centuries, the name of the island struck terror into the hearts of sailors, and finally it gained such gloomy fame that it began to be called “the island of shipwrecks,” “the devourer of ships,” “the deadly saber,” “the island of ghosts,” “the cemetery of a thousand lost ships."
Refers to inhabited islands. There are 5 people living on Sable who work at the meteorological station and monitor the lighthouse. Note that previously the staff was larger and numbered 15-25 people. Since over time the danger from Sable ceased, the contingent was reduced.
Many call this place not just mysterious, but damned. Believe me, there are reasons for this. No one can say with certainty how many ships were lost here. Some put the figure at 350, others about 500. The important thing is that for many Sable was the last thing they saw in their lives. " Cemetery of the Atlantic"- the sailors call him. Inexplicably, the sand on the shores of the “living island” has the property of “adjusting” to the color of the sea waves. This optical effect is the main reason for the death of ships. The ships (especially in bad weather) crashed into the coastline at all speeds, and until the collision, the crew thought that there was only a vast ocean ahead...
Some lucky ones managed to survive and lived on the island for some time. But the stranded ships had the same fate - they were swallowed up by quicksand. In two months even from large ships there was no trace left! (hence the phrase “ ship eater»).
Until now, no one knows exactly who discovered this ill-fated piece of land, cursed by many generations of sailors. The Norwegians claim that the Vikings were the first to stumble upon it; even before Columbus, they walked the ocean in North America. The French believe that the discoverers of Sable were fishermen from Normandy and Brittany, who at the very beginning of the 16th century were already fishing for cod and halibut on the Newfoundland shallows. Finally, the English, who after the French added the island to their once extensive possessions, claim that the island was discovered by their whalers who settled on the shores of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Some British geographers, speaking about this, refer to the very name of the island: the first meaning of the word "SABLE" in English language- “sable”. Strange, isn't it? After all, sables have never been found on this island. Maybe the fact is that the image of the island on the map resembles a jumping animal? Some etymologists are inclined to see the name of the island as a kind of historical incident. They believe that the island was previously designated on English maps by the word "SABRE" and that some cartographer mistakenly replaced the "R" with the letter "L". By the way, “SABRE”, which means “saber”, fits perfectly with the island, which really looks like a scimitar. The second meaning of the word “SABLE” (with a poetic connotation) is black, gloomy, sad, scary - when applied to the “shipwreck island” it is also quite understandable and logical.
Most modern geographers and historians, however, agree that Sable was discovered by the French traveler Léry, who in 1508 sailed from Europe to the “Land of the Bretons” - a peninsula that the British later called Acadia and even later Nova Scotia. It is possible that supporters of this particular version are right, claiming that the navigator Léry gave the new island the French name “SABLE”. After all, in French it means “sand,” and the island actually consists only of sand.
By the way, about poets. Sable's stories and "reputation" have inspired many writers, including Thomas-Chandler Haliburton, James MacDonald, Thomas H. Ruddal and others.
Clickable
North Atlantic Cemetery
On maps of the 16th century, published in France, England and Italy, the length of the island is estimated at 150-200 miles, and already in 1633, the Dutch geographer Johann Last, describing Sable, reports: “... the island has a circumference of about forty miles, the sea here is rough and shallow water, there are no harbors, the island has gained notoriety as a place of constant shipwrecks.”
Sable is located 110 miles southeast of Halifax, near the continental shelf - just in the area where the warm Gulf Stream meets the cold Labrador Current. It was this circumstance that led to the formation of a giant sandy crescent mound here, which once extended to Cape Cod. Geologists believe that Sable is nothing more than the peak of this crescent protruding from under the water.
In its current state, the island stretches from east to west for 24 miles. The predominant terrain is dunes and sand hills. In some places there are areas of herbaceous vegetation. The highest “mountain” here is Riggin Hill, 34 meters high. Four miles from the western tip of the island is the semi-salty Lake Wallace, no more than four meters deep. Although it does not communicate with the ocean, waves still enter it by rolling over the dunes.
The western end of the island, under the continuous action of currents and waves of the Atlantic, is gradually eroded and disappearing, while the eastern end is washed out and lengthened, and thus the island continuously moves east, gradually moving away from the shores of Nova Scotia. It is estimated that over the past two hundred years, Sable has “walked” almost ten nautical miles across the ocean. The current speed of its movement is also known - about 230 meters per year.
