Ship’s Log
Monday, June 21, 2010
Dear F&F;,
June 8th, 2010
Wreck of the “Seeadler” part 1 (Posted via HF Radio from Mopelia Atoll)
While in our last island Maupiti, we had a nice dinner with friends from “Na Maka” and a lovely American couple from Guadalajara, David and Eileen.
The owner of the “Pension” (family style hotel), Gerrad; told us about a World War 1 German Shipwreck, “Seeadler” right outside Mopelia Pass.
This of course got us quite excited. A shipwreck we’d never heard of, diveable in French Polynesia?
History: Count Captain Lt. Von Luckner, an aristocrat of French and German ancestry was to captain a captured American 3 masted sailing ship of 1500 gross tons and 275 feet. Formerly, “Pass of Balhama”, the ship was captured by a German U Boat and re-christend, “Seeadler” (Sea Eagle) and began “raiding operations” to harass allied shipping in WW1. Captain Von Luckner was both lucky and nimble and outfoxed several traps set for him at the tip of South America. His hallmark was that of the gentleman aristocrat adventurer/warrior. He prided himself on never taking a life in battle!
However, when “firing a shot” across a British merchant ship, the shot fell short, exploding a boiler and killing a young British sailor. Captain Von Luckner was distraught! He held a very formal burial at sea ceremony and apparently was disturbed by the event most of the rest of his life.
His classic style was to “fire a shot across the enemies bow”, have them see the hopelessness of the situation, surrender and promptly take the crew aboard, invite the Captain and officers to dine with him, then sink their ship. He had done this at least 16 times. He treated the captured crews so well, they often joined in his crew and he offered rewards to anyone who spotted enemy cargo ships for the taking.
Eventually, his luck ran out. He brought his “Seeadler” to this atoll, Mopelia in far western French Polynesia to avoid detection by the Australian and more specifically, New Zealand Navies. They were indeed hunting him. In a sudden westerly shift of the winds, “Seeadler” was at one moment on a protected shore and then next aground hard on the reef outside the pass. Realizing the vessel was lost, he ordered it burned to try and avoid enemy detection. Eventually, he took a small boat and sailed to Samoa where he was “bluffed” by a suspicious local policeman into surrendering. The police officers gun was apparently not loaded!
Captain Von Luckner and his small crew were interned on a New Zealand P.O.W. camp and despite this, managed to escape in a small boat. He was in search of another vessel and finally captured again where he spent the rest of the war in New Zealand. The fate of his remaining crew on Mopelia was another story.
They commandered a French vessel and sailed to Easter Island where they ran aground on an uncharted reef and were captured and interned by the Chilean Navy in Valpariso until the end of WW1.
This is NOT where the story ends however......
Captain Von Luckner returned to Germany where he was a folk hero. Hitler, tried to co-opt him for propaganda into the Nazi party. Von Luckner hated Hitler and everything he stood for. Von Luckner was a Mason, and the Nazis hated the Masons. This was the final straw for Hitler & the Nazis. Von Luckner’s speaking tours in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand had packed audiences listening to his WW1 tales. His battle flag today hangs in the Auckland, New Zealand Maritime Museum.
While on these tours, instead of hailing the virtues of the “Third Reich”, Von Luckner went out of his way to tell the Western World of the dangers of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. Enraged, Hitler wanted Von Luckner killed and if it were not for his immense public popularity in Germany, he certainly would have been murdered. Kept throughout WW2, as a civilian, under house arrest in Halle, Germany.
Halle had been spared the carpet bombing by the Allied Air Forces, mostly because it was a huge POW camp with tens of thousands of American and other Allied prisoners of war. Seeing the futility of the German side, Von Luckner drove across Allied lines in a car, met with reporters and was taken to American Commander General Terry Allen where he told the General he could negotiate with the German High Command to bring a peaceful surrender of Halle thus saving needless casualties on both sides. Count Von Luckner delivered: Halle fell without a fight.
After the war, the Russians said that the Americans were “never there” and interned Von Luckner. Due to his services to the US, General George S. Patton personally had he and his wife released from Russian custody and escorted to Sweden where they lived with the Countess’s family.
And now you know the rest of the story!
There was a book, recently published (2005), “Voyage of the Seeadler” (Sea Eagle may replace “Seeadler” on an Amazon search.
