Mysterious Sable Island. Volcanic pumice - a drifting island An island that moves

The sailors tried to bypass the “ghost island” by the tenth side, just to get to their destination alive. According to various sources, from 350 to 500 ships found their last refuge near Sable Island.

Atlantic "graveyard of a thousand dead ships"

The gloomy glory of Sable testifies to the incredible number of shipwrecks that occurred here. For centuries, sailors have passed on terrible legends associated with this place from mouth to mouth, calling the island a “ghost”, “deadly saber” and “tomb of the Atlantic”.

Who owns the discovery of the ill-fated Sable remains a mystery. The Norwegians, the French, and the British attribute this to themselves. The island may have been discovered by the Portuguese in the 16th century. There is also a version that Sable opened French traveler Jean de Lery, who gave the name to the island. But most truthfully, the true discoverers rested on seabed many centuries ago, and their names will remain a blank spot in history forever.

On a note! The island is a nature reserve and belongs to Canada.

Before the advent of more accurate navigation instruments and satellite mapping, the Sable Island area was like a miracle.

For five centuries, the name “Sable” alone (from the English “horror”) inspired fear. In fact, “Sable” has another, more scientific interpretation. Translated from French"Sable" means "sand". Indeed, the island is all sand. But it has a fantastic feature - it migrates throughout the Atlantic!

"Living Island": a grave for hundreds of ships

Scientists have found that two currents meet near the island - the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current. It is their “conflict” that makes the water “boil”, creating dizzying whirlpools.

The island is located in the Atlantic Ocean, 180 km from Nova Scotia. In the shape of a saber, it is small in size - only 38.5 by 1.5 km. Moreover, if the width is variable, then the length of the island never changes!

Because the island is in constant motion, the risk of running aground here is one of the highest in the world. In addition, the island can experience continuous fog for many weeks, alternating with explosive storms. And only one month a year, in July, does Sable calm down.

Sand dunes, sparse vegetation and strong winds - the climate on Sable is harsh. The island constantly “adjusts” to the color of the sea waves and changes its relief. And quicksand literally pulls in huge ships in a matter of months.

“Anomalous zone” is what scientists call this place. The “brother” of the Bermuda Triangle, due to the many shipwrecks that occurred in the constantly changing waters of the island, is of interest not only to geologists, but also to ufologists. There were even versions about its alien origin.

There is only a meteorological station on the island, so the 15 people serving it are all the inhabitants of the island. This government of Canada in the 20th century decided to at least somehow secure ships plying past the island by establishing a weather station here and building.

This is interesting! The last shipwreck occurred in the Sable area in 1947, when the USS Manhasset collided with the island. The entire team was saved.

Since something was constantly happening to people on the island, it was decided to put the lighthouse offline and remove the watch method for its maintenance. Therefore, there are literally a dozen people here with an extremely stable psyche, one must assume. After all, more than once station employees talked about visions and ghosts.

The main “aboriginals” of Sable are wild horses, of which there are about 300 individuals. In addition, Sable is a real archaeological find. Relics of the past are constantly being found here. So, according to estimates, the total value of the valuables from the ships sunk here is about two million pounds sterling!

Visiting the island is difficult, but possible. If, of course, you take the risk. The decision is made by Transport Canada. It is better to sail to the island by ship in July-August. It is worth getting there by helicopter in October. In the remaining months, stay at home, do not replenish the “arsenal” of Sable’s victims.

Inexplicable but the fact

The island is moving at a speed of two hundred meters per year! Only satellites can determine its exact topographic location. Over the last century of observations, the island has “moved” 20 km to the east.

The nomadic island has been a source of secrets and legends for many years. Many of which still have no scientific explanation. For example, from the point of view of science, any island is a kind of peak of an underwater mountain. A mountain is part of a tectonic plate. There are many such plates on Earth, and they are able to move no faster than a few millimeters per year. How can an island roam up to 230 m annually? Scientists assume: the island is not connected either to the mountain or to the ocean floor. Why and how is this possible? No answer. One thing is clear: Sable is great at keeping her secrets.

The world's oceans are rich in mysterious, mysterious and dangerous places for people. These include little-explored areas of land in boundless waters, rogue waves, the Devil's Belt, treacherous whirlpools, underground volcanoes, and huge tsunamis. It is simply impossible to list all the varied treachery of the mighty waters. Sable Island occupies not the last place in this sad row. It is located in the North Atlantic, very close to Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia is a peninsula on which the Canadian province of the same name is located. The above-mentioned island is only 180 km from it. This piece of land is located northeast of Halifax, the capital of the administrative entity. It has the shape of an elongated crescent and is very small in size. Its length is only a little over 40 kilometers, and its width reaches one and a half kilometers at its widest point.