Sable's height above ocean level, as we already know, is small, and therefore it is almost invisible from the sea. Only on very fine days can one discern a narrow strip of sand on the horizon from the deck of the ship.
And clear weather occurs here only in July, when the fury of the ocean subsides, and you can approach the island from the north side by boat.
A storm on Sable is usually preceded by an unusually dazzling sunrise. It would seem that a wonderful morning should end with an equally beautiful sunset. But God knows where a veil of leaden clouds appeared from, covers the sun, the sky turns black, and now the wind whistles subtly in the dunes. It grows stronger, howls, tears sand from the tops of the dunes and drives it across the island into the ocean... Because of this cutting sand, there is not a single tree on the island, not even a bush. Only in the valley between two ridges of dunes do stunted grass and wild peas grow.
The main danger that awaits ships near Sable is the quicksand of the shallows, a kind of “ocean quagmire.” Sailors and fishermen seriously say that they tend to take on the color of ocean water. The swells of the treacherous island literally swallow the ships that are captured by them. It is reliably known that steamships with a displacement of five thousand tons and a length of 100-120 meters that found themselves on the Sable shallows completely disappeared from view within two to three months.
The famous American scientist Alexander Graham Bell rushed to the aid of the French steamer La Bourgogne, which was in disaster on July 4, 1898 near Sable. The scientist was sure that some of the people from the ship had reached Sable and were awaiting help there. Bell, using his own money, organized a rescue expedition, arrived on the island and carefully examined it. Alas, there were no survivors there after the disaster. While waiting for the steamer, Bell lived on the island for several weeks, living in the house of the lighthouse keeper Boutilier and the lifeguard Smallcombe. In July 1898, Bell wrote: “The barque Crafton Hall ran aground in April of this year. The magnificent vessel seemed intact, except that its hull was cracked in the middle. Today the fishing lines have completely swallowed the victim.”
Based on documents preserved at the island's life-saving station, lighthouse keeper Johnson plotted the places and dates of shipwrecks on Sable's map starting in 1800. And it turned out that every two years an average of three ships were wrecked here.
What happened before 1800?
The moving and changeable Sable has been constant in only one thing since the days of the ancient Vikings: in its irreconcilable hostility towards passing ships.
Historical documents - for example, numerous volumes of the Chronicle of Shipwrecks, maritime chronicles and other sources - allow us to judge that in ancient times Sable served as a giant ship cemetery of the North Atlantic. Here, under many meters of sand, rest the sharp-chested canoes of the brave Vikings, the clumsy carracks and galleons of the Spaniards and Portuguese, the gulets of the fishermen of Brittany, the strong pine ships of the Nantucket whalers, the English smacks, the cutters from Goole, the heavy three-masted ships of the West India Company, the elegant American clippers... And this armada of sailing ships, which has sunk into oblivion, is crushed by the heavy hulls of sunken steamships that sailed under the flags of all countries of the world. Some stumbled upon it, lost in the fog and shroud of rain, others were carried to the shallows by the current, and most of the ships found their last refuge here during storms.
After each storm, Sable changes the topography of its coastline beyond recognition. About a hundred years ago, storms washed out a channel in the northern part of Sable: a large harbor was formed inside the island, which for many years served as a refuge for fishermen. But one day another strong storm closed the entrance to the bay, and two American schooners remained trapped in this trap forever. Over time, the former harbor became an inland fresh-salt body of water seven miles long. Nowadays, Wallace Lake serves as a landing site for seaplanes that deliver mail and food to the island.
Sometimes the sandbanks and dunes of the island, having moved under the influence of ocean waves, reveal to the human eye the remains of ships that disappeared a long time ago. Thus, a quarter of a century ago, the durable teak hull of an American clipper, which had gone missing in the last century, “resurrected” from shifting fishing lines. And three months later, dunes 30 meters high again grew above the hull... From time to time, broken masts and yards are exposed sailing ships, steamship pipes, boilers, pieces of rusted ocean liners and even submarines.
Sable is one of the most conscientious and generous suppliers of unique exhibits to the defunct museum of romantic relics of the past. The current inhabitants of the island find rusty anchors, muskets, sabers, grappling hooks and huge quantities of ancient coins in the dunes... In 1963, a lighthouse keeper discovered in the sand a human skeleton, a bronze boot buckle, a musket barrel, several bullets and a dozen gold doubloons minted in 1760 . Later, a thick stack of banknotes - British pounds sterling from the middle of the last century - worth ten thousand was found in the dunes.
