It seems I've been missing a couple interesting stories over the months. Like the story I never told about the bike ride we took just after Rory left. After those 175 hours and the weeks that followed, I declared one day that we needed to "do something". A bike ride it would be. We started at the North wells, which have been there for a very long time, but were later built up as drinking troughs for the feral animals on the island. We disturbed some grazing cows and donkeys who paid us little mind. We walked around in that area, having just completed the GT-4 survey, and I practiced my new archeological skills. There wasn't very much sign of life until we found some chiseled out water catchments with pottery scattered around it. Then Neal and I had a fight about a hole that was clearly formed by water erosion, but since we were so far from shore some people didn't think it was plausible. Then we road around poking our noises into abandoned US bases and the old quarry. It was such a nice break from sitting at a computer, I guess I didn't want to get back in front of one to share it. The day ended up at the mangroves at North Point that I took Patricia too, hence the jogged memories.
Anyway, the Harold is a wonderful tale. The version I'm told goes as follows:
The Harold wrecked just at the middle point between Cork Tree beach and the mouth of North Creek in 1890 - about a mile off the shore. In his report, the captain claimed that the Lighthouse light was out and caused them to hit the reef with no warning. It was violent. You can still see how the stern of the ship whipped around to face the bow, with its insides strewn about in between.
Once the ship was declared a total wreck, the inhabitants were allowed to salvage what they could. There is a story of a small boy drifting away from the crowd who were busy vying for their share of the cargo. He was later picked up on South Caicos. Did he go unnoticed, or was he just ignored and left to his own devices? We may never know. The tiles that were in the Harold's hold can still be seen around the downtown area.
There are also reports of another ship not long after the Harold wrecked. The captain, trying to nagivate through the channel, judged that the dim light from the Lighthouse meant they were about 6 miles from the island. Feeling secure with this distance, the captain set his course to follow another vessel just ahead, also making it's way around Grand Turk. They wrecked right next to the Harold.
Stories like these started gossip that the Turks Islanders were intentionally causing shipwrecks to collect the cargoes. The Harold's captain's report is one of a few officially lodged complaints to the fact, but no one knows say for sure. I think about these things when I read the Lighthouse Log book - but that starts in 1895, too late to clear up these stories.
Photos courtesy of Karen's underwater camera and the Lighthouse Collection (TCNM.2009.45) in the Archives of the Turks and Caicos National Museum.
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