#concrete drop in anchors in spanish

[joeallbright]

Finding Sunken Ships while Diving in the Caribbean Sea

The countries that make up the Caribbean are most widely known for their pristine beaches and aquamarine waters. The Caribbean is also a popular scuba diving spot, with many divers taking in the diverse marine life, including coral reefs. Scuba divers can also tour the sunken ships beneath the Caribbean Sea.

Cozumel, Turks and Caicos, Bonaire, and St. Croix are among some of the top scuba diving destinations. However, while they offer divers much in terms of marine scenery, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Aruba, and Roatan offer divers something more- a little bit of history.

The Bahamas is an archipelago comprised of 700 plus islands located in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and the Western Atlantic Ocean. Some top diving spots include Tiger Beach, where divers can see many tiger sharks, or visit Bimini to see hammerheads. Bimini is also where divers can tour the remnants of the once powerful 282-foot cargo steamer, the SS Sapona.

The vessel traveled the Caribbean Sea during World War I, but a 1926 hurricane caused the ship to move off course. The vessel shipwrecked near Bimini, where remnants of the wreckage still exist. Today, the wreck off Bimini is one of the most popular diving spots because of the marine life that sits below. The ship's skeleton appears on the water's surface, but frogfish, nudibranchs, starfish, and crabs live below. Furthermore, divers can see reef sharks, sea turtles, grouper, and various rays.

The Cayman Islands is also the location of two shipwrecks. Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman offer divers impressive drop-offs, with Grand Cayman being the location of Stingray City and other marine life. These islands were also the location of a significant discovery for a couple who traveled to the Cayman Islands in 1970. The couple snorkeled near Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman when they found an emerald-encrusted jewel in an area now named Lost Treasure Reef. After renting diving gear, they returned to the site to find a 13-foot gold chain, platinum bar, and 300 pounds in gold items. The booty came from a 450-year-old Spanish ship traveling from Mexico to Spain circa 1522 that disappeared.

The other sunken ship was the USS Kittiwake. The boat has remained intact after being intentionally sunken in 2011. This rescue ship traveled among the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans for five decades, beginning in 1949 and ending in 1994. After removing all its contaminants, the government sunk the ship. Today, the recreational site is shallow enough for free divers and snorkelers to tour the wreckage.

Divers can also travel to Aruba to tour Antilla, one of the Caribbean's largest (and most famous) shipwrecks. Aruba was a Dutch colony in 1940. Germany built Antilla and anchored it off the coast of Aruba in 1939. Coincidentally, Germany invaded the Netherlands, so Dutch mariners tried to board the ship, but the German captain prevented them from boarding. The captain then ordered his men to destroy the ship, after which they escaped sinking, but were apprehended by the Dutch. Today, parts of the ship's wreckage sit above the surface where pelicans and other sea birds live, but divers can find diverse anemones, hard coral, moray eels, crustaceans, and octopuses.

Finally, Roatan, an island off Honduras, is another popular for scuba diving. The lush, mountainous landscape allows divers of all levels to tour the water's depths. Those diving in the area will descend the Hole in the Wall, a steep vertical descent down a reef wall. In addition to seeing bright coral, schools of fish, rays, and moray eels, divers can also tour the El Aguila (the Eagle) shipwreck.

In 1998, before being broken into three parts during Hurricane Mitch, it measured 230 feet. Historians believe the ship was on course from Haiti to Puerto Cortes carrying concrete. After shipwrecking, it remained underwater for years before being brought into the Roatan harbor before another storm drug it out to the reef. At some point, a team purchased and cleaned the ship, sinking it in its current location.

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Cupidity – England

"In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled."

— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

England had always been stalwart.

In the beginning, that had been essential. In the rough world after Rome’s end, there had been no place for the weak and spineless. That had been a concrete fact that he had hammered into himself very early on. Brutality had been the norm and it had meant he had had to cling to life as if he were clinging to the edge of a cliff with just his fingertips.