Some estimates show that the value of the valuables buried in the sands of Sable is at modern exchange rates almost two million pounds sterling. This is only if we take into account the ships about which information has been preserved that at the time of death they were carrying valuable cargo on board.
The first “devouring” of a ship by Sable was recorded back in 1583. Then an English ship called “Delight”, part of Humphy Gilbert’s expedition, rammed the sands of the island due to poor visibility. The last disaster is considered to be a shipwreck in 1947: the steamship Manhasset could not avoid a collision with the island. The entire crew was saved. However, we managed to find information according to which in 1999 the yacht Merrimac “met” with the sands of the “living island” (the navigation instruments malfunctioned). The three-person crew was not injured. The fate of the yacht is unknown.
If you want to get acquainted with the history of Sable Island in detail, we recommend reading books such as “Sable Island: Its History and Phenomena” (1894, George Petterson); Sable Island, Fatal and Fertile Crescent (1974) and Sable Island Shipwrecks: Disaster and Survival at the North Atlantic Graveyard (1994) by Leal Campbell; Dune Adrift: The Strange Origins and Curious History of Sable Island (2004, Marc de Villiers).
But there is also a story that dates back to the late 30s. last century. Near our Sable, bad weather raged for several days in a row; the storms were unusually strong even for these places. Giant waves literally “shaved” the island, removing balls of sand from it. Only God knows how many hundreds of tons were washed away from the shores. When the ocean had played enough, a scientific expedition arrived on the island. She discovered a huge pit in which there were eight ships that at different times were buried in the sands of Sable. The surprise of the researchers was endless when, among other ships, the remains of ... a Roman galley were discovered! There has been debate in scientific circles about where the ancient galley could have come from here. The ocean put an end to the dispute: a new storm covered the “grave of ships” with sand. The question remains open to this day...
Robinson convicts and rescue riders
The first settlers of Sable were shipwrecked: for them this meager piece of land, having become the cause of misfortune, served as a shelter. The unfortunate people built houses from the wreckage of ships scattered throughout the ship graveyard. To their surprise, the first Robinsons saw cows in the valley of the island. For some unknown reason, these animals were left behind by the Frenchman Lery when he first visited Sable. The animals multiplied and went wild. Fishermen in distress could also feed on fur seals, for which the local sandbanks are still a favorite rookery. The tragedy of the sailors who found themselves on Sable was aggravated by the fact that they had nowhere to wait for help: the ships avoided approaching the terrible island, even when they saw the smoke of signal fires above it. What else could they hope for? To someone else's tragedy? That the next doomed ship will bring them, along with the wreckage, essentials and - most importantly! - a few pounds of table salt? Yes, probably for that too.
Sometimes “gentlemen of fortune” buried their treasures here. They burned false fires on the dunes to lure merchant ships into a trap.
How many crimes were committed here and how many criminals Sable hid will forever remain a mystery. Until now, many superstitious residents of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia consider Sable a place cursed by God and the abode of evil spirits and ghosts. That’s what they call it: “THE GHOST ISLAND” - “Ghost Island”.
In 1598, Sable suddenly turned into... hard labor. Here 48 criminals were disembarked from the French ship Marquis De La Roche. The Marquis actually intended to found a colony in Nova Scotia, but after a long storm his ship developed a leak. Having never reached his goal, De La Roche turned back to the shores of Europe. Seeing the island, the Marquis came up with nothing else but to land the “extra cargo” on Sable, and so that the convicts would not starve right away, he left them fifty sheep. The exiles were remembered only seven years later, and the King of France signed a pardon for them. In the summer of 1605, a ship sent to Sable brought eleven overgrown people, who had lost their human appearance, dressed in sheep's skins, to Cherbourg. The rest, unable to bear the severe hardships, died. Surprisingly, five of those who returned to their homeland asked the king to allow them to return to Sable. Henry IV not only agreed, but also ordered to supply them with everything they needed. This is how a small French colony was formed. And when in 1635 a ship returning from Connecticut to England was wrecked on Sable, its crew was rescued and taken to the American mainland by these French Robinsons.
