La Famille Express
"La Famille Express" revisted
Winter has been showing those signs of moving off to where Winter goes when it leaves here. Drifting South, on its ancient yearly mission to climatically re-polarize our friends in New Zealand, Brasil and South Africa. Isn't it fun to think of them pulling their favorite winter clothing out of storage, and stoking their fireplaces while we are kicking our shoes off and getting ready for summer? I have been lucky enough to have travelled extensively in the southern hemisphere and I always got a kick out of kids going surfing over the summer Christmas holiday. Our snowy Northern hemisphere Santa-and-snow Christmas cards just don't seem very appropriate to people who associate Christmas and New Years with sunburns. Just kinda gives one a perspective on how the rest of the planet sees things. At least a little bit. Sometimes.
But here, for now, days are getting longer, and warmer, and every sunrise seems to be full of the potential promise of good stuff yet to come. How's that for an optimistic outlook?
Enough of that, I'll get to the main subject of this little post. And compared to some of the wordy things I've been posting lately this one will be pretty short. I am not sure which way works better... to save up enough new photos over a few weeks for a long post or to put up a short one every week or whenever we have something new. It's only been a little over a week since the last one, so we'll see how this goes.
We've been pretty busy lately. A couple of our sons came down for a spring break visit, and one of them brought a friend along this time. This kind of situation usually generates some outside activities on our part since our visitors are always geared up for some 'fun stuff'. And around here 'fun stuff' usually involves boats and the ocean. At least it does where this family is involved. So, on a nice sunny day we loaded up the visitors, boated over to the boatyard to pick up our new friends Crystal and Mike, and headed out to just enjoy a boating day. We got sidetracked almost immediately with an unplanned detour but it resulted in some photos we thought some of you might enjoy.
Just a little over two miles south of Leeward Going Through, out on the Caicos Bank, sits a rusting hulk of a freighter. On our way from our home up to Pine Cay we pass right next to this local landmark. Which of course means we have seen it literally hundreds of times. We have even been known to duck behind it and let a squall blow by from time to time.
Doesn't look too bad from a distance, does it. I know we have posted photos of this boat from time to time over the past few years. We first got up close to it in 2005 and have also noticed how parts of it seem to be steadily disappearing as people salvage the bits they think they want. As we get closer the sorry state of the wreck becomes more apparent:
The painted name "La Famille Express" is still clearly visible on both the stern and the bow of the little freighter. What is also clearly visible from up close is the welded metal spelling out the original name in the Cyrillic script used in Russia and some other Slavic nations in Northern Europe. We have been told that this boat was originally named the "Fort Shevenko", and that it was originally a Soviet Navy vessel.
With the former Soviet Union's activities and presence in Cuba, just a few miles from us, this would make some sense. I did try some internet searches for both names of the boat. But I really was not very successful in getting any additional information on it, other than other people's vacation photos. I did read that it got run aground here at its present position during Hurricane Frances. Frances made a direct hit on the Turks and Caicos Islands as a category 4 hurricane on September 1, 2004. So this boat has been sitting here falling apart for five and a half years now. It has also managed to hold together, for the most part, through the other two hurricanes that came through here since then.
Our visiting cruisers were interested in a closer look at the wreck, and of course the younger members of the group had wanted a real close look at it, so in my capacity as Captain-for-the-day, and with the blessing of La-Gringa-Suprema-the-Mother-in-charge, we decided to let them go for it. We pulled "Off Cay" up to the section of cargo netting draped over the side and our Colorado rock climbers were up over the side of that thing like a couple of rescued sailors.
Or maybe they thought there was a men's room on there...
We let them take our cameras aboard for some photos, and I confess I had long been curious about what this boat looked like from topside. Our little Contender looks even smaller from up there, doesn't it.
And as the boys climbed up higher on the freighter it because obvious that the cargo hold was flooded with seawater. This is no surprise as the entire hull is almost rusted through completely around the waterline. There are a lot of floating timbers still in the hold:
Here's a better view looking down into the cargo hold from the main deck area:
I confess that I had often wondered what went through the Captain's mind as he tried to make it to Providenciales in this little ship during a Category 4 hurricane. I was sure there must have been a heck of a story to tell, if we could just find out what it was. Because there was absolutely no way a boat this big would ever make it into Leeward from this direction. Our little boat draws just under three feet of water and we barely have enough clearance to get through here. So I had basically assumed that the crew had intentionally grounded the freighter.
