9.
Lost Ship of the California Desert
Legend holds that there’s a treasure-laden ship buried in one of the deserts of the American
Southwest.
The lost vessel is supposedly somewhere in California’s Salton Sea basin, which is
part of the Sonoran Desert.
There are varying versions of the tale, with the first claimed sightings of a Spanish Galleon
in the region dating back to 1862.
In 1870, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on a half-buried ship in a drying salt lake
or alkali marsh that could be seen from miles away.
Expeditions failed to find the vessel, leading to claims that it must have sunk to the bottom
of the Salton Sea.
One story identifies the ship as the Content, which belonged to English privateer and explorer
Thomas Cavendish, and claims that it’s filled with pirate treasure.
According to another tale, the galleon was left behind by Spanish mutineers.
There are rumors that the ship has Viking origins.
It’s also said that the vessel is a ferry or steamboat that got swept away from the
Colorado River during a flood.
It would be hard to search for the lost ship today, because it’s allegedly buried in
a region that’s largely submerged, while the rest of the area is controlled by the
military.
Civilians are banned from exploring much of the landscape, and no archaeologists have
tried to search for buried ships from overhead with remote sensing technology.
Still, the legends persist in many forms, and seem to have earned a permanent place
in American folklore.
8.
Bom Jesus
Famous for its unforgiving conditions, Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is littered with hundreds of
shipwrecks.
One of the most remarkable discoveries happened in 2008, when a group of miners and geologists
noticed pieces of metal and wood scattered along the shore.
It led them to a buried ship.
Experts think it’s a Portuguese vessel called the Bom Jesus, which vanished in 1533 along
with its crew while sailing from Lisbon to India.
It’s the oldest wreck ever found in southern Africa, and the first in the region to be
found laden with treasure, including gold coins and over 100 elephant tusks.
The ivory came from the African forest elephant, a species native to humid forests of West
Africa and the Congo Basin.
Until recently, scientists thought that the African forest elephant left its natural habitat
for the dry savannah only as recently as the early 20th century.
But the tusks found on the Bom Jesus are 500 years old, and they were likely found along
the coast.
This can only mean one thing: that the species left the rainforest much earlier than originally
thought, perhaps around the 16th century.
Scientists were surprised by the finding, which challenged their long-held belief that
different elephant species generally stuck to specific regions and habitats.
The research puts the animals in mixed environments and shows that they chose to migrate long
before hunters came along and nearly drove them to extinction.
While their reasons for doing so are unclear, learning more about the creatures’ past
movement can help experts more effectively address modern-day concerns revolving around
the illegal ivory trade.
7.
MFV Zeila
Built in 1975, the MFV Zeila was a South African fishing trawler that became stranded near
the Namibian town of Henties Bay in 2008.
It ran aground in a popular fishing spot known as “Die Walle” during the early morning
hours and was too damaged to repair.
The ship was already stripped down to its shell when it was sold as scrap to an Indian
company.
But it never reached its new home in Bombay – in fact, the vessel didn’t go far at
all.
It broke free from its tow rope before even getting the chance to leave Namibian waters
and began to drift with two crewmen aboard.
They spent the night stranded on the Zeila in tempestuous weather, with nothing but walkie
talkies and life jackets to protect them.
Luckily, the boat drifted back toward a fishing area, which would have normally been empty
on a weekday morning.
But it was a holiday, and an entire crowd turned up for what they thought would be an
uneventful day at the beach.
A group of fishermen alerted local authorities to the distressed ship while two men bravely
got onto a rubber raft and went to try rescuing the crew members.
It took them an hour just to get the raft close enough to the Zeila, where the stranded
sailors had no choice but to jump onto the raft and hope they landed properly.
The fishermen looked on and cheered as the crewmen jumped and thankfully made it onto
the raft.
Everyone involved was extremely lucky to emerge from the ordeal with only minor injuries.
The Zeila remains in the water today, where it’s started to deteriorate noticeably from
being constantly battered by the waves.
6.
USS Desert Ship
Naturally, you would think that something called the USS Desert Ship would be a seafaring
vessel of some sort.
But it’s actually a concrete building that functions as a test site for the U.S. Navy.
Also known as LLS-1 or “Land Locked Ship number one,” the strange site is located
at the southern end of the vast White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
It’s been helping the Navy develop missile, gun, and fire control technology for over
60 years.
Reporter Tyler Rogoway described LLS-1 as “half ship-like concrete bunker and half
launchpad.”
Built during the 1950s, the structure was designed to at least partially resemble the
conditions on a real Navy ship.
Numerous different weapons were developed and tested at the site, which currently focuses
mainly on live fire testing the Navy’s Standard Missile.
It’s conveniently situated near a weapons assembly facility, which provides LLS-1 with
the munitions to run tests on.
This “Desert Ship” is truly in the middle of nowhere.
For miles around, there’s just a handful of other test sites.
The nearest town is White Sands, which has a population of just 1,246 residents and mostly
exists to support the nearby military facilities.
If you could visit this unusual missile testing site, would you?
Let us know in the comments!
5.
SS Gertrud Woermann II
Built in 1893, the SS Gertrud Woermann II was a German passenger and cargo ship that
originally sailed as the Pfalz.
The vessel was renamed after being purchased by Woermann Lines in 1904.
While traveling from Germany to Swakopmund later that year, the Gertrud Woermann became
encased in a thick fog and ran aground on a reef along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast.
At the time, the ship was loaded with horses, war material, mail, and other cargo, as well
as 400 soldiers.
Luckily, everyone survived, and they even had some help, which comes in handy in the
brutal heat and dryness of the desert.
A gunboat called the Vineta sailed up from Swakopmund to aid in the salvage effort.
