An island that moves. Mysterious Sable Island. History of the Lost Ships

In the waters of the North Atlantic, or rather if you sail from the Canadian port of Halifax to the southeast, you can stumble upon the legendary Sable. The island has gained a very bad reputation among many generations of sailors. And that's why.

It is generally accepted that the island owes its name to the French word “sable,” which translates as “sandy.” According to another version, Sable is translated from English as “gloomy”, “creepy”. And the last option most likely has more rights to exist. Sailors simply call this sandy piece of land a “ship devourer.”

The sword barely appears above the surface of the water. Rigging Hills - its highest point barely reaches 34 meters above sea level. This area is characterized by weather conditions such as dense fog and storms. By the way, during the latter, the waves sometimes rise so high that they cover the entire island.

Sable's researchers noticed one peculiarity - this island is not just an island, but a drifting one. It constantly changes its location, and within a year it moves east by almost 230 meters. The reason for this phenomenon is two powerful currents - the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Ladrador. These same flows constantly change the relief of Sable, “building up” the banks from the east and eroding them from the west.

The danger of Sable Island

When a ship navigating the ocean breaks into pieces on a rock, and the crew members manage to get to the island land, this is considered salvation and great luck. This does not apply to Sable. The fact is that ships thrown onto the island become prisoners of quicksand, which can swallow not only a light boat, but even a solid ship weighing 5 thousand tons.

Geographers have found that in addition to the insidious drifting Sable, there are other places on our planet that can be considered real reserves of quicksand. In particular, such dangers await visitors to Cape Hatteras, which rises on the east coast of the United States. If you peer into the shifting sands, you can see the rotten skeleton of a sailboat or the rusty timber of a steamship. Another “ship graveyard” is located on Goodwin Shoals, 6 miles southeast of England. This is a more dangerous place, since the color of the sand here matches the shade of sea water.

And if the Goodwin Shoals swallow ships in a matter of minutes, then Sable Island likes to stretch out the “pleasure”, sucking in its victims very slowly and for a long time - a month, or even two.

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For many centuries, Sable Island has struck genuine terror into the hearts of sailors. This dark, mysterious and mysterious place has gained such notoriety due to many shipwrecks that it has become known as the “ship devourer”, “ship graveyard”, “deadly saber” or “graveyard of the Atlantic”.

The island is located in the North Atlantic, 180 km southeast of Halifax (Nova Scotia), where the cold Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream. It has the shape of an elongated crescent and is very small in size. Its length is only a little over 40 kilometers, and its width reaches one and a half kilometers at its widest point.

The island's topography consists of sandy hills and long dunes interspersed with small areas of grassy land. The highest hill on the island reaches a height of 34 meters and is called Riggin Hill. There are several lakes, the largest and deepest of which is Lake Wallace. Its depth reaches 4 meters. The water in it is brackish, since the reservoir is very close to the ocean. High waves during storms easily overcome a narrow stretch of land and sea salt dilutes the fresh water.

Under the influence of waves and currents, the western end of the island gradually erodes and disappears, while the eastern end erodes and lengthens. As a result, the island is moving at a speed of 230 meters per year, moving further and further into the open ocean. Over the past 200 years, the island has drifted almost 40 km from the mainland.

For passing ships, especially during waves, the island is almost invisible, since its height above ocean level is low. Only in clear weather, which happens here only in July, can one discern a narrow strip of sand on the horizon from the deck of the ship. Despite the fact that the ocean is quiet at this time of year, you can only approach the island by boat from the north side.

The sands of the island's shallows are quicksand and they tend to take on the color of ocean water. This is the main danger that awaits ships near Sable. The sands of the wandering island literally swallow up the ships that are captured by them. It is known that steamships with a displacement of five thousand tons and a length of 100-120 meters that found themselves on the Sable shallows completely disappeared into the “quagmire” within two to three months.

This piece of land, with its minimal height, rapid movement, and constant storms, seems to have been created for the destruction of sailors. The first “devouring” of a ship by Sable was recorded back in 1583. Then an English ship called “Delight”, part of Humphy Gilbert’s expedition, rammed the sands of the island due to poor visibility. The last disaster is considered to be a shipwreck in 1947 - the steamer Manhasset could not avoid a collision with the island. The entire crew was saved. There are only eight recorded cases where ships managed to escape from the island's quicksand and avoid death.