Years passed. News of shipwrecks near Sable Island began to reach Europe more and more often. The sailors demanded that their governments build a lighthouse and a rescue station on the island. But neither France, which at that time owned Sable and lost two ships of D’Anville’s expedition here in 1746, nor England, the “mistress of the seas,” nor Holland wanted to bother with such a tiny territory. And if not for chance...
At the beginning of 1800, the English authorities discovered unauthorized valuables among fishermen living on the shores of Nova Scotia: gold coins, jewelry, geographic Maps with the coat of arms of the Duke of York, books from his personal library and even furniture with the same coat of arms. Simple-minded fishermen called these things “Sable things.” It turned out that they received them in exchange for fish from the settlers of the island. This alarmed the British. Moreover, the ship “Francis” did not come from Nova Scotia to London, but it was carrying the personal belongings of the Duke of York!
The British Admiralty came to the conclusion that after the death of the Francis, the crew on board reached Sable safely, but were killed by the Robinsons. And so a punitive expedition was sent to the island, the settlers were interrogated. However, it turned out that no one killed the people from the lost ship. They all disappeared into the depths of the sea, and the islanders were unable to help them, because they did not even have a lifeboat.
Less than a year had passed since the English ship Princess Amelia perished in the quicksand of Sable. Of the more than two hundred people, none escaped. Another English ship that came to the rescue again got stuck in the sands of the island, and everyone on it also died. Three ships lost on Sable decided the matter: the British finally decided to erect a lighthouse on the dangerous island and create a rescue station. Its servants were charged with the duty of providing assistance to shipwrecked people and saving property from sea robbers. And in England itself at that time, notices were posted that, on pain of death, prohibited anyone other than rescuers from settling on the island without government permission.
What in 1802 bore the loud name “rescue station” was a tightly built barn about one and a half hundred meters from the shore. In it, an ordinary whaling whaleboat rested on wooden runners. Nearby is a stable. No, the horses were not brought here on purpose. Horses have lived here since ancient times, although no one really knows where they came from on Sable. According to one version, these are the descendants of cavalry horses that sailed to the island from a certain French ship that once perished on the shallows. According to another version, they were brought to the island by Thomas Hancock, the uncle of the famous John Hancock, a famous American patriot during the War of Independence. Sable's horses are more like large ponies. They are very hardy, live in herds, feed on sedge, wild peas and some flowers that grow only on Sable.
Every day, four rescuers rode around the island on horseback along the surf, walking in pairs towards each other. They searched for sails in the fog and looked to see if the ocean had thrown up the wreckage of the ship. A ship was spotted dying near the island... The watchmen galloped towards the barn and sounded the alarm. The oarsmen on duty harness four ponies into a team, which drag the whaleboat to the water. Having skillfully overcome the first three waves of the surf, the rowers rush to where the ship is in distress. Meanwhile, the rest of the rescuers, including the lighthouse keeper, are already racing to the scene by land. Then a rope is thrown from the sinking ship to the island: this is the only way to snatch people in trouble from Sable’s mouth.
In modern sailing directions, an important note remains: “If the ship becomes stranded near Sable Island, the crew should remain on board until the lifeboat station provides assistance. Practice shows that all attempts to escape on the ship’s boats invariably ended in human casualties.”
Only eight cases were recorded when ships managed to escape from the tenacious embrace of the island and avoid death. The English three-masted ship "Myrtle", distinguished by its very strong construction, was found in the autumn of 1840 near Azores without any sign of a command. The investigation showed that the Myrtle was driven ashore by a storm on the Sable Shoals in January of that year. The crew apparently died while trying to land on shore. For two months the ship remained captive of the sands, until another storm pulled it aground. clean water. This "Flying Dutchman" sailed in the ocean for several months until he ended up near the Azores.
The American fishing schooner Arno, under the command of Captain Higgins, fished near the island in 1846. A squall that unexpectedly arrived at night disrupted most sails and almost capsized the ship. At dawn, the captain realized that the current and wind had carried the Arno onto the Sable Banks. Hope remained only in the anchors. They were given away, having removed 100 fathoms of rope from each fairlead. By noon, the north-west turned into a force nine storm. The ocean boiled over the shallows like water in a cauldron. The schooner was carried towards the deadly breakers. Higgis, not counting on the vigilance and vigilance of Sable's rescuers, decided to try his luck. To prevent panic on the ship, he locked the crew in the hold. He placed two experienced sailors on the forecastle at each side and, so that they would not be washed away by the wave, tied them to the railings. He grabbed the helm himself. The schooner was rushing towards the shore with incredible speed. Tethered sailors poured fish oil from barrels into the water. The wind drove him in front of the bow of the ship towards the island. This ancient and reliable method of smoothing the crests of waves with fat, blubber or oil is often used by sailors today when they need to reduce the waves. The breakers pushed the schooner over the island's sandy bar, and she found herself safe at the foot of the surf-washed dunes. Although all the people were saved, the schooner died - the next day it was broken by a storm, and the wreckage of the Arno disappeared into the sandy belly of Sable.
