This was the kind of headline I was expecting to see at some point due to the media frenzy that followed the story of the ghost ship adrift somewhere in the Atlantic that, driven by hurricane force winds of recent weeks, is navigating phantasmically towards our shores.
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| The Lyubov Orlova navigating the Arctic seas |
The Lyubov Orlova, a rather dingy looking former Russian cruise ship, was impounded by the maritime authorities in Canada owing to financial irregularities and subsequently abandoned by it's unpaid crew. I have experience of this myself as I must of mentioned that time us lads were marooned in Buenos Aires after the dredging incident in the River Plate and the unfortunate incident with ordnance left over from the Graaf Spee and I can tell you it's no fun stuck in a foreign land having lost your boat. The aforementioned cruise ship was then towed off to the Dominican Republic where during a storm it broke it's mooring an floated off out into the Atlantic never to be seen again. That is until a beacon was set off and picked up by the Irish Marine Agency. So it turns out that it is still out there bobbing about upon the high seas and is heading this way and could potentially, as some of the media would have it, crash into the North Devon coast.
This story has caught the attention of people up and down the Western Atlantic as reports from as far afield as Casablanca, Galicia, Britanny and Scotland all fear that the ship is about to scuttle itself on their shores along with it's hideous cargo of cannibal rats. Anne Cawood has just got back from a spot of winter sun in the Canaries and she said that they were on full alert down there for the blighted vessel entering their waters and potentially causing a hang of a muddle and caper as it beaches itself on the Playa de Americas to the consternation of hundreds of British and German pensioners.
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| A new addition to the fleet? |
Now if I was a younger man I would have got together a crew and took out one of the tugs and go and have a look for it as it must be worth a bob or two in scrap and it does surprise me that there has been no concerted effort by enterprising folk to go out after the salvage rights as here in North Devon we have the facilities to break up such a ship; cut it in half and stick it in Richmond Dock down at Appledore or beach it down at Yelland and break it up there just like they did with the Severn Star.To my mind, it wouldn't look too out of place down at Chivenor alongside the rather motley looking fleet of houseboats. Or if you really want a laugh you could suggest it get's towed up to Vellator Quay that'll get them going down at Braunton! You could turn it in to a tourist attraction. Come see the cannibal rats. The Big Rat or such like.
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| Cannibal rats the stuff of nightmares |
I don't know about these here "cannibal rats" are they some sort of different species to normal rats? Given that the ships last port of call was the Dominican Republic I assume that they could be voodoo rats. Cannibal voodoo rats gives the whole yarn a more chilling and petrifying aire. I can picture them now with their little dead eyes, drooling and slathering as they gnaw away at each other. Of course in such desperate nautical circumstances humans have been known to do the same thing although I doubt rats draw lots.
I was just thinking the people of Ilfracombe had better watch out in a few months time as they are eagerly and rather avariciously anticipating a cruise ship to pay a visit to the town. They'd better make sure that they get the right one. Otherwise they'd all be stood in their finery on the quayside looking out at this stagnant ship just floating outside the harbour and rather than seeing a party of affluent Americans manning the tenders to come ashore they are unable to discern no signs of life other the barely audible squeaking and mewing of a savage colony of mutated rodents. A ghost ship. I can see it now The harbour master is sent out in a boat by the mayor to investigate and climbs aboard moments later the calm of a summers afternoon is shattered by hideous screaming as he is carried down into the bowels of the vessel. Mind you from what I've seen of cruise ships they seem to carry a cargo of the living dead anyway. That's their raison d'etre. They are God's waiting room on the high seas and often as not plague ridden with the dreaded norovirus!
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| Ilfracombe expecting visit from cruise ship carrying the living dead |
Cor that would make a good horror film, worthy of the late James Herbert. This reminds me of the story of another spectral vessel that turned up in British waters, this time off Whitby and this one was Russian and all. The Demeter out of the Finnish port of Varma went aground off Whitby with no sign of the crew other than the dead Captain lashed to the wheel and a rather strange cargo of boxes containing nothing but earth and mould and I tell you not much good came of that after the local dockers salvaged it and unwittingly disembarked Count Dracula. As a former seaman we were always on the look out for the Flying Dutchman a ship that was condemned to sail, shrouded in it's own bank of fog, the oceans of the world for eternity.
Should the ship ever turn up in the waters of the Bideford Bay without a pilot on board it would no doubt founder on the rocks off Hartland or run aground on the bar. It wouldn't surprise me if this was seen as divine retribution by some of them Torridgeside UKIP councillors and God fearing souls , a portentous biblical plague sent from above to show displeasure at the furore caused by the suspension of Christian prayers before Bideford Council meetings. On a secular level questions would be asked how all this came to pass and Philip Milton would fire off a letter to the Journal blaming Nick Harvey or Councillor Ricky Knight. Let's not forget Rodney Cann he would be pictured in the Gazette framed by the rotting, god-forsaken hulk asking for more money to spent on something or another.
For those of a nautical bent, read about the Orlov here.