In recent years, there has not been a single case of the death of a large vessel in the sands of Sable Island.

Moving under the influence of ocean waves, the sandbanks of the island sometimes reveal the remains of ships that disappeared a long time ago. So, in the late 70s of the 20th century, after another storm, the hull of an American ship was visible from the sand, which disappeared without a trace in the last century. Three months later, the sand again buried this ship in its thickness.

Nomadic Sable Island is undoubtedly a mystery.

Elena Krumbo, especially for the “World of Secrets” website

Sable Island, owned by Canada, is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic and strange places on the map of the Earth. It is located near Halifax, a Canadian port in the north Atlantic Ocean. It is at this point that the warm Gulf Stream meets the cold Labrador Current.

Translation of the name of the island from different languages ​​will sound like “sand”, “black, mourning color”. And Canadians call it nothing more than “octopus tentacles.” Strange…

The size and shape of Sable Island are also special. It resembles a crescent moon that is just over 40 km long. Its greatest width is approximately 1.5 km.

Mysteries of the nomadic Sable Island

Cursed island, ship killer, ship devourer, treacherous place - these are the epithets this small island is awarded with. What's the matter? It turns out that this narrow strip of land is constantly moving at an incredible speed - almost 200 meters per year! The island itself is often covered in thick fog. Low and flat, hidden in the darkness, it seems to be waiting for prey, hiding behind the waters of the cold ocean. During a strong storm and high waves, it is completely impossible to notice the ghost island.

On Sable Island, sand can change its color to match the color of the ocean waters. This is another incredible feature of the strange island. The contours of the island are constantly changing, because a strong current erodes the sand on one side and washes it on the other. This is the reason for the high speed of the island's movement in the easterly direction. Geologists are at a loss. Such a movement is nonsense... After all, Sable is located on a powerful tectonic plate that drifts only millimeters per year! It turns out that this island is moving faster than the ocean floor! It is still unclear why this happens.

“Graveyard of the Atlantic” is the second name for the ominous Sable Island. There have been more than 300 shipwrecks near the island. If a ship washed up on this piece of land, a terrible fate awaited it. The quicksand of the nomadic island swallowed the ship within a couple of months. The landscape of the island is quite gloomy. Sometimes Sable, as if wanting to bring terror to the world around her, returns the remains of ships to the surface. From somewhere they reappear on the surface of the island.

Is there life on the ominous Sable Island?

Only grass and rare low plants grow on the island. All the trees planted here died. Here live wild horses, similar to ponies, of which there are about three hundred, and a large colony of rare seals - tevyak. Wild animals have adapted to the fact that there is only quicksand and the ocean around. At the beginning of 1960, the state took the inhabitants of the island under its protection. And now this amazing creation of nature is a national treasure and a protected area. Therefore, you can visit the nomadic Sable Island only after receiving special permission.

Life on the treacherous island, of course, is not easy and dangerous. There are only no more than 30 people here permanently. These are employees of the meteorological station. They are trying to prevent new shipwrecks in these ominous waters. Canadian authorities have taken measures to improve shipping safety. Several lighthouses were built. After ensuring more or less normal visibility near the shores of Sable, the terrible disasters around the island stopped.

Sable Island, this strange and mysterious creation of nature, steadily continues its movement. For what purpose, where and under the influence of what factors, in addition to the currents known to scientists, this island, more like an incomprehensible mysterious creature, is moving, no one can yet answer. Researchers continue to study this phenomenon, but there is still a long way to go to unravel the secrets of the nomadic island...

Nomadic Sable Island photo

It seems that the time when humanity sacredly trusted myths has gone forever. To explain something incomprehensible, we have science, thanks to which the place of the gods on the celestial chariots was taken by aliens, and the tambourines of shamans, who predicted the weather, were replaced by meteorological satellites. But, despite all the achievements of progress, human nature is still attracted by the incomprehensible and mystical.

On the verge of fiction

2012 - the film “Life of Pi” was released, based on the novel of the same name by Yann Martel. This adventure drama (which, by the way, won four Oscars) features a mysterious carnivorous island located somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to the plot of the book, during the day this island was a paradise, but at night it turns into a trap for all living things. After sunset, the algae that made up the island begin to secrete acid, and the lake located here becomes an acidic vat, digesting all living things. The only salvation was in the treetops, where it was possible to wait out the night while the surface of the island bled gastric juice.