And it was the only case, when the team did not need the help of the islanders.
Perhaps Sable's most dramatic shipwreck was the sinking of the American passenger steamer State of Virginia on July 15, 1879. This ship, with a registered capacity of 2,500 tons and a length of 110 meters, was sailing from New York to Glasgow, carrying 129 passengers and crew. During a thick fog, the ship found itself on a sandbank on the south side of the island. 120 passengers and crew were rescued by the island service. The happy parents added a fourth name to the names of the smallest rescued girl - Nellie Sable Bagley Hord.
In the middle of the 19th century, a new station building was built on the island, and the wooden whaleboat was replaced with an iron one. In 1893, an even more substantial building for rescuers was erected, but a strong storm destroyed it to the ground in one night.
The situation with the lighthouses on Sable was much worse. At first, the wooden structure of the only lighthouse tower rose in the middle part of the island. In 1873, when, despite numerous repairs, the tower completely fell into disrepair, the lighthouse was replaced by two new ones - metal, openwork design. The eastern lighthouse served safely for about a hundred years, but the western one had to be changed several times: the insatiable Sable “swallowed”... six of its lighthouses!
Sable today
In the “recent” history of the insatiable womb, the year 1926 was especially sorrowful. In August of this year, two American schooners, the Sylvia Mosher and the Sadie Nickle, were lost off Sable on the same day. The first capsized on the shallows, its crew died. The second wave was thrown over the spit of the island from one end to the other, where it also capsized and was later covered with sand. Sable's annual menu, in addition to other schooners, included two ships: the Canadian Labrador and the English Harold Casper.
Ships still pass by the island every day - hundreds of merchant ships flying the flags of countries all over the planet. Captains, plotting a course on maps, try to miss the island at a considerable distance. And although these days Sable no longer poses such a danger as before, sailors do not like to approach him. What if?.. God knows, these shallows changing shape every day...
Two lighthouses send warning rays into the night. Their light is visible 16 nautical miles in clear weather. Clear warning radio signals are heard on the air around the clock. It was thanks to them that shipwrecks off the coast of the island actually stopped. The last victim, a large American steamship called the Manhassent, was swallowed up by the island in 1947.
Sable now belongs to Canada. It is still inhabited: usually 15-25 people live here. These are specialists and workers of the Canadian Department of Transport who service the island's hydrometeorological center, radio station and lighthouses. Their duties also include rescuing people in the event of a shipwreck and providing assistance to them. For this they went special training and they have at their disposal the most modern life-saving equipment. Canadian specialists live on the island with families.
There are only two real houses here - for the island manager and the head of the radio beacon. The rest are accommodated in “caravans” - trailer houses. These dwellings were specially designed to withstand the destructive effects of cutting sand. There is also a small power station.
Several years ago, a warehouse, a blacksmith shop, a carpentry workshop, dormitories for shipwrecked people (in case such trouble should occur) and a hangar were built here, where metal whaleboats stand on rails, ready to be launched at any moment. The inhabitants of the island believe that these amazing ships are not afraid of any waves, they are unsinkable and so stable that they practically cannot capsize.
Of the old buildings on Sable, only one has survived - the building of the former rescue station, a kind of local landmark. The station was built from ship masts, topmasts and yards thrown onto the island. “Name boards” are nailed to the walls of the building, on which the names of the ships are displayed. These are, as it were, the remaining passports of former victims of the “ship devourer”.
Three hundred wild ponies still live on Sable. On those that are tamed, keepers travel around the coast of the island every day. They look to see if a yacht or fishing boat has washed up on the shallows, or if a bottle or plastic container with a note is lying on the sand, which is used to study sea currents.
Modern Robinsons have learned to plant vegetable gardens and even orchards on Sable. The main problem is to protect plants from sand. If the weather permits, which is still rare, the island's residents swim and take whaleboats out into the ocean to fish.
