Shiver me Timbers

I hope the following will help others with the same or a similar condition.

I have lived with Landlubberliness for all of my life but I have not allowed it to affect my enjoyment of all things Maritime.

It is a strange word, lost in the mists or rather the fogs of time in its etymology and very rarely heard today in conversation.

It is of course a rude and derogatory term and no doubt preceded by anyone using it with a fair few profanities on a nautical theme. On a very much "Us and Them" theme it will have resonated around any situation where seafarers came up against or wished to express their disdain for those preferring to keep a firm geological base under their feet.

In spite of being afflicted with being Landlubberly I find myself drawn to the ocean and in particular ships.

My office is on the banks of the mighty Humber Estuary in Yorkshire, UK. Amazingly that watercourse is responsible for taking away some 25% of the nations land drainage. The Trent, Derwent, Ouse and many others all discharge into the Humber and out into the North Sea.

I find myself rushing to the window overlooking the Estuary upon sighting of a stumpy Coaster making its way upstream or riding the tide out into the ocean. Armed with Vessel Finder or Ship Finder I am able to identify all of the relevant facts about its country of origin, cargo, destination and previous ports of call.

Living in a Maritime City, Kingston Upon Hull, I cannot avoid the heritage of a seafaring economy nor the very visible trade along the Eastern Seaboard of the UK that contributes to the local, regional and national economy.

My fascination with all things nautical goes back a long way.

I was born Landlubberly in the central Southern part of England and my family moved progressively northwards with my Father's employment. As with all UK areas we were never more than 70 miles from a coastline and indeed a seaside resort, although I use this term loosely to describe Overstrand, Cleethorpes and Withernsea (apologies to the residents of those places) was always within short distance whenever a glimpse of a beach and the sea was desired.

In my formative years I enjoyed reading the great seafaring stories of adventurers, explorers, famous ships, shipwrecks and mysteries. Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, The Marie Celeste, the fictional Captain Nemo and the factual Titanic were pored over at every opportunity. I even had a diary entry in 1980 for the sinking of MV Derbyshire during a typhoon in the Far East.

One particular fascination of mine was the Bermuda Triangle, that alluded to an area off the south east coast of the United States where ships and boats, as well as aircraft, disappeared with all manner of speculation as to the cause.

In my teenage years I had accumulated a small library of themed books on the subject and was very much enthused and petrified in equal proportion about alien influences, mythical monsters, conspiracy theories and freak weather conditions.

These were compounded in movies and ongoing media interest about continuing unexplained events in that vast ocean area.

One specific disappearance without a trace was of a large coal carrying ship and its crew of 32 , the S.S Cotopaxi in 1925 whilst making its way through the Triangle on route from Charleston in South Carolina to Havana, Cuba.

You may recall the use of the ship in Spielberg's Close Encounters when it was found in the landlocked Gobi Desert after a supposed extraterrestrial repatriation as part of making First Contact.

How such a large ship could simply vanish fuelled my interest in all things maritime and served to alleviate my Landlubberly symptoms.

Well, amazingly there has surfaced news just this month that a wreck off St Augustine, Florida is now thought to be SS Cotopaxi.

A series of investigative dives have found what appears to be irrefutable proof of the identity based on measurements, details of the engine and even retrieved parts which bear the makers mark of the originating shipyard back in 1918.

What is interesting is that the site of the wreck was known to locals but no one had ever cross referenced it with the last known distress signal from Cotopaxi with this location.

Whilst a mystery has been solved it does not diminish the legends and fables associated with the world's oceans and those who derive their livelihoods from it.

Of course, further and more investigation of the wreck of Cotopaxi could always reveal a flying saucer shaped hole in its hull, space-laser death-ray melt lines on the superstructure or the sticky residues of the asphyxiating tentacles of a giant octopus.