Fortunately, the movie predator island is a fiction, but, as you know, there is some truth in every fairy tale. For example, a thousand miles from Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean is located, which at first glance is a tropical paradise with lush vegetation, picturesque lagoons, reefs, white sand and everything else that attracts tourists. However, this island is uninhabited, and among those who have visited it, there is an opinion that Palmyra has a living and, without a doubt, black aura. External prosperity here is very deceptive: the weather changes instantly, calm lagoons are teeming with sharks, algae release toxic substances, and the surface of the island is full of poisonous insects. Even the fish that live in the creeks and lakes of the island are inedible, and a feeling of strange melancholy and hopelessness hangs in the air.

During World War II, the Americans used Palmyra as a springboard for an attack on Japan, but according to the soldiers who stayed there for several months, island life seemed like hell to them. The landing force was plagued by a series of mysterious suicides. The psychologically exhausted unit turned into a gang of deserters that wandered around the island and did God knows what. The reason for the unexpected soldiers' madness remained a mystery.

Ship Devourer

In the North Atlantic, one hundred and ten miles southeast of the Canadian port of Halifax, Sable Island is located, which is deservedly considered the most dangerous island ever marked on navigational charts. The peculiarity of Sable is that it is a sandbank, which, as a result of the meeting of the warm Gulf Stream and the cold Labrador Current, moves at a speed of 200-230 meters per year! Over the past two hundred years, Sable has “sailed” forty kilometers from Canada, although, of course, this “swim” should not be taken literally. The fact is that the western part of the island is constantly being washed away by waves, and the eastern, on the contrary, is overgrown with sand, like living tissue. In fact, these are quicksand in the ocean, and any ship washed ashore disappears without a trace after 2-3 months. The exact number of ships that hit the damned piece of land is unknown, but it definitely exceeded a hundred.

The island's main killer weapon is that it has an almost flat surface, and it is almost impossible to see it from the sea, especially during the storm season with fifteen-meter waves. According to legend, the sand that covers the island is like a chameleon, and even in clear weather is colored the color of the surrounding ocean. The ability to mimicry is characteristic only of living organisms, which led many sailors to think that the island, with its quicksand and sharp reefs, was “hunting” passing ships.

Sable was first depicted on official maps in the 16th century. At that time the length of the island was almost 200 miles. In the 19th century, scientists assumed that Sable, which had shrunk by almost 10 times over the previous 300 years, would soon completely disappear from the surface of the earth, but this did not happen. Moreover, over the past 100 years it has increased by two miles.

Almost every island on the planet is the surface part of a mountain, which, in turn, is located on tectonic plates. Islands cover our planet like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, moving at speeds of several millimeters per year. Sable's travel speed is 100,000 times greater, suggesting that the island has no physical connection to any of Earth's tectonic plates. Numerous questions, to which there are still no intelligible answers, have pushed some scientists to the sensational and, at first glance, completely crazy idea that Sable is something like a living organism, which is based on silicon, and not carbon, like all living beings on our planet. If you agree with this theory, then you can try to explain where the sand comes from on the eastern part of the island, while the western part is constantly eroded by a strong ocean current. It is possible that sand (aka silicon) is a waste product of an insatiable ship devourer, which is what Sable appears to be.

It is curious that shortly before the start of World War II, the island presented researchers with a new mystery. In the spring of 1939, storms of unprecedented force raged in this area, removing hundreds of tons of coastal sand, as a result of which a hole with the skeletons of eight ships formed on the island. It was in this pit, a hundred miles from Canada, that the remains of a Roman galley from ancient times were found! While the members of the scientific expedition sent to the island were arguing about the find, another storm broke out, and the tomb, which had been opened for a short time, was again covered with tons of damp sand.

The Curse of Bulawan Island

Bulawan is a small piece of land in the Banda Sea, which belongs to Indonesia, and has long gained the reputation of a bad and dangerous place. The island became widely known after the plane of American pilot Willy Van der Haage crashed in its vicinity in 1989. The pilot was able to eject, but for the next 3 years he had the opportunity to be in Robinson's shoes, making many amazing discoveries.

During his forced confinement, Van der Haage explored the length and breadth of the tropical island; his attention was especially drawn to the deep wells of obviously artificial origin that led to dry underground caves. Having descended into one of these caves, the American discovered a truly priceless treasure of gold coins, which, as is known from legends and horror stories, rarely brings happiness and longevity.

