The Phoenix.
A Cannon from the Phoenix
This is a wreck I found a few years ago using the Simon Bayly chart I found in an historic archive. The chart was produced in 1680 and, luckily for me, I knew I was the first diver to see that Bayly had depicted the rough positions of 4 wrecks upon it. How do I know other wreck hunters had not known about the chart? Well they either thought they had found this wreck elsewhere but merely misidentified their discovery; or like the "eminent" Mr Richard Larn OBE -had simply guessed and wrongly published it as lost 4 miles away among the western rocks instead of stating its whereabouts as- 'unknown' like any normal researcher would. (See my other page about the Bayly chart) Using the Bayly chart as a guide, I went to look for one of its wrecks, which I knew from my research, should be the remains of the Phoenix which sank in 1679-80. The chart gave me a large search area between the islands of Samson and Mincarlo and white island here at Scilly. However, Im am not easily discouraged by graft so
'Cap Wild lost' = Captain William Wildy of the Phoenix lost his ship here.
off I went and with a magnometer trailing behind my boat, Buccaneer, and I began what turned out to be quite a long search. First I searched around white island; then along Samson before moving to do Mincarlo. 3 days later and nothing was found. While still labouring under the premise that the ship went aground on one of the surrounding shorelines, I then searched Illiswilsigig and Giants castle channel. Nothing. 'Dollar Ledge' must have been covered before with a name like that but it had to be done too just in case. Time dragged on and still no signals from the mag worth investigation. I then moved to search the rocks and reefs that lay within the search area too. To cut a long story short I realised that there are two narrow entrance channels either side of Mincarlo that small vessels still use today, in order to gain the anchorage of Tresco Channel at high tide. If they use them today then they used them in the past too- I thought. With that I decided to search the deeper water around the rocks that are either side of those two narrow channels. I did the northern one and its rocks first. Here I was half expecting to find parts of the wreck of the steamship Delaware which I knew had drifted helplessly into that channel and sank; the heavier seas taking steel plating away from that wreck and depositing them further down the channel. However I sill found nothing of note, noot even off the Delaware. One of my dives did produced a late 19th century anchor; it being the best find thus far but nothing of the phoenix. I am a patient man and so kept at it- until one day -when searching the southern channel of Mincarlo- I was making a turn by the east of Bream ledge, in order to make another mag run towards the Roarers, when the mag picked up a large signal. ' Hmm that's interesting'- I thought! So over and over it I went from differing directions in order to pinpoint its position. This is done because the mag is towed at good distance behind the boat; not only in order to make the mag fish sink lower, but also so as not to pick up the engine and other steel/iron objects of Buccaneer either. During the search the weather had not often been great and this day had been one of the worst. It was too rough to dive the anomaly so I marked on the chart the position of the find and moved on.
Eventually I dived the anomaly still half expecting to find a bit of the Delaware. I was alone when I dived that first day and I soon found myself under thick kelp in no more than 12 depth at high tide. I moved forward from my anchor through the thick kelp throngs and ran straight into a pile of approximately 13 guns all concreted together in a solid heap. Now my heart was racing. This was my kind of wreck. This, to me, was what diving as all about. Old cannons on the sea bed that no one had discovered before. Vindication of all the hard work and verification that the Bayly chart was accurate; and 3 more wrecks were depicted upon it to either find or to use to identify other known wrecks yet unidentified.
Over time I dived the site and found more cannons further away, but smaller artifacts were proving scarce. There were no anchors either. 2 years passed by and the site only produced a few items that helped date the wreckage to near the time the Phoenix sank but not close enough. After finding the stern of Colossus and the wealth of artifacts I lifted from that discovery, this one had thus far been really rather disappointing. Then one day a storm took most of the mobile sand away from over the wreck and with thatI happened upon an area of treasure. I cannot describe how I felt during that particular period in time-but during it I found almost 400 gold and silver coins and nearly 80 items of gold jewellery. The coins were mostly English and they placed the wreckage to a time date of being after 1673. The Phoenix sailed from England in 1677 and it sank at scilly in 1679-80 (depending on which calender is used- Gregorian or Julian.) This combined with the Bayly chart and other evidence all points towards my wreck being Captain Wildy's ship.
(Sadly all the artifacts are held by the Receiver of Wreck until auctioned off as the law dictates.)
This is what its all about.
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