This book details the life of Count Captain Lt. Von Luckner.
The parallels are far too strong, and I believe he was the inspiration for the WW2 movie, “Sea Wolf” starring John Wayne as the German Captain.
I believe it was the only movie John Wayne played a German Officer?.....You IMBD hounds can confirm this.
Keep In Touch, lots of “Seeadler” photos to be posted when we get internet.
Scott and Cindy
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Monday, June 21, 2010
Dear F&F;,
June 7, 2010
Meeting the Locals (Posted from Mopelia Atoll via HF Radio Email)
It was grey and rainy all day. In the morning we caught up on rest and correspondence. In the afternoon we went to visit sister ship, “Na Maka” our French friends with 3 boys. Scott and Jerome talked weather, radio, computers. Natalie and I talked yogurt making, trash management and window coverings.
Later, Natalie offered to introduce us to the family living here. It was an easy wet landing in the dinghy which we tied to the local wood boat which was secured to the shore. One boy is 8 years old so he and 10 year old Leo play well together. In fact, Leo will be sleeping over on the island instead of his boat home. We saw two shelters, one for cooking and one for sleeping, very primitive. Wood supports with corrugated aluminum roof, no real walls, certainly no windows. Plenty of flies! They have about 5 dogs, 2 were chained up. About 8 free ranging pigs, many chickens & chicks. A small fenced garden (to keep out the pigs). They had some kind of video game box that the 2 older boys played. The twin French 4 year olds fought over the one bike with training wheels. We brought gifts of new T-shirts and hats that had been given to us, but we never really used. From the big outrigger canoe race. We also took two containers of dry Gatorade powder and Natalie translated how to mix it with water for a drink. There was a younger couple, possibly in their 20s, and a naked toddler with whom I played the international game of “peek-a-boo”. The 8 year old boy brought Natalie and I each a flower - very sweet. We signed their guest book and recognized a few boat names who previously visited.
Scott and the head of the family, Kalami had a stick in the sand discussion about where the few remains of the 1917 shipwreck (Seeadler) is located outside the reef and an anchor located deeper IN the pass. It will be fun to see if we can find any of it at our next opportunity to explore, hopefully tomorrow.
We had a rainbow on the way to shore and a gorgeous sunset on the ride back to “Beach House”. Scott is doing a late check in with the Pacific Seafarer’s ham radio Net, where he is often a relay operator. He has made good friends on the radio via this network. It is fun for him and we look forward to meeting some of the other operators when we get to New Zealand and Australia.
The news of our “Fins” video has been spreading like wildfire amongst sailing and diving friends, both active & armchair. Scott received 10 new requests to subscribe to our website per day! The owner of one of the online sailing magazines, who has used Scott’s photos before, requested permission to post a link to our video. So we anticipate the interest will continue for a while. It is really fun, especially for Scott, since he puts so much time and care into the editing. We have not had this much hubbub since “Cindy’s Manta Magic”.
Weather depending, we will anchor the big boat closer to the reef pass where all the diving is. Hope to be blowing bubbles tomorrow.
Cindy and Scott
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Monday, June 21, 2010
Dear F&F;,
June 4-6, 2010
Passage to Mopelia (mow-peel-ee-uh) (Posted from Mopelia Atoll via HF Radio)
We had a lovely two weeks in Maupiti (mao-pee-tee). Our last day we rented bicycles for about $10 USD each to ride around the island. We got off the main road into the dirt but were redirected by some kind locals. No gears on the bikes so had to walk up one steep hill. It has been a long time since we’d been on a bike and I felt a bit shaky, but it was fun. Beautiful vistas, a good workout.
RARE AS HEN’S TEETH
We were sad that the lady with whom we had “reserved” 2 dozen eggs, at one of the 3 small markets, did not deliver. We’ll never know if she really didn’t have any or she decided to sell them to a friend instead of us. No worry. We left the island with 30 eggs. We will cut rations to one each per day instead of our usual 2 each per day. For those of you worried about this intake...it is an old concern about egg yolks causing high cholesterol. Scott has been able to cut his cholesterol medication dose in half on this diet and hopefully can stop it completely when we get the next blood test. Losing 50 lbs certainly didn’t hurt!