Failure had mostly been equivalent to death, to that long drop. Nobody knew what truly lay beyond death’s door and England had never been keen to find out. So, he had held tight to his sword, to his land, had done his uttermost best anchor and protect what had him tangible.

Weathering all those invasions in the beginning had paid off, even if it had felt like he had been torn apart a hundred times and stitched back together, part of him always going missing in the process and new part being added as replacements.

No wonder his siblings had always regarded him as a changeling. He only shared a fraction of ancestry with them, because he had constantly been reformed as waves of strange and foreign people had swept over his lands and had settled. He had weathered all those storms, the humiliation of being subjugated and oppressed over and over again.

England had always been stalwart.    

It was surely something that had been about the trauma that those wars had inflicted that had kickstarted this trait, this one characteristic that always has defined him. No matter how detrimental the side effects were.

After having to suffer under the yoke of various conquerors, England had vowed to himself to always be the one that controlled, not the one that was controlled. Power is priceless in that way. It had been the spark that had ignited his ambition – to leave his mark on the world, to be the heir to Rome’s splendour.

He had always wanted so much, to be so much more than he already was. There had been stiff competition in the civilized world, with everybody vying for the top spot. Determination had taken place where hopelessness would have been seated.

Elisabeth had finally sealed his fate, had promised that the world one day be his for the taking, that he deserved it, because who else did? In this rotten, wayward world, plagued by sin and decay, there were precious few that were capable of wielding power. Arthur loved to say he was amongst that number.

First, Maya gold and Spanish silver. Precious stones from the Americas that glinted in the firelight of sinking Spanish ships as their flames were doused by sea water. They’d lie in their watery graves for all eternity, for God willed it. For God willed Britain to be rich, allowed him to steal and plunder and enrich himself at the expense of others.

And even then, it hadn’t been enough.  

Second, silk that felt like water on his scared and calloused skin and adorned him in a multitude of colours. Tea and cinnamon and curry that taken from the south and had pieced his food and served as a posh drink that eventually every one of his people had. Other spices such as pepper and cardamom and saffron than any of those fools that resided on the continent.

Aside from stoutness, stalwart has another meaning. It means loyalty and England has always had a very unorthodox way of showing it. His loyalty had only ever been to himself and his ideals. To the ambition that burned as star fire in his veins and consumed and devoured. To himself, because he was always right, because the powers that be looked down upon him favourably. Because he was civilized and blessed and destined to grandeur

It bred a loathing in him for anything that wasn’t English, that he didn’t control or have and wasn’t marked with his name. For everything that danced beyond his grasp, that defied him. It led to weariness for everyone that wasn’t of his blood or didn’t swear devotion to him. Because what he didn’t have power over was against him.    

His throne on top of the world was built upon ruins and the bones of dead empires and the bodies of those he ruled. To get there, to maintain his power, he spilled enough blood to fill rivers. To have more, he gladly ruined others. Because that was where he was fated to be. So, he enthusiastically plunged his fingers deeper in festering wounds and bleed other nations dry so that he could glutton himself on the spoils.

He had conquered his siblings because proximity creates rivalry. Because that, that has slight deviation from the gold standard is the most horrendous. They may have rebelled, and he may have quashed them with the brutality. But that was only because it all fell in the natural order. Not that he had ever expected anything else, those nations that weren’t him could never be alike him and therefore earned a place under his heel.

Britain had carved out pieces of the New World for himself, for power and resources, – sugar and cotton – because expansion was an essential part of a nations existence. When Alfred had left it had been a smarting blow to his pride.

As was to be expected, he had occupied part of Africa and Asia, had imposed his laws and customs and established peoples and acted in violence when his will was neglected and opposed. He had looted and stolen and pushed their histories in obscurity so that they had to accommodate him and his teachings.

He had installed himself in new lands and had eradicated the old and purged it. All of that so that he could sow new seeds to grow something strong and virile. Sturdy things that would solidify his rule and lush fruit that he reaped for his own benefit.