The island's topography consists of sandy hills and long dunes interspersed with small areas of grassy land. The highest hill on the island reaches a height of 34 meters and is called Riggin Hill. There are no rivers or streams. There are several lakes. The largest and deepest of them all is Lake Wallace. Its depth reaches 4 meters. The water in it is brackish, since the reservoir is very close to the ocean. High waves during storms easily overcome a narrow stretch of land and sea salt dilutes the fresh water.

There are no trees or shrubs on Sable Island. Sand rules the show here. It is he who is responsible for the fact that this curved narrow piece of land is constantly moving and gradually moving away from the Canadian shores. Its movement speed is 230 meters per year. Over the past 200 years, the island has drifted almost 40 km from the mainland.

Of course, such “swimming” cannot be taken literally. The thing is that the western sandy part of the island is constantly being washed away by sea waters. Sand is transferred to eastern part, which for this reason is growing all the time. As a result, it seems that the island is moving, moving further and further into the open ocean.

But Sable Island is notable not only for its “movement.” For several hundred years it has been called the “ship devourer.” Where did such a gloomy phrase come from?

The whole point here is that this piece of land is very difficult to see from the deck of a sailing ship. The sand on the island has the amazing property of taking on the color of a sea wave and merging with the ocean. This optical effect has always led to the fact that ships plying the ocean near the Canadian coast very often wedged their entire mass into the coastline of the treacherous sandy land. Heavy ships ran aground and received holes. The sailors on them either drowned or made it to the island.

The further fate of the surviving people was different. But the fate of the damaged ships was clear. The coastal sand began, in the literal sense of the word, to suck in the castaways. ocean ships. And this happened very quickly. Less than a month passed before the ship was completely hidden in sandy soil. Only the masts remained on the surface, which disappeared over the next couple of weeks.

This was observed 400, 300, and 200 years ago. At first, the island devoured small wooden boats, then huge sailing ships, and finally the turn came to ships with steel hulls. Dimensions ocean liners did not play any role. Everything was sucked into the sand, like into a bottomless swamp.

The ship, caught in the fatal embrace, sank slowly into the shifting soil at first. The island seemed to be tasting a new object and was in no hurry to swallow it. But every day the process of immersion accelerated. Within a couple of weeks, the huge ship was half hidden in the sand. Another 10 days, and the remaining part of the hull sank into sandy soil. After a month and a half, there were no traces of the liner.

Nowadays, the sand sometimes washes away and part of a hull is exposed. It could be a sailing ship from the 17th century or a well-built ship from the 20th century. A little time passes, and the sand washes up again and hides the traces of its crimes.

It is still unknown who discovered Sable Island. Many researchers claim that the Vikings first landed on it 1000 years ago. These eternal sea travelers plied the seas and oceans in all directions. They visited North America long before Columbus and naturally honored the mysterious island with their attention.

There are indeed serious arguments denying this statement. There is an opinion that this piece of land became an island only 500 years ago. Before that, it was part of the continental landmass. Then, for reasons still unknown, a piece of land broke away from the mainland and began to move into the ocean.

At first it was very large. The length of this formation was 370 km and the width was 300 km. These figures are taken from nautical charts XVI century. That is, at that time they already knew about the island. It's really unclear what he was. It is unknown what kind of relief it had and what kind of soil it was.

Some researchers believe that Sable Island was discovered by Jean de Lery. The same French traveler who lived for a long time in South America among the Indians. Therefore, this is the beginning of the second half of the 16th century. Other historians point to the British whalers. Allegedly, it was they who first set foot on sandy soil at the end of the 16th century mysterious island. In a word, the question of the discoverer or discoverers remains open.

People did not immediately unravel the bloodthirsty essence of the island. Shipwrecks happened all over the ocean, and there was no radio communication in ancient times. More than a dozen years passed before sailors began to realize that a small piece of land was fraught with mortal danger.