Although Transport Canada, which oversees Sable, has tried to create maximum amenities for its residents, their work is not easy and dangerous. Long-lasting storms of hurricane force often prevent people from leaving their homes for weeks, or even more. But this is not considered the most difficult thing here. The question rests on something else - psychological rather than physical stress. Indeed, living on a remote island, always shrouded in fog and tormented by storms, is not easy. But it’s even more difficult to get along with the idea that beneath you there is an island-cemetery, where every now and then you get caught in the sand human skulls and bones. One of Sable's Robinsons, a lighthouse keeper, had to be removed from service and sent to the mainland. For many years, during his watch, he was invariably haunted by the ghosts of the schooner Sylvia Mosher, the same one that disappeared into the surf in August 1926. The old caretaker turned out to be an eyewitness to this drama. Together with the other inhabitants of the island, he did everything possible to save those people.
Nowadays, assistance to those dying at sea can be provided by the helicopter available on Sable, and the great “ship devourer” is practically neutralized. Over the past 30 years, there has not been a single case of the death of a large ship in its quicksand. But the sailors still vigilantly peer into the fog as they pass by the dangerous island. The formidable warning of the radio beacon does not stop for a minute: “You are passing near Sable Island - the cemetery of the North Atlantic.”
At the end of the 70s of the 20th century, after another storm, the bow of an American ship was visible from the sand, which disappeared without a trace back in the 19th century, along with its cargo and the entire crew. The wreck of the ship was clearly visible from passing ships for several days. As it happened, after another severe storm, the sand again buried this ship in its thickness.
Sable Island has been visited several times by scientific expeditions. It's not that simple. Tomb of the Atlantic knows how to keep its secrets. Attempts to start excavations on the island ended in failure. The holes dug on the island were immediately filled sea water. Where the water in the center of the island comes from is a mystery!
At the end of the 20th century, researchers of anomalous phenomena put forward a rather original and bold hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, Sable Island is nothing more than an alien living organism that functions according to laws incomprehensible and unknown to earthly science. The basis of the life activity of this organism is silicon, and not, like ours, carbon. And silicon is sand! The main danger facing passing ships is the quicksand of the shallows, the so-called “ocean quagmire.” The island's ripples literally swallow ships caught in them. It is reliably known that ships 100 - 120 meters long, and with a displacement of 5 thousand tons, completely disappeared from view within 2-3 months.
This photograph of a sand-covered ship is often linked on the Internet to Sable Island. But that's not true. This is most likely due to the island's nickname as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic". But in fact, this ship lies in the sands of the Namib.
Edward Bohlen was a German cargo and passenger ship weighing 2,272 tons and 310 feet long, which ran aground off the coast of the Namib Desert on September 5, 1909. The ship was built in Hamburg in 1891 and sailed on the Hamburg-West Africa route. However, fast currents and thick fogs characteristic of the coast of the Namib Desert caused the disaster.
Attempts to save the stranded ship were unsuccessful; the steel cable used to tow Edward Bolen by the ship that came to the rescue broke. The passengers survived the accident without injuries and were evacuated.
Currently, the wreck, rusted and partially buried in the sand, lies several hundred meters from the coastline.
sources
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/vs/article/5984/
http://islandlife.ru/ostrova-v-okeanah/82-sable.html
http://nepovtorimosti.ru/bluzhdayushhiy-ostrov-seybl/
Let me remind you of a few more interesting islands and their inhabitants: or here, and here is the ominous The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -
It seems that the time when humanity sacredly trusted myths has gone forever. To explain something incomprehensible, we have science, thanks to which the place of the gods on the celestial chariots was taken by aliens, and the tambourines of shamans, who predicted the weather, were replaced by meteorological satellites. But, despite all the achievements of progress, human nature is still attracted by the incomprehensible and mystical.
On the verge of fiction
2012 - the film “Life of Pi” was released, which was based on the novel of the same name by Yann Martel. This adventure drama (which, by the way, won four Oscars) depicts a mysterious carnivorous island located somewhere in the middle of Pacific Ocean. According to the plot of the book, during the day this island was heavenly place, and at night it turns into a trap for all living things. After sunset, the algae that made up the island begin to secrete acid, and the lake located here becomes an acidic vat, digesting all living things. The only salvation was in the treetops, where they could wait out the night while the surface of the island bled gastric juice.