The wreck was visible until 1912, when it was swallowed by the water during a heavy
storm.
Today, the wreck site is marked by a beacon nicknamed the Gertrud beacon.
The Skeleton Coast has an abundance of wrecks.
Would you risk sailing along this treacherous part of Africa?
Tell us in the comments, and while you do, make sure to like and subscribe for more!
4.
Miscky
Mike Kuun is a sailing enthusiast from South Africa.
Back in 2013, he and his girlfriend set sail from England in his 43-foot (13 meters) sailing
yacht, the Miscky, with their sights set on the Caribbean.
They had both sold their homes and everything they owned with plans to pursue economic opportunities
that they had heard about.
After spending the first month with a crew, who showed him the ropes, Kuun continued toward
his destination alone.
The crew had reassured him that he would be able to handle the voyage on his own, and
the weather report called for four days of somewhat difficult weather, but it looked
like it would be smooth sailing after that.
In the meantime, Kuun’s girlfriend made plans to fly out to their new home.
By his third day in, Kuun was encountering swells of up to 13 feet (4 meters) as he struggled
to lower the sails.
He tried to wait out the storm, but eventually started to panic and called for help.
A tanker called the Aqua Fortune diverted from its route to rescue Kuun, but had trouble
getting close enough to his yacht to help him.
He tried to cling to a rope that was thrown down from the ship, but ended up stranded
in the water for an hour and a half while the Aqua Fortune turned around and came back
to look for him.
This time, he held onto the rope for dear life and immediately collapsed once he reached
safety after having gone 2 days without sleep.
Kuun survived the terrifying ordeal, but he abandoned his beloved yacht and all his worldly
possessions and was left empty-handed.
He returned to South Africa in his wetsuit and with just a few dollars to his name.
Meanwhile, the Miscky continued to drift until it appeared along the shore of False Cape
Fria in Namibia.
After an extensive internet search, the boat’s discoverers finally managed to find Kuun.
By then, he had decided he was done with life at sea.
He told the authorities to collect any valuables that were still aboard, but that he was not
interested in retrieving the yacht, which joined the growing collection of wrecks that
line the Skeleton Coast.
Sadly, there wasn’t much left on the boat that was worth traveling to Namibia to retrieve,
especially considering the tight budget that Kuun was left with after the rescue.
In 2014, the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources clarified that it would decide what
to do with the wreck.
3.
Aralkum Desert Ship Graveyard
The Aral Sea was once the world’s 4th-largest inland sea and home to a thriving fishing
industry.
That all changed during the 1960s, when the Soviet Union diverted the rivers feeding the
sea to supply water to cotton and rice fields, causing the body of water to dry up.
A poisonous, salty wasteland called the Aralkum Desert was left behind.
The Aralkum Desert straddles the border between modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
It’s littered with rusting fishing boats that were abandoned when the Aral Sea shrunk
and its salt content skyrocketed to toxic levels, killing all of its marine life.
The sea is just a tenth of its former size, and its fishing industry is a distant memory
marked by the decaying trawlers.
Many of the ghost ships lie at the edge of what was once the bustling town of Moynaq.
They’re accompanied by derelict buildings that were once part of Moynaq and other seaside
towns.
As the Aral Sea dwindled and the fishing industry fell apart, the surrounding populations also
shrunk as people left for better opportunities elsewhere.
Many of the remaining residents experience serious health problems from the toxic dust
that blows around.
The Aral Sea is once again being fed by the rivers that were cut off from it, and it’s
growing thanks to a growing effort in recent years to revive it.
But for now, there’s no way of knowing whether the sea will eventually submerge the rotting
ships and be restored to its former glory.
2.
Eduard Bohlen
Death is ever-present along the 500-mile (805 km) stretch of remote coastline in Namibia
known as the Skeleton Coast.
It’s here, amid the brutal dryness and extreme heat, that you’ll find a shoreline littered
with animal remains and dozens of shipwrecks that lost their battle against nature.
More than 500 ships have wrecked along the Skeleton Coast over the last several hundred
years, falling victim to the mix of thick fog, rough seas, heavy winds, and unpredictable
currents that make this region so dangerous.
Sailors who survived shipwrecks and managed to reach dry land have often died of thirst
under the scorching desert sun.
One of the most famous wrecks along the Skeleton Coast is the 310-foot-long (95 meters) cargo
ship Eduard Bohlen, which ran aground in 1909 after becoming trapped in a blinding fog.
The ship became partially buried in sand as the desert encroached upon the shoreline.
It currently sits 1,000 feet (305 meter) from the water near two other wrecks – the cargo
ship MV Dunedin Star, which ran aground in 1942, and the Otavi, which foundered and sank
in 1945.
Some of the wrecks that scatter the coast are much older, dating as far back as the
16th century, serving as a sobering reminder of just how long death and destruction have
defined the region.
1.
MS Vipava
One of the more recent ships to wreck along the Skeleton Coast is the MS Vipava, a Yugoslav
freighter that, like many other vessels in the region, got lost in the fog.
The 630-ton (572 metric tons) vessel ran aground in 1968 while traveling from Yugoslavia to
Iran with a load of steel plates, rails, and paper.
Both fuel tanks were punctured and began to fill with seawater, forcing the captain to
turn off the engines.
A tugboat called the Otto Siedle tried to pull the Vipava away from the sandbank that
it had crashed into, but the tow rope broke.
Soon enough, the ship’s hull broke in two and water made its way into the engine room.
The wreck was visible for a number of years, serving as a landmark for campers.
But the treacherous waters that the region is infamous for took a toll on the destroyed
ship until all that was left of it was the engine block, which could only be seen during
low tide.
That’s also gone now, and there are no longer any visible traces of the Vipava.
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