Aksai

 

We went walking on White Island in the summer and came across the remains of this iron anchor on the rocks on the north side of the island. As soon as I saw it I took note of the position and thought about which wreck it may have come from. I knew of no shipwreck in the bay where it lay. There was, however, wrecks further out and around both the outer corners of the cove. The wreck of the Tobasco lay around the other side of the carn to the right and the Aksai lay around to the left. When one notes which way the direction from which the sea swells prevail in this area, being from the Northwest, leads one to conclude that it most likely came around from the Aksai. To my mind at the time both seemed a fair distance away with the Tobasco being closest of the two. I knew where the Tobasco lay as I'd dived it before many years ago. However, the exact position of the Aksai was unknown to me. The local books placed this wreck in two different places, one was out in 40m depth and north of the Bakers Rock. The other was in 25m depth west of the Bakers. Im not that interested in steel wrecks but being a shipwreck hunter, I do like to know where these wrecks are situated. Just in case this rudder came from something else entirely and from a wreck closer to where it lay, I decided to check it out and Mag* the area to find out. (*search with a Magnetometer) Maybe there was something else laying nearby in the shallows. That day I magged the bay where the rudder was seen but nothing turned up. Then I went along the very shallows of the island around to the left and in the direction of the Aksai. It wasnt long before I got good hits and these were in no more than 4meters of water. Then I got a huge hit in no more than 15m in close between the Bakers rock and the shore of White Island.  The deepest hit being in no more than 15m made me wonder what it was. So I dived it with a friend. The first thing we found at that exact depth was a huge iron propeller suspended in the air still on the end of its shaft. The rest of the wreck was smashed to bits in very shallow water. Disappointingly it was the Aksai and not somthing new. As has happened so many times for me here at Scilly The evidence on the sea bed shows the local shipwreck books to be wrong. It just goes to prove that if you want to find somthing do your own research and go find the wreck using it instead of relying on someone else who probably never bothered to visit the wreck before publishing. Below is a nice painting of the wreck. Even this picture places the wreck a tad to far towards the east. She is closer this way as we view it and more in line with the nearest figures on the shoreline. Tobasco lays on the other side of the big carn in the distance-(East Withan). The rudder above is in the bay between the two wrecks. It lays on the rocks behind that small rising mound that is to the far right and behind the furthest figures. The water splash on the most extreme right of the painting behind that mound is closest to it.