We had these heroic stories in mind, how this move into shallow water would have guaranteed the survival of the crew even though it was almost certain death for the vessel. Yes, my over-active imagination had all these heroic scenarios playing over the years... and then today I thought to myself "I'll ask our friend Preacher if he knows any more details about this, as I am sure he would have been here during that storm." And as luck would have it, Preacher was just here this morning. He brought another one of his model sloop project hulls by. (I have been cutting the keels and rudders for him in my little shop.) And his model boats seem to be getting bigger...
That's #1, which I have, and #2, which we just cut the keel for, and now # 3 is taking form and it's even bigger. But I digress.... I'll get back to "La Famille Express"...
Turns out, it was a locally-owned and operated freighter belonging to a Carl Been of Five Cays here on Provo. Preacher says Carl used the boat to haul crap and whatever cargo jobs he could get. It was normally anchored off South Dock where all the other commercial freighters anchor. There is really no other area near here with enough water for a boat this size. And during Hurricane Frances this boat broke free and lost its anchor. The storm washed it all the way from South Dock to where it now sits.
It started at the anchorage, and ended up where it has sat hard aground for the past six years.
There was nobody on board the boat during the storm, so it was driven around a number of little cays, and over the shoals. That's about 12 miles. The original anchor was lost and Preacher is not exactly sure when they put this one out, but at the time the owner had some plans and ideas about how to re float and salvage the boat. Of course, that obviously never happened. And now it never will.
So, that pretty much puts an end to a lot of my speculation... at least all the ideas of heroic captains fighting mountainous seas during howling hurricane winds and driving rain....
Nope. The boat was inadequately anchored and broke loose in a storm. And that's the story.
This is what the view of this end of the island of Providenciales looks like from this direction:
And yeah our intrepid explorers had to do some climbing to get that view:
This is the bow of the boat:
I notice the chain stopper was not tightened, but let's face it.....this boat wasn't going anywhere at that point.
This is looking down at the stern of the boat from up high:
Not a whole lot left there to salvage without bringing a cutting torch aboard.
We didn't want the boys to get down inside the boat on this trip. We wouldn't rule out further exploration at some future date if they were a little better equipped for climbing around lots of rusty iron steps and collapsing walkways. They did look down toward the engine room access:
You can see that the deck plating down near the water line is in pretty bad shape. Certainly not the best footing for tender bare feet.
Some of the control boxes and switches are still on the bridge deck, and still with the original labelling:
And although the vessel is most definitely totally dead, it's not totally lifeless:
So finally we managed to corral our crew back onto our own little freighter and headed out to enjoy the rest of the day.
I haven't told them yet the real story on this boat maybe I will let them wonder for awhile. I know their imaginations were going wild there for a while. It sure looks the part.
But here, for now, days are getting longer, and warmer, and every sunrise seems to be full of the potential promise of good stuff yet to come. How's that for an optimistic outlook?
Enough of that, I'll get to the main subject of this little post. And compared to some of the wordy things I've been posting lately this one will be pretty short. I am not sure which way works better... to save up enough new photos over a few weeks for a long post or to put up a short one every week or whenever we have something new. It's only been a little over a week since the last one, so we'll see how this goes.
We've been pretty busy lately. A couple of our sons came down for a spring break visit, and one of them brought a friend along this time. This kind of situation usually generates some outside activities on our part since our visitors are always geared up for some 'fun stuff'. And around here 'fun stuff' usually involves boats and the ocean. At least it does where this family is involved. So, on a nice sunny day we loaded up the visitors, boated over to the boatyard to pick up our new friends Crystal and Mike, and headed out to just enjoy a boating day. We got sidetracked almost immediately with an unplanned detour but it resulted in some photos we thought some of you might enjoy.
Just a little over two miles south of Leeward Going Through, out on the Caicos Bank, sits a rusting hulk of a freighter. On our way from our home up to Pine Cay we pass right next to this local landmark. Which of course means we have seen it literally hundreds of times. We have even been known to duck behind it and let a squall blow by from time to time.
Doesn't look too bad from a distance, does it. I know we have posted photos of this boat from time to time over the past few years. We first got up close to it in 2005 and have also noticed how parts of it seem to be steadily disappearing as people salvage the bits they think they want. As we get closer the sorry state of the wreck becomes more apparent:
The painted name "La Famille Express" is still clearly visible on both the stern and the bow of the little freighter. What is also clearly visible from up close is the welded metal spelling out the original name in the Cyrillic script used in Russia and some other Slavic nations in Northern Europe. We have been told that this boat was originally named the "Fort Shevenko", and that it was originally a Soviet Navy vessel.