However, those shipwrecked near the shaky sandy shores very often made it to land and felt quite at ease on it. Lakes with fresh water, some kind of vegetation, the remains of ship hulls - all this gave people the opportunity to somehow arrange their temporary life. The food was seals. Their colonies have settled on the island for centuries. True, after the end of the mating season, these eared seals swam to the sea and were absent for 6 whole months. This undoubtedly affected the condition of people if they ended up on the island when there was no living creature on it.

At the end of the 18th century, horses appeared on a mysterious piece of land. They survived in harsh conditions and fully adapted to them. How these artiodactyls got to the island is unknown. Most likely they ended up on it due to a shipwreck. Currently, about 300 wild horses live on Sable Island. As for people, they settled on the sandy soil at the end of the 19th century. These were not settlers, but government employees. Frequent shipwrecks forced the British, who at that time already owned the island after the French, to build a lighthouse on it. That is, the employees were the staff of this lighthouse, and were also considered a rescue team.

In the middle of the 20th century, 2 lighthouses and a radio beacon were installed on the treacherous land. In the 21st century, Sable Island became a nature reserve. Nowadays, you can only get to it by obtaining special permission. Here, fur seals and wild horses are protected by law.

This is Canadian soil. Employees and their families live on it. The total population does not exceed 30 people. The specialists’ task includes servicing beacons, radio stations and the Hydrometeorological Center. These people are also rescuers, but over the past 65 years there have been no shipwrecks near the island.

Of all the buildings, there are two houses resting on a solid foundation. In addition to them, there are also trailer houses. There are no other buildings on the crescent-shaped piece of land, unless you take into account the hangar for rescue boats.

There is a unique monument built from ship masts. It is all hung with boards with the names of ships that perished near the dry banks. This chronology has been carried out since 1800. Taking into account the previous centuries, we can safely say that hundreds of ships found their end near the treacherous land.

There is a strong opinion that the valuables that rest in the sands are worth several tens of millions of dollars. These include expensive dishes, works of art, and gold. All these items were once transported on ships and found their end near the unstable shores.

Given the special status of the island, no work on the extraction of marine treasures is being carried out on it. The residents themselves are more busy growing gardens than searching for some treasures. Fishing is also an integral part of everyday life. There are a lot of fish in coastal waters.

Despite the fact that man has inhabited this sandy piece of land for a very long time, it is greatest mystery World ocean. Even 40 years ago, the island was predicted to completely disappear. It “moved” into the ocean and, by all laws, should have disappeared. But nothing of the kind happened. Sable Island not only did not disappear, but even increased slightly in size. This contradicts all established opinions about the world around us, but the fact is obvious. So the solution to this natural phenomenon is still ahead.

There is an amazing Sable Island in the North Atlantic. You can meet it a hundred miles southeast of the Canadian port of Halifax. But an encounter with an anomalous drifting island often ends tragically. So it is better to avoid encounters with a curiosity. The mystery of the small /44 x 1.5 km / island is that in the North Atlantic it leads a nomadic lifestyle. This is an island that cannot sit in one place.

In addition, the indicated dimensions of the island are not entirely correct. For example, on the maps of navigators from the 16th century, the dimensions of the island were different. As Italian, French and English maps of that time indicate, the size of the island ranged from 280 to 370 km. Sable Island, which roams the sea, was a sandbank stretching from east to west. Which, over the course of thousands of years, with its wanderings across the Atlantic, has labeled this area as “dangerous for navigation.”

Speed drifting island Sable towards the east is 200m/year. And then, having reached a certain point visible to him alone, he returns. And it must be said that with its nomadic life, the island brought many disasters to sailors. After all, every meeting with a floating island meant someone's death. As was assumed back in the 19th century, the island would soon disappear under water. Because moving east, he reached greater depths, while himself plunging more and more under water.

However, the island of legend did not disappear into the depths of the sea. In addition, while staying afloat, the nomad even gained some size. As sailors talk about the island, it is very difficult to notice from the ocean even in the clearest weather and calm - it is almost impossible until you run into it. The reason for this is the almost flat surface of the island. And the height of 34 meters hides it from the eyes of sailors. Moreover, in these places, during autumn and winter storms, waves 15 meters high are common.

The sands of Sable Island also have another anomalous feature. According to sailors, the sand of the island can be painted in the color of the waters washing it, and is often shrouded in fog. This is what makes the nomadic island invisible to sailors. So there is too little time left to see the island in advance in order to avoid a collision.

But that's not all; another misfortune awaited the sailors who found themselves on the treacherous island. Sable's Quicksand. As legends tell, the island swallowed a considerable number of victims. Sailors, having hit the island, inevitably ran aground. And no one was able to help the ship in trouble.