The treasure, found by an unwitting researcher, was in four clay jugs, sealed with natural asphalt. Inside the vessels were faceless, perfectly round coins, more like polished lenses. After the gold was delivered to America, an expert commission of numismatists and specialists in ancient culture could not determine the nationality of the coins, which gave reason to assume that these coins were a means of payment on the territory of some high-tech lost civilization, maybe even Atlantis.

The stay on the island ended as unexpectedly as it began: an Australian destroyer passing by saw a distress signal, thanks to which the missing pilot was finally rescued. Upon his return, the American gave a couple of dozen interviews in which he said that Bulavan is a powerful anomalous zone, and the cause of the plane crash, after which he became a captive of the island, was powerful geomagnetic deviations.

From newspaper articles, the public learned about the gold coins found, and detachments of black treasure hunters poured into Bulavan. The wells, adits, and caves of the island were repeatedly ransacked by lovers of quick money, and it should be noted that many did not return empty-handed. Only now treasure hunters came across not gold coins, but amazing silver bars in the shape of horse heads. These zoomorphic silver, according to scientists, were used in sacred rituals of a civilization unknown to us. But the most amazing thing is that there are no traces of artificial processing on the ingots, and we can say that this is nothing more than a masterpiece of the anomalous zone of Bulavan Island.

As for Willy Van der Haage, after undergoing retraining, he returned to his favorite job - flying, and, probably, this story would have had a happy ending if the pilot’s disfigured body had not been discovered in his own home in March 1993. The motive for the murder has not been fully clarified, but the police hastened to attribute everything to a banal robbery.

It is worth noting that since 1999, almost all the diggers who removed precious loot from the island were hanged, poisoned or shot! It’s simply ridiculous to talk about banal robberies here.

Drifting Nightmare

The islands of Palmyra, Sable, Bulavan are just a small list of mysterious, cursed islands fraught with danger for careless travelers. But the various anomalous zones that are shrouded in a fog of secrets and mysteries are nothing compared to the main island on this list, which is more than real, and whose appetite for absorbing living flesh is much worse than the figment of Yann Martel’s imagination.

As sad as it sounds, the first place in the list of damned killer islands is occupied by a man-made creation - Garbage Island, which drifts between America and Eurasia. Currently, a huge landfill in the North Pacific Ocean is twice the size of the United States and is rightfully called the “Eastern Garbage Patch.”

The basis of the giant floating landfill is plastic waste, which is thrown into the ocean in huge quantities. The weight of this dump is already estimated at 100 mils. tons, and this figure continues to grow at a tremendous pace. At the same time, 70% of waste sinks to the bottom, so Garbage Island is just the tip of the iceberg.

Only two countries in the Pacific region - Australia and New Zealand - effectively control plastic recycling, while advanced Asian states have designed and began mass production of equipment that processes all ship debris (plastic bottles, bags and other waste) into powder. Next, the shredded plastic, visually invisible to environmental services, is dumped into the ocean, saving enormous amounts of money.

The trouble is that over the past couple of decades we have become accustomed to such concepts as “humanitarian” and “ecological disaster”. It seems to us that if something like this happens not in the next block, then it is unlikely that the consequences will affect our own skin. However, Garbage Island is a disaster not of a local, but of a planetary scale. The worst thing is that this is no longer just a polluted aquatic environment, but a real cemetery of marine life. Every year, about a million birds and a hundred thousand mammals die from plastic waste dumped in the Pacific Ocean.

This happens according to the following scheme: under the influence of sunlight, plastic begins to disintegrate into small fractions without losing its polymer structure, then fish, jellyfish and other inhabitants of the ocean, confusing the waste with plankton, begin to eat it. Birds and mammals swallow larger things: lighters, bottle caps, syringes and toothbrushes. Of course, the “plastic diet” leads to death, but some of the commercial fish poisoned by chemicals still ends up on the average person’s plate.

How many of you would like to taste the meat of cattle raised on a farm near Chernobyl? Fish with a belly stuffed with plastic is little better, but the average consumer rarely thinks about what he puts in his mouth. Even when the obvious is explained to us, we pretend not to hear, or hope at chance, believing that misfortunes will affect anyone, but not us.

Garbage islands of this kind, albeit smaller ones, exist in all oceans. We can only admit that these drifting killers are already stretching their bony fingers far into the interior of the continents. And this is just the beginning...