With the former Soviet Union's activities and presence in Cuba, just a few miles from us, this would make some sense. I did try some internet searches for both names of the boat. But I really was not very successful in getting any additional information on it, other than other people's vacation photos. I did read that it got run aground here at its present position during Hurricane Frances. Frances made a direct hit on the Turks and Caicos Islands as a category 4 hurricane on September 1, 2004. So this boat has been sitting here falling apart for five and a half years now. It has also managed to hold together, for the most part, through the other two hurricanes that came through here since then.
Our visiting cruisers were interested in a closer look at the wreck, and of course the younger members of the group had wanted a real close look at it, so in my capacity as Captain-for-the-day, and with the blessing of La-Gringa-Suprema-the-Mother-in-charge, we decided to let them go for it. We pulled "Off Cay" up to the section of cargo netting draped over the side and our Colorado rock climbers were up over the side of that thing like a couple of rescued sailors.
Or maybe they thought there was a men's room on there...
We let them take our cameras aboard for some photos, and I confess I had long been curious about what this boat looked like from topside. Our little Contender looks even smaller from up there, doesn't it.
And as the boys climbed up higher on the freighter it because obvious that the cargo hold was flooded with seawater. This is no surprise as the entire hull is almost rusted through completely around the waterline. There are a lot of floating timbers still in the hold:
Here's a better view looking down into the cargo hold from the main deck area:
I confess that I had often wondered what went through the Captain's mind as he tried to make it to Providenciales in this little ship during a Category 4 hurricane. I was sure there must have been a heck of a story to tell, if we could just find out what it was. Because there was absolutely no way a boat this big would ever make it into Leeward from this direction. Our little boat draws just under three feet of water and we barely have enough clearance to get through here. So I had basically assumed that the crew had intentionally grounded the freighter.
We had these heroic stories in mind, how this move into shallow water would have guaranteed the survival of the crew even though it was almost certain death for the vessel. Yes, my over-active imagination had all these heroic scenarios playing over the years... and then today I thought to myself "I'll ask our friend Preacher if he knows any more details about this, as I am sure he would have been here during that storm." And as luck would have it, Preacher was just here this morning. He brought another one of his model sloop project hulls by. (I have been cutting the keels and rudders for him in my little shop.) And his model boats seem to be getting bigger...
That's #1, which I have, and #2, which we just cut the keel for, and now # 3 is taking form and it's even bigger. But I digress.... I'll get back to "La Famille Express"...
Turns out, it was a locally-owned and operated freighter belonging to a Carl Been of Five Cays here on Provo. Preacher says Carl used the boat to haul crap and whatever cargo jobs he could get. It was normally anchored off South Dock where all the other commercial freighters anchor. There is really no other area near here with enough water for a boat this size. And during Hurricane Frances this boat broke free and lost its anchor. The storm washed it all the way from South Dock to where it now sits.
It started at the anchorage, and ended up where it has sat hard aground for the past six years.
There was nobody on board the boat during the storm, so it was driven around a number of little cays, and over the shoals. That's about 12 miles. The original anchor was lost and Preacher is not exactly sure when they put this one out, but at the time the owner had some plans and ideas about how to re float and salvage the boat. Of course, that obviously never happened. And now it never will.
So, that pretty much puts an end to a lot of my speculation... at least all the ideas of heroic captains fighting mountainous seas during howling hurricane winds and driving rain....
Nope. The boat was inadequately anchored and broke loose in a storm. And that's the story.
This is what the view of this end of the island of Providenciales looks like from this direction:
And yeah our intrepid explorers had to do some climbing to get that view:
This is the bow of the boat:
I notice the chain stopper was not tightened, but let's face it.....this boat wasn't going anywhere at that point.
This is looking down at the stern of the boat from up high:
Not a whole lot left there to salvage without bringing a cutting torch aboard.
We didn't want the boys to get down inside the boat on this trip. We wouldn't rule out further exploration at some future date if they were a little better equipped for climbing around lots of rusty iron steps and collapsing walkways. They did look down toward the engine room access:
You can see that the deck plating down near the water line is in pretty bad shape. Certainly not the best footing for tender bare feet.
Some of the control boxes and switches are still on the bridge deck, and still with the original labelling:
And although the vessel is most definitely totally dead, it's not totally lifeless:
So finally we managed to corral our crew back onto our own little freighter and headed out to enjoy the rest of the day.
I haven't told them yet the real story on this boat maybe I will let them wonder for awhile. I know their imaginations were going wild there for a while. It sure looks the part.
