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GHOST SHIPS
Ghost ships are usually linked to shipwrecks and
disasters. The ghost ship usually appears at the scene of
the disaster on a stormy night.
Most ghost ship wrecks stories come from the British Isles
and surrounding areas. The most haunted area is considered
to be Goodwin Sands. Legend has it that more than 50,000
people lost their lives on the sandbank. The Lady
Lovibond is the most famous of the ghost ships. It
was lost on February 13, 1748. Every 50 years the Lady
Lovibond is seen in the area. Pirates who sailed the
seas in the 17th and 18th centuries are often associated
with ghost ships.
There are also dozens of tales of ghost ships from the
Great Lakes region as hundreds of ships have been lost on
these storm-tossed waters since man began to navigate them.
Sailors who are familiar with the Great Lakes can tell you
these waters are as dangerous as any ocean, and much more
haunted! Ships have simply sailed off into oblivion on
these lakes, never to be heard from again. |
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Many ships disappear in the dark waters of the
Great Lakes, but many of them do show up again... as phantom
ships.
The ghost ship, the
Western Reserve, has been spotted in the waters off of Deer
Park, Michigan. The schooner went down in April of 1892 and was the
property of famous financier Peter Minch. He had been aboard with
his family the day the ship went down. Only the wheelman survived
the wreck and the ship continues to be sighted today. Strangely,
Captain Truedell of the Great Lakes Life-Saving Service dreamed the
exact details of the accident before it happened. He saw it in such
detail that he recognized the body of Peter Minch when he found it
washed up on shore.
Weary am I of the
tumult, sick of the staring crowd,
Pining for wild sea places where the soul may think aloud.
Fled is the glamour of cities, dead as the ghost of a dream,
While I pine anew for the tint of blue on the breast of the old Gulf
Stream.
I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame;
I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of
shame;
But I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves,
Where the rainbows play in the flying spray,
'Mid the keen salt kiss of the waves.
Then it's ho! for the plunging deck of a bark, the hoarse song of
the crew,
With never a thought of those we left or what we are going to do;
Nor heed the old ship's burning, but break the shackles of care
And at last be free, on the open sea, with the trade wind in our
hair..
Eugene O'Neill, Free
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