FOG IN THE STRAITS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2697, 17 February 1916, Page 6

FOG IN THE STRAITS

TALES OF NARROW WATERS

THE MYSTERY OF LOST SHIPS

fßy Will Lawson.)

To those who know them, Cool; Straits are as capricious as a woman in their moods and tempers. In calm weather they are as flowing silver, between emerald hills which arc sometimes dwarfed by the sight of towering, snowcapped mountains in the distance. When storms threaten or tempests hold sway, the Straits are the confines in which ravening monsters, green-flanked and with foaming crests, charge in squadrons and endless hosts. Neither of these conditions of the weather holds iiny terrors for the navigator. Only when i'og lies in heavy banks on the calm tide, or when thick rain-squalls blot cut the land, does tho mariner feel any anxiety.

The recent stranding of two steamers during fog in the Straits brought home to travellers by sea once mora tho dangers and uncertainties of those narrow waters. The Kaitoa, groping her way iu the fog, counted on the ebbtide to carry her clear of Terawhiti, and the ebb-tide played her false. Twelve hours later, the Komata was similarly misled. Both vessels touched—one at Terawhiti, the other at Pencarrow.

On still, foggy days, those who listen on the white-misted beaches beneath tho frowning hills will hear strange voices in the'fog—tho strong husky tones of. eteamer whistles calling to the fog signal to answer, or warning other ships to steer wide of them. Looking into tho white curtain one's imagination pictures bewildered sea monsters groping along and voicing their anxiety and anger in hoarso bcllowings. Sometimes the ships pass within an ace of destruction, or, finding their whereabouts in time, back hastily out from the shrouded shore.

This happened near Oterangi Bar, at Cape Terawhiti, one thick morning, years ago. The listener was a rabbiter, who was resting after his morning round o! his traps. He heard many moaning calls, with a big booming note among them. This big call became louder and louder, as though the ship that made it Was coming nearer. Soon the throb of it was intense. The man was peering out into the fog. Another and a louder call, and he was on his feet and running to the beach. Then he saw a big shape looming through ' the fog. As the high bows came on, the man shouted, but his voice was drowned in another deeptoned blast. So he slipped a cartrid'o into his gun and fired into the air. At once he heard the thunder of reversed propellers, and the voices of men on the liners decks as she backed away a perplexed leviathan, and the wash from her screws poured over the rocks on each side of the little bay. A lady who had made a passage'perilous from Picton to Wellington was telling some friends, among whom was a captain, that when the steamer she was on cleared Tory Channel the vessel went down, "almost to the bottom of the sea, ' while crockery crashed and women screamed Her hearers laughed at the idea oi the ship nearly going to the bottom ol the sea. But the cap-tain said, "It's a fact that there are- holes in the Straits."

lou mean volcanoes under the sea?" a wise longshoreman said. "No, I mean holes in the water" the captain said. "I'll tell you of an exponence I had. Wo were steaming along one calm, fine afternoon, when t!he ship suddenly dived. I ran.from my cabin to the bridge. She was runnin" along smoothly again, but the waist was full of water. 1 questioned the' officer of the watch.

'I couldn't say what it was, sir," he answered. "She suddenly took all (hat aboard. Seemed to fall into a hole."

Some of the landsmen thought the captain was joking, but he spoke in all seriousness, and with no intention to mislead. Perhaps this phenomenon may be found to contain the explanation of the mystery surrounding the loss of the City of Dunedin, which sailed from Wellington for Hokitika in May of the year 1864, and was never heard of again. The last sight of the vessel was probably had by a lady at Terawhiti Station, who saw .. steamer moving in a circle. She ran to tell her brothers, but in the brief interval which elapsed the steamer had disappeared. The City of Dunedin was a paddle steamer, and such a dive as the other steamer took into a hole in the water might have damaged one of her paddles aud strained her so that she sank. A bole in waterseems an impossible thing, yet the vagaries of waters vexed by cur-, rents and raciug tides might embrace such a depression as that described. On the night the Penguin was lost, people on the .beach at Island Bay were astonished to see the tide como in strongly and quickly run out again, the process being repeated several tunes. Further along the coast, a station hand was riding to town along the beach, where usually there is ample margin for a horseman to pass between sea and cliffs. Without warning, the waters surged in and rushed out again' several times. Then r big wave bore down upon the rider, who galloped for his life to a' wider and higher part of the beach, where he waited' till the sea had resumed its wonted ways. These queer tidal tricks of the Straits are often attributed. to submarine volcanic action. What is more probable is that the swirling tides in the narrow waters cause them.

In giving evidence at tho inquiry into the loss of the Penguin, Captain Post Said:

"I have, witfhin 24 hours, off Terawhiti, had a tide running at not less than seven knots an hour ;■ and the next tide at tlio same place, none at all. Although it was a strong tide in the Straits, it still flowed in and out of Tory Channel."

Captain Vickennan, of the steamer Kennedy; also gave interesting evidence. He said, referring to the night of the wreck i

"There was a terrific current, seven knots at least. I pasßed outside the Penguin at 9.30 p.m." ■Who would think, when looking at tlte Straits, that such tidal rivers cookl pour through them?

Just where the Penguin laid her bones has never been discovered, but many seamen claim that she struck and foundered on Baring Head, beyond Pencarrow, and that the strong current spoken of by Captain Vickermau carried the boats and rafts into the bay near Terawhiti Station. It took three hours for them to reach land from the wreck. From Tom's Rook it would not have taken a quarter of that time. The Cook Straits fishermen also hold that the ship struck on a point much further east than Tom's Bock.

The set of Hie currents near Cape Terawhiti is also interesting to note. Between the bay just mentioned and that of Makara, on the west coast, much driftwood comes ashore, including his trees-which'have been identified as com" ing from the rivers on the west coasts of both islands. Near Island Bay, on the other hand, the currents set seaward. More than one boating party has found this out to its cost, and on one occasion a longshore fisherman was carried away and never heard of again. Yet the Straits are not always unkind. In a strong northerly, two ' fishermen svp.rc blown to sea in a row-boat. Thov spent an anxious night, durine which tile Picton steamer passed within a mile without seeing them. They expected to be drowned, and nnlv by annd seajuajishin kant their craft afloaL

'Jlien a southerly came and blew them back to safety.

"By gar, I pray hard that night," one of the men said, when telling of the adventure. Perhaps the fickle Straits heard his prayer, too, and decided that the grim jest had aone far enough. But the grimmest joke that the Straits can play is to hide themselves in a long cloud of cotton-wool fog and then lie still as death and listen to the steamers calling and calling as they seek safe passage for their nrccious cargoes of human lives. Then it is well to be far away from these narrow waters with their treacherous currents and erratic tides.