As legends tell, the island swallowed hundreds of ships, and thousands of sailors died in the sands of Siebla. Less than three months passed before the ship, captured by the island, disappeared into the sands. And on the surface of the island, in the shape of a crescent, grass and low bushes still swayed. And the wild horses ran calmly. The island could easily drag ships 120 meters long and with a displacement of 5 thousand tons into its quicksands of oblivion. For this reason, among sailors, Sable is not called anything other than “Ship Eater”.

Sable took his last victim in 1947. It was the American steamship Manhattan, with a crew that had sailed the ocean more than once, knowing that these places were considered dangerous for navigation. And yet caught in the deadly embrace of the drifting Sable. This was the last dinner of the Ship Eater. Before that, he managed to arrange about 360 shipwrecks, ruining thousands of lives. For which it became known as the “Cemetery of the Atlantic”, and gained popularity like other “ Cemetery of the Atlantic", lying in the Cape Hatteras area.

Immediately after the sinking of the steamship Manhattan, on the island is installed beacon, and one radio beacon. And a team of 15 to 25 people settles on Sable, servicing the equipment and studying the island. From now on, the drifting island of Sable no longer devours ships.

Such an anomalous behavior of Sable Island is explained by the influence of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current on the sand of the mainland shallows found in these places. The combined actions of currents form huge whirlpools and complicate navigation in these places, which is what made Sable such an ominous place. And there is nothing anomalous in the behavior of the island at all. However …..

The island's staff, who live in houses specially prepared for quicksand, tell creepy stories about this cemetery drifting in the ocean. Often the island's caretakers see ghosts roaming the island at night. And in the 50s, one of the caretakers had to be urgently evacuated from the island; his mental state was deplorable. He was often visited at night by sailors with the dead “Sylvia Mosher”, who begged him to save them...

On that day in 1926, the island was destroyed by two American schooners, one of them was the Sadie Nickle and the other was the Sylvia Mosher. Powerful waves easily threw the first schooner over the “Ship Eater” spit from one side to the other, where it was destroyed by the cutting sands. And the schooner “Sylvia Mosher” was capsized by the waves at the island’s shallows, and she joined the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”.

Sable Island today.

In modern times, only a few families live on Sable Island, an unusual fact in the island's dramatic history, but since 1920, two people have been born on it. Of the old buildings, only the old lifeguard station has survived on the island, which has become a rarity here. It was built from the wreckage of the victims shipwreck ships whose remains were washed ashore by the waves.

Currently, Sable Island is declared a protected area, and access to the island is prohibited without special permission.

And the waves happen here often and reach considerable heights. Very rarely does the weather allow locals to swim and bask in the sun. On the contrary, very often hurricane winds rage on the island and storm waves rumble. At such moments, residents do not leave the house, so as not to tempt fate. Sometimes, after a strong storm, the island changes its shape. And on Saturdays, adhering to the turn schedule, they gather in the house of the family whose turn has come, and establish radiotelephone communication with relatives on the mainland.

It is now " Ship Eater" And " Cemetery of the Atlantic“He behaves calmly, and does not look for new victims - he is held in the hands of the station lighthouse keepers. But driving around the island's possessions on tamed ponies, the caretakers check what the waves bring them, and whether there are any traces of lost ships on the shore. And this is very hard work, including in the sense psychological load .

After all, those living on the island know that tens of thousands of people found their last refuge in these places. And very often, while examining the sands of Sable, people find old gold coins and other antiques. Many people already have an extensive collection of this kind. But at the same time, caretakers very, very often encounter human remains in the sands of Sable.....

Sable Island, which belongs to Canada, is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic and strange places on a map of the Earth. It is located near Halifax, a Canadian port, in the north Atlantic Ocean. It is at this point that the warm Gulf Stream meets the cold Labrador Current.

Translation of the name of the island from different languages ​​will sound like “sand”, “black, mourning color”. And Canadians call it nothing more than “octopus tentacles.” Strange…

The size and shape of Sable Island are also special. It resembles a crescent moon that is just over 40 km long. Its greatest width is approximately 1.5 km.

Mysteries of the nomadic Sable Island

Cursed island, ship killer, ship devourer, treacherous place - these are the epithets this small island is awarded with. What's the matter? It turns out that this narrow strip of land is constantly moving at an incredible speed - almost 200 meters per year! The island itself is often covered in thick fog. Low and flat, hidden in the darkness, it seems to be waiting for prey, hiding behind the waters of the cold ocean. During a strong storm and high waves, it is completely impossible to notice the ghost island.