Fortunately, the movie predator island is a fiction, but, as you know, there is some truth in every fairy tale. For example, a thousand miles from Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean is located, which at first glance is a tropical paradise with lush vegetation, picturesque lagoons, reefs, white sand and everything else that attracts tourists. However, this island is uninhabited, and among those who have visited it, there is an opinion that Palmyra has a living and, without a doubt, black aura. External prosperity here is very deceptive: the weather changes instantly, calm lagoons are teeming with sharks, algae release toxic substances, and the surface of the island is full of poisonous insects. Even the fish that live in the creeks and lakes of the island are inedible, and a feeling of strange melancholy and hopelessness hangs in the air.
During World War II, the Americans used Palmyra as a springboard for an attack on Japan, but according to the soldiers who stayed there for several months, island life seemed like hell to them. The landing force was plagued by a series of mysterious suicides. The psychologically exhausted unit turned into a gang of deserters that wandered around the island and did God knows what. The reason for the unexpected soldiers' madness remained a mystery.
Ship Devourer
In the North Atlantic, one hundred and ten miles southeast of the Canadian port of Halifax, Sable Island is located, which is deservedly considered the most dangerous island ever marked on navigational charts. The peculiarity of Sable is that it is a sandbank, which, as a result of the meeting of the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current, moves at a speed of 200-230 meters per year! Over the past two hundred years, Sable has “sailed” forty kilometers from Canada, although, of course, this “swim” should not be taken literally. The fact is that the western part of the island is constantly being washed away by waves, and the eastern, on the contrary, is overgrown with sand, like living tissue. In fact, these are quicksand in the ocean, and any ship washed ashore disappears without a trace after 2-3 months. The exact number of ships that hit the damned piece of land is unknown, but it definitely exceeded a hundred.
The island's main killer weapon is that it has an almost flat surface, and it is almost impossible to see it from the sea, especially during the storm season with fifteen-meter waves. According to legend, the sand that covers the island is like a chameleon, and even in clear weather is colored the color of the surrounding ocean. The ability to mimicry is characteristic only of living organisms, which led many sailors to think that the island, with its quicksand and sharp reefs, was “hunting” passing ships.
The Sable was first applied to official maps in the 16th century. At that time the length of the island was almost 200 miles. In the 19th century, scientists assumed that Sable, which had shrunk by almost 10 times over the previous 300 years, would soon completely disappear from the surface of the earth, but this did not happen. Moreover, over the past 100 years it has increased by two miles.
Almost every island on the planet is the surface part of a mountain, which, in turn, is located on tectonic plates. Islands cover our planet like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, moving at speeds of several millimeters per year. Sable's travel speed is 100,000 times greater, suggesting that the island has no physical connection to any of Earth's tectonic plates. Numerous questions, to which there are still no intelligible answers, have pushed some scientists to the sensational and, at first glance, completely crazy idea that Sable is something like a living organism, which is based on silicon, and not carbon, like all living beings on our planet. If you agree with this theory, then you can try to explain where the sand comes from on the eastern part of the island, while the western part is constantly eroded by a strong ocean current. It is possible that sand (aka silicon) is the waste product of an insatiable ship devourer, which is what Sable appears to be.
It is curious that shortly before the start of World War II, the island was given to researchers new riddle. In the spring of 1939, storms of unprecedented force raged in this area, removing hundreds of tons of coastal sand, as a result of which a hole with the skeletons of eight ships formed on the island. It was in this pit, a hundred miles from Canada, that the remains of a Roman galley from ancient times were found! While the members of the scientific expedition sent to the island were arguing about the find, another storm broke out, and the tomb, which had been opened for a short time, was again covered with tons of damp sand.
The Curse of Bulawan Island
Bulawan - a small piece of land in the Banda Sea, which belongs to Indonesia, has long gained fame as a bad and dangerous place. The island became widely known after the plane of American pilot Willy Van der Haage crashed in its vicinity in 1989. The pilot was able to eject, but for the next 3 years he had the opportunity to be in Robinson's shoes, making many amazing discoveries.
During his forced confinement, Van der Haage crawled the length and breadth of the tropical island; his attention was especially drawn to the deep wells, clearly of artificial origin, which led to dry underground caves. Having descended into one of these caves, the American discovered a truly priceless treasure of gold coins, which, as is known from legends and horror stories, rarely brings happiness and longevity.