Arthur knew how others had seen him – as a pooka, as a kitsune, as a spider that manipulated events to his liking. They knew he wanted to tailor the world according to his wished, yet what they grasped far to late was the skulduggery he utilized to achieve his ends. He had always been unconventional, yet nobody could concretely say he was without finesse. France would always dispute that, yet it took keenness to slip through the cracks and exploit weaknesses when the opportunities arose.

England had always been stalwart.

And he had need that when his century had come to a close. He had needed it when the bombs had dropped. When he had been forced to abdicate, when he had no longer been able to look at the globe with anticipation but rather cynicism as his empire had crumbled.

It had taken strength to see that bastard boy fill the niche he had left, to now pull all the strings he had once held. To have the world as an oyster where he wallowed in nostalgia for his old glory. Yet he knew that not all was lost, even as he felt himself deteriorated further.

He would survive, as he always had.

[noisykate]

Majorca

13 May 2017 (Posted 24 May)

The trip over from Ibiza was mostly brilliant; an average speed of 6 knots over 9 hours.  The “fair wind and following seas” of dreams and good wishes, accompanied by several lots of porpoises. The last 3 hours were a bit rolly, as the sustained 20+ knot wind built the waves up over the afternoon, and we reefed down a couple of times, to a half genoa and mizzen only, still doing 6 knots. Arriving in a little bay west of Palma at 11.30pm by moonlight, we found ‘Albatross’ and ‘Arctic Fern’ already anchored. We dropped our anchor between them, and settled in for a slightly rolly night, although the movement was much less than it had been at sea.

In the morning, we realised that of the nine boats anchored, we knew 4 of them, including ‘Gwendolyne’, the concrete-hulled gaff-rigged boat we met in the Rias.

The serenity was soon broken, with a constant stream of motor boats of all sizes arriving from nearby Palma, with varying degrees of competence. One motored over our trip line, cutting off the float. Fortunately, Howard and Caroline were watching and recovered it for us. The offending boat reluctantly donated 20 euros for a new line.  Another one spent 20 mins drifting through the anchorage trying to get his anchor down, with the spike of it wedged very firmly into his gel coat where he had obviously pulled it up last time without checking it, and docked it into the ‘keep’ upside down - ouch. Another one arrived, dropped their anchor and skipped off to the restaurant, leaving their boat gently dragging its anchor through the other anchored boats, causing one £££arge one some major problems recovering their anchor around it to move out of its way. The offending crew rocked up later, unperturbed, well fed; reset their anchor and sunbathed the afternoon away.

Ashore, there are some huge caves, allegedly carved out first by the Phoenicians. Or maybe by miners in the 14th century. There is, in typical Spanish fashion, no information anywhere on the why, the when or the how.  There is a huge complex clearly visible (and freely visitable) from the bay side, with some elaborate carvings inside, and some more portal-shapes (after which the bay Cala Portals takes its name) in the cliffs facing the sea – one providing shelter to some feral goats.

We have spent the last few weeks touring Ibiza; with David for a few days, then with Rachel and Nathan. We met up with Cousin Nigel, who lives - predictably - near the hippy market, in his aged airstream camper van.  

Rachel’s trip was supposed to include a trip to trendy Formentera, but the winds were wrong for it, so we went the other way, and anchored in beautiful Portinax. Unfortunately, the wind swung around overnight, leaving us rolling badly, so we upped-sticks at 2.30 am and motorsailed in the dark to Santa Eulalia, arriving there at about 6am. We returned to San Antonio via Es Palmador and Vedra, accompanied by dolphins for some of the way. Not enough to compensate Rachel for the nocturnal move from Portinax, though - so much for showing Rachel the glamorous up-side of sailing after her “near-death” experience in Scotland.  

