Washington State Wrecks

[Whitewings]

I am new to the forum so wont say much but there are a lot of wrecks along the Washington coast near the straits of Juan De Fuca. You can check in the liabrary.

Urban Legend? It is said that a fishing (Type) boat sank off the coast, near the entrance to the straits with all hands. The boat was carrying a chemical substance that slowly realeases gas that causes the boat to rise to the surface every now and then. The currants cause the boat to appear in different places. I have talked to two different Native American fishermen who claim to have seen it and the Coast Guard says they have never even heard of it. Fun story tho.

Bill W

 

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[mariner]

Whitewings,

You might already know this, but just below Cape Flattery, at Cape Alava, is site of a Makah village called Ozette, which was buried by a sudden and deep mudslide sometime before, or around, the end of the 16th century. More houses were built on the site later, but when they excavated some of the houses in the 1980s, the found more than a hundred pieces of metal and a single European trade bead down in the original level. When the National Geographic ran an article about the excavations, they conveniently forgot to mention these finds, presenting the site as a pristine Native village with no white contact. A little south of the village are some rocks containing pictographs. One is of an old sailing ship, but it is impossible to date or identify it. I first visited the site about 1991 and have been back a couple of times. It is a bit of a hike to get down to Ozette, but there is a wooden boardwalk, and well worth the effort, because it is one of the most peaceful and serene places I have ever visited. I suggested at the time that the trade bead and some of the metals may have come from Drake, but it could have also been from another early European ship that somehow ended up there and perhaps wrecked.

As for the story of the ship that keeps resurfacing, I suppose that stranger things have happened, but are you sure the fishermen were not spinning you a good yarn?

Mariner

Incidentally, I have been looking at a map that was published in 1742, three decades before Juan Perez and Cook reached the NW coast, and it shows Cape Flattery, the Juan de Fuca Strait, the west coast of Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Sound with such accuracy that it must have been drawn from first hand knowledge. I will dig out the comparison I made between this map and the actual coastline and post it on the forum.

 

[underc]

Whitewings,

My first post here. I am third generation in the Tacoma area and have heard many stories over the years. My Mother told me a story of her Grandfather seeing an "Alaska Gold Rush" ship go down "off an island somewhere off the coast". Well... with those specific directions, I have rushed right to the spot. None the less, I have always thought of all of the possibilities off the coast. The Japaneses Current has been depositing floats on Copalis Beach forever. I have 3 that I found when I was in High School. Why not undocumented wrecks from China or Japan that drifted around the Gulf of Alaska and were dumped in our waters off the coast?

I used to work for the Navy doing ordinance Recovery off of Quinalt with ROVs. We found a modern fishing vessel sitting upright in about 150 feet of water. I have the coordinates written down somewhere. Maybe it's your Mystery Boat? Kind of far South for that.

Urban legends are almost always based in some fact. Just have to sort the fact from fiction. That's the fun part.

UnderC