The treasure, found by an unwitting researcher, was in four clay jugs, sealed with natural asphalt. Inside the vessels were faceless, perfectly round coins, more like polished lenses. After the gold was delivered to America, an expert commission of numismatists and specialists in ancient culture could not determine the nationality of the coins, which gave reason to assume that these coins were a means of payment on the territory of some high-tech lost civilization, maybe even Atlantis.
The stay on the island ended as unexpectedly as it began: an Australian destroyer passing by saw a distress signal, thanks to which the missing pilot was finally rescued. Upon his return, the American gave a couple of dozen interviews in which he said that Bulavan is a powerful anomalous zone, and the cause of the plane crash, after which he became a prisoner of the island, was powerful geomagnetic deviations.
From newspaper articles, the public learned about the gold coins found, and detachments of black treasure hunters poured into Bulavan. The wells, adits, and caves of the island were repeatedly ransacked by lovers of quick money, and it should be noted that many did not return empty-handed. Only now treasure hunters came across not gold coins, but amazing silver bars in the shape of horse heads. These zoomorphic silver, according to scientists, were used in sacred rituals of a civilization unknown to us. But the most amazing thing is that there are no traces of artificial processing on the ingots, and we can say that this is nothing more than a masterpiece of the anomalous zone of Bulavan Island.
As for Willy Van der Haage, after undergoing retraining, he returned to his favorite job - flying, and, probably, this story would have had a happy ending if the pilot’s disfigured body had not been discovered in his own home in March 1993. The motive for the murder has not been fully clarified, but the police hastened to attribute everything to a banal robbery.
It is worth noting that since 1999, almost all the diggers who removed precious loot from the island were hanged, poisoned or shot! It’s simply ridiculous to talk about banal robberies here.
Drifting Nightmare
The islands of Palmyra, Sable, Bulavan are just a small list of mysterious, cursed islands fraught with danger for careless travelers. But varied anomalous zones, which are shrouded in a fog of secrets and mysteries, are nothing compared to the main island on this list, which is more than real, and whose appetite for devouring living flesh is much worse than the figment of Yann Martel’s imagination.
As sad as it sounds, the first place in the list of damned killer islands is occupied by a man-made creation - Garbage Island, which drifts between America and Eurasia. Currently, a huge landfill in the North Pacific Ocean is twice the size of the United States and is rightfully called the “Eastern Garbage Patch.”
The basis of the giant floating landfill is plastic waste, which is thrown into the ocean in huge quantities. The weight of this dump is already estimated at 100 mils. tons, and this figure continues to grow at a tremendous pace. At the same time, 70% of waste sinks to the bottom, so Garbage Island is just the tip of the iceberg.
Only two countries in the Pacific region are Australia and New Zealand– carry out effective control over plastic recycling, while advanced Asian states have designed and began serial production of equipment that processes all ship debris (plastic bottles, bags and other waste) into powder. Next, the shredded plastic, visually invisible to environmental services, is dumped into the ocean, saving enormous amounts of money.
The trouble is that over the past couple of decades we have become accustomed to such concepts as “humanitarian” and “ecological disaster”. It seems to us that if something like this happens not in the next block, then the consequences are unlikely to affect our own skin. However, Garbage Island is a disaster not of a local, but of a planetary scale. The worst thing is that this is no longer just a polluted aquatic environment, but a real cemetery of marine life. Every year, about a million birds and a hundred thousand mammals die from plastic waste dumped in the Pacific Ocean.
This happens according to the following scheme: under the influence of sunlight, plastic begins to disintegrate into small fractions without losing its polymer structure, then fish, jellyfish and other inhabitants of the ocean, confusing the waste with plankton, begin to eat it. Birds and mammals swallow larger things: lighters, bottle caps, syringes and toothbrushes. Of course, the “plastic diet” leads to death, but some of the commercial fish poisoned by chemicals still ends up on the average person’s plate.
How many of you would like to taste the meat of cattle raised on a farm near Chernobyl? Fish with a belly stuffed with plastic is little better, but the average consumer rarely thinks about what he puts in his mouth. Even when the obvious is explained to us, we pretend not to hear, or hope at chance, believing that misfortunes will affect anyone, but not us.
This kind of garbage islands, albeit smaller ones, exist in all oceans. We can only admit that these drifting killers are already stretching their bony fingers far into the interior of the continents. And this is just the beginning...