On Sable Island, sand can change its color to match the color of the ocean waters. This is another incredible feature of the strange island. The contours of the island are constantly changing, because a strong current erodes the sand on one side and washes it on the other. This is the reason for the high speed of the island's movement in the easterly direction. Geologists are at a loss. Such a movement is nonsense... After all, Sable is located on a powerful tectonic plate that drifts only millimeters per year! It turns out that this island is moving faster than the ocean floor! It is still unclear why this happens.

“Graveyard of the Atlantic” is the second name for the ominous Sable Island. There have been more than 300 shipwrecks near the island. If a ship washed up on this piece of land, a terrible fate awaited it. The quicksand of the nomadic island swallowed the ship within a couple of months. The landscape of the island is quite gloomy. Sometimes Sable, as if wanting to bring terror to the world around her, returns the remains of ships to the surface. From somewhere they reappear on the surface of the island.

Is there life on the ominous Sable Island?

Only grass and rare low plants grow on the island. All the trees planted here died. Here live wild horses, similar to ponies, of which there are about three hundred, and a large colony of rare seals - tevyak. Wild animals have adapted to the fact that there is only quicksand and the ocean around. At the beginning of 1960, the state took the inhabitants of the island under its protection. And now this amazing creation of nature is a national treasure and a protected area. Therefore, you can visit the nomadic Sable Island only after receiving special permission.

Life on the treacherous island, of course, is not easy and dangerous. There are only no more than 30 people here permanently. These are employees of the meteorological station. They are trying to prevent new shipwrecks in these ominous waters. Canadian authorities have taken measures to improve shipping safety. Several lighthouses were built. After ensuring more or less normal visibility near the shores of Sable, the terrible disasters around the island stopped.

Sable Island, this strange and mysterious creation of nature, steadily continues its movement. For what purpose, where and under the influence of what factors, in addition to the currents known to scientists, this island, more like an incomprehensible mysterious creature, is moving, no one can yet answer. Researchers continue to study this phenomenon, but there is still a long way to go to unravel the secrets of the nomadic island...

Nomadic Sable Island photo

As soon as the ship touches the keel of Sable's quicksand, it is doomed to destruction.

David Johnson, lighthouse keeper

Sable, saber or sand?

This happened by accident when in the summer I was flying from Murmansk to Cuba. Our Tu-114, bypassing the southern coast of Greenland, was supposed to fly over Sable, then enter the route running along east coast North American continent - to Havana. I asked the pilots to show me the island, about which I had been collecting information for many years in sailing directions and old maps, in geographical books and travel notes. It was a clear sunny day and there were no clouds under the plane. Through the wide windows of the cabin from a height of eight thousand meters - through the on-board binoculars that the pilots allowed me to use - I saw a narrow curved strip in the frozen blue of the ocean. Along south coast The wide white edge of the surf was clearly visible on the island.

An oblong lake, the metal roofs of five or six buildings and a dozen aluminum houses that looked like hangars flashed in the sun. One could make out a radio mast, two openwork beacons and a stationary helicopter. Thus, “at a high level,” my personal acquaintance with Sable Island took place.

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."

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 as English maps 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 Leri gave the new island French name"SABLE". After all, in French it means “sand,” and the island actually consists only of sand.

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 The waters here are stormy and shallow, 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 graveyard of the North Atlantic. Here, under many meters of sand, lie the sharp-chested canoes of the brave Vikings, clumsy carracks and galleons of the Spaniards and Portuguese, gulets of Brittany fishermen, strong pine ships of Nantucket whalers, English smacks, cutters from Goole, heavy three-masted ships of the West India Company, 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 its terrain beyond recognition coastline. 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 heavy 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 ocean waves, reveal 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 coined gold doubloons 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.

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 unexpectedly 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 has passed since quicksand Sable, the English ship Princess Amelia was lost. 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 patrolmen galloped to 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 suddenly came at night tore off most of the 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 steering wheel 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 this was the only case when the team did not need the help of the islanders.

Perhaps the most dramatic shipwreck at Sable was the death of the American passenger ship"State of Virginia" 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 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 purpose, they have undergone special training and have the most modern rescue equipment at their disposal. 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 housed 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.”