Hunting the Royal Oak ( L'Authie)

                              Part of the Bayly chart  showing Captain Lock lost -at Pednathise Head?                                           

 The Royal Oak is another of those wrecks I am trying to find- or merely confirm she has already been found. See my page- wrecks of the Simon Bayly chart.  The chances are that, as with my HMS Romney search, The Royal Oak has indeed already been found. However, that does not stop wild theories from entering my head and like every crazy treasure hunter that ever lived, I have to satiate the urge to check those theories out. The Bayly chart places this wreck at Pednathise head but there is a possibility that she could lie eleswhere even around Gorregan. So, naturally, as night follows day, there I was magging the hell out of the rocks of Gorregan- each year another bit gets searched. Last season it was the eastern side of Gorregan that received my attention. This included a search around Carn Lawrence where a sailor from the wreck of the Romney was found-so maybe she was in the area too-another wild theory. I dragged the magnetometer around the deep water areas of that target area and found a few readings to check out later. One of which was in 43m. I then shifted the equipment into my inflatable punt to search the shallows where the bigger boat cannot get in close as the rocks are too close to the surface.  Sure enough I had a few readings there too.

                Here I am towing the mag behind my punt up and down east of Gorregan last summer.

 When dived, most readings turned out to be nothing more than lost lobster pots, which always give off  a good signal. A whole bundle was found at the hit I'd had in 43m.  However, one reading was more intriguing and it was tight in close to the island itself, in the very shallows where a gap in the rocks fills enough at high water to let a small craft through to the inner waters of the island. It seemed a juicy hit as the magnetometer went mad. Sadly, directly high above it, one can still see today, a large lump of a metal shipping container that has been washed high up on the island. So the juicy mag hit could merely be part of that same container- it had came off the wreck of the Cita which sank in 1997. Although the Cita was lost about 5 miles away, her containers drifted about all over Scilly. This was one of them. Still I had to check the mag hit out just in case it was something else entirely. 

                            From Gorregan looking towards Pednathise, which is on the far distant left

On a nice week of weather I went out there again with my wife, and not knowing the nuances of the tides in that particular place, we sat aboard Buccaneer  and watched the tides to see the best time to dive the hit. The tide races by there on the Ebb and on the flood too but a short window to dive opened there between the two when the area is turbulent with eddies. This looks the worst time to dive it but its actually the safest.  Another time would be lowest ebb as the rocks protect one from the tide once you are in the water. Everytime you dive a new place at Scilly its wise to learn what the tides do. The chart can only tell you so much but the nuances are found by physical experience only. You can dive in  slack water in one spot at Scilly but move just 50 meters away and the tide is ripping there. It can be very disconcerting. Sometimes you just have to jump in the water and see what happens- with boat cover of course. This is how it occurred at Gorregan. So, leaving Carmen aboard, I got in the water during some very disconcerting looking eddies going on and found all was in fact ok to dive.  I then swam the 20m or so on the surface over the shallows to drop directly onto where the big mag hit had been. I was fully expecting to see a container smashed up among the boulders down there but instead I ran straight into a large iron propeller still on part of its iron shaft. A quick look among and under the boulders revealed it was from a small steamer lost thereabouts. I encountered all sorts of interesting bits and pieces and even picked up the remains of a crumpled compass binnacle. I had more that enough old toot from wrecks at home and didnt need anything more from this one so dropped it again. Nice though it was to add another new wreck to my list of discoveries, (18 new sites thus far) it wasn't my kind of wreck and certainly not the wrecked ship I was looking for.  I then moved to the surface and swam over to another hit and another lost lobster pot was found.  No Royal Oak there either- so we move on to the next theory over the other side of Gorregan.  Before long I will have dived it all except the very deep parts where it is over 60m.  Im not crazy enough to look down that far on mere compressed air-but that is probably where the Royal Oak and or Romney will be found. Time will tell.

                                                                Other side of Gorregan.

Later at home I researched what wreck I had found on the east side of that island. It turned out to most likely be the remains of a small steamer lost thereabouts called - L'Authie.  I will keep searching out my theories and move slowly to visit every hit all around Gorregan -and elsewhere. There are still others out there to be found too- as this search and indeed  others I have undertaken have proven.  Its funny, you look for one wreck but find another nearly every time- maybe I should be looking for the others to find the ones I do want!!