SS: Shipwreck Series Mystery Cache
Knagur Green: The cache appears to be in need of owner intervention. I'm temporarily disabling it, to give the owner an opportunity to check on the cache, and take whatever action is necessary. Please respond to this situation in a timely manner (i.e., within 30 days) to prevent the cache from being archived for non-responsiveness
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The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death, Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath. - William Falconer, 1752
With over 2600 wrecks and 7000 lives lost along our coast, travelling by sea around the Cape of Storms has been fraught with peril. In this era of air travel and modern navigation, it is easy to turn our back on the ocean and forget what an integral and important part of South African history ships have played.
Situated on a vital trade route, the Cape has also unfortunately experienced the tragic consequence of numerous and often forgotten shipwrecks. This series reveals some fascinating tales of heroism, courage, sacrifice, terror, murder, greed, theft, cruelty and exploitation. Almost all of these wrecks are now no longer visible or above water, so please take the time to read the descriptions and, as you sign the log try to imagine what it must have been like for the people on board that wreck in such foul weather.
This bonus cache can be located if you have successfully found and completed a number of other caches in the series. The coordinates of this cache will be revealed on the back of certain logbooks. The difficulty rating is based on the hours needed to complete this cache.
I have tried not to be too prescriptive on how to get to ground zero which is as close as possible to the actual wreck site. The positions themselves were chosen for me on the most part many years ago. It has taken hours of interesting research to unearth their exact locations. On occasion I have needed to use my discretion as the wreck site may now be out of reach. In Cape Town for example, a large number of shipwrecks now lie under reclaimed land.
Certain areas have a higher cache density. This highlights the dangerous nature of that stretch of coast. The long cache descriptions are needed to tell the story.
Final cache location: S 34° 1A.BCD E 018° 2E.FGH. Please do not accidentally disclose which caches have the coordinates on their logbooks via your own logs or in chats to other geocachers.
William Falconer, the Scottish Poet wrote the poem the Shipwreck in 1752 after personally surviving a shipwreck, but later lost his life aboard the Aurora which hit a reef off Mocoa after rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
I referenced the following fascinating books:
The Bay of Storms - Jose Burman
Forgotten Shipwrecks of the Western Cape - Michael Walker
Great Shipwrecks off the coast of South Africa - Jose Burman
Hard Aground: Memorable Western Cape Shipwrecks - Michael Walker
Shipwrecks and Salvage in South Africa - Malcolm Turner
Shipwrecks of The Far South - Michael Walker
Shipwrecks of the Western Cape - Brian Wexham
Tales of Shipwrecks at the Cape of Storms - John Gribble & Gabriel Athiros
Wrecked under the Green Point Light - John T. Diamond
Additionally: Cape Archives, wrecksite.eu, sashipwrecks.com, frogsquad.co.za, www.danger-point-peninsula.co.za
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