The highlights of Ibiza; taking David to San Miguel, and watching him tear around the bay fighting for control of the oppy, and later a couple of days at Benirras, a beautiful little cove in the north of the Island, which we ‘shared’ with Albatross, Arctic Fern, and Spindrift. On Sundays, the local hippies congregate and ‘drum in the sunset’, with various drums and other percussion jazzing away for hours. In summer, they apparently continue until close to dawn, but for us, when the cool of the evening fell at about 11pm, they drifted away and it fell silent. In the morning, we walked to the neighbouring bay, San Miguel, and looked down on the anchorage we had taken David to.

The four boats then had a wonderful barbecue together on the beach the following night, making use of a rough timber balcony on a fisherman’s hut, watching the sun set over the sea, behind the rock guarding the bay.

The swimming on the first day was marred by ‘Medusa!!’ (jellyfish), which stung my arms and legs in several places before I was rescued by Mike in the dinghy. The next day, they had all gone, and it was lovely; the visibility fantastic, the bottom clear as a bell 5m away - underwater photo of a cuttlefish below! The jellyfish in question are clearly ‘poisonous’, but not drastically so, the sting about as painful as a stinging nettle, the sting-pain fading more quickly, although the weals have now come up again, and are itchy. Annoying, though relatively trivial.

Mallorca, so far (two days!) has been beautiful, but manically busy with other boatws, and therefore not particularly restful. I hope that as things settle down, we can find smaller anchorages that are out of day-range of the motor-boat crowd.  The ‘personal space’ around a sailing boat is quite significant – at least one clear boat length in every direction. The motorboaters take a different view, as they are generally stopping for a few hours at most, and anything less than actual physical contact is apparently fine with them. They are, individually, quite cheerful; stereotyping only very slightly: happy-go-lucky, fun types, with tattoos and boob jobs. Collectively, it is difficult to consider them less than a scourge, bringing with them noise, the smell of burning hydrocarbons, and constant jostling and movement.

A second day in the same place has been, if anything, worse – motorboats squeezing into ridiculous spaces, one or other of them constantly racing their tenders around the anchorage dodging swimmers.

At the end of today, it fell quiet as the last motorboat, towing the last ‘personal watercraft’ (jetski to you and me) hustled away accompanied by their loud stereo system and appalling choice of music, leaving us all bouncing in its huge wake. It was into the newfound tranquillity that Mike announced ‘we need to run the generator’. Let’s just say that I was very deeply unimpressed by this - that the peace of the evening, with the setting sun glowing on the portals of the Phoenician cave, the water sparkling - is being ruined by the din of our bloody buggering generator.  Karma, perhaps. I must be nicer to those poor motorboaters.

Now nearer Palma, to make contact with The Man Who Fixes Watermakers. Looks like we might be able to get a working watermaker for about 1000 euro. Ouch, but less than the 4500 for a new one…

Struggling to get usable internet – means taking the laptop ashore and buying coffee…

Now in Cala Pi, a tiny little rocky inlet, with a beach at the end, blue-green water – a lovely sail over here from Cala Islettas, where we spent the last few days with Arctic Fern and Albatross. Bus trip to Palma yesterday – nice enough town, usual tourist stuff, plus lots of higher-end clothing shops for the motorboat crowd. One of the marinas here is allegedly the ‘most expensive in the med’. Full of huge motorboats; a better visual symbol for the banking crisis ‘winners and losers’ would be hard to find.

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Moved on again; went back to Cala Isletas to meet up with Restless Spirits (Trina and Phil) the couple we first met in Den Helder, then again in Brighton.  They are having a short sprint round the med, courtesy of the Schengen agreement, which limits them to 90 days in the whole Schengen area, in any 180 day period. For the rest of the year, they are forced out of the area to spend their money somewhere else. This restriction apparently does not apply to New Zealanders; there is some special arrangement for them as recompense for the Rainbow Warrior episode, when people were murdered by the French secret service on the Greenpeace boat, then located in NZ waters.

We have now moved to Santa Ponsa, a large and pretty bay at the southern end of the island; shopping, washing, change the bed, a swim, catching up with all the others moored here that we know – two boats at the moment, but another 6 expected, meeting up for Lisa’s birthday on Thursday.