I went to each of the 3 markets almost daily during the 3 weeks. I scored lettuce, tomatoes and bananas. Sadly only one more deliciously sweet grapefruit. It comforts me to have some fresh produce as we head out to an island that grows only coconuts.
June 4 -EXIT PASS AT MAUPITI
We left at 3:00 p.m. in order to have plenty of daylight to see the reef. The distance to our destination was only 100 miles, so we went slowly in order to arrive about 10:00 a.m. The wind was a good angle and intensity to sail. We only needed the main to go the desired speed. We took our usual watch shifts: me on 6-10 p.m. Then I sleep 10-2 while Scott was on. Except at 1:15 a.m. I woke up because I could feel the boat moving in a sluggish way. Sure enough, the wind had died off and we were flopping around uncomfortably in the swell. We turned on the engines, changed course slightly and motor sailed the rest of the night for comfort. I took my 2-6 a.m. watch early since I was already awake. I had armed myself with seasick prevention and did fine. It was lovely to enjoy the stars and bioluminescence (light producing creatures) alongside our hulls. I had a good nap from 6-9 a.m. while Scott approached Mopelia atoll. We passed “Na Maka” during the night, the French family on the blue Switch. They used a different sailing configuration (gennaker only) and did not motor at all. They have also been here before, so are familiar with the narrow pass entrance.
June 5 - ENTRY AT MOPELIA
We had the plan to enter about 10:00 a.m. as the rising (starting to be overhead) sun would illuminate the coral reef as we entered the eastern facing pass. The conditions were favorable so we went right in even without the benefit of following Jerome’s lead. It is quite narrow (65 feet!) with only primitive stick markers. No more of the good red and green navigation buoys that we’ve enjoyed throughout French Polynesia. There is no significant amount of ship traffic to make this tiny atoll a priority.
Once through the trickiest part, I drove and Scott climbed on top of the boom to get more of a bird’s eye view on the coral heads as we negotiated the reef. It took us nearly two hours to find a place to anchor that looked good to us. To make sure we would not hit a shallow coral head, Scott got in the dinghy with its depth sounder to scout the area “Beach House” would swing over in any direction of wind.
When “Na Maka” came in later that afternoon, they anchored about 4 miles down the atoll by the “village”. There are 2 families: one has 10 people, one has 2. They work copra farming (coconut).
I was very tired from being on and off watch for 20 hours & did not want to move, but Scott knew in the morning I would be keen to dive & it was prudent to talk to Jerome & get whatever local info we could. Jerome and family know these people from being here 3 years ago and they are good friends. I was hot, tired, hungry and crabby but we managed to up anchor and motor 4 miles down the atoll. Scott dinghied to them. Their 3 kids were already playing with the local kids on the beach. Hard to stay grumpy for long in the presence of laughing children.
I still took the night watch 12-3 a.m. despite the very calm anchorage in the lagoon. It is common for me to be awake some during the night.
June 6
Jerome got information on where the “Seedler” shipwreck from 1917 was supposed to be located outside the reef. He does not have scuba equipment or a compressor onboard, but is certified, so we took him with us. It was over 30 minutes dinghy ride from where the catamarans are anchored to the reef pass. We scouted a long time searching for the wreck. We found the big link chain and thought for sure that would lead us to the wreck site. We did not find anything but the chain. What we did see was another beautiful coral garden. Like Maupiti in variety and abundance, but the coral heads are overall smaller sized. There seems to be more variety and larger numbers of fish. And we saw each of the common sharks: white tip, black tip & grey reef. The visibility was excellent. Diving at the entrance pass on it’s south west corner was spectacular.
I enjoyed “conservation in action” killing three Crown of Thorn starfish (reef destroyers) with a stick and dead piece of coral. Scott got pricked by a thorn while helping me, youch! I will go more prepared next time with my Hawaiian sling and long knife strapped to my calf. Keeping the spirit of divemaster Ronald (Maupiti). We were happy to see one very large male Napolean wrasse that is a natural predator of the crown of thorn starfish. But they eat other things too, so I don’t think it disrupts Mother Nature if I destroy these pests when I find them.
Jerome did very well even though he had not been on scuba for over one year. He is an avid free diver (holds his breath, no tank) spear fisherman. This takes a lot of fitness and agility. He tells us that there are abundant lobsters and coconut crabs here that are good to eat. YUM! It was a great first submersion. We still hope to find the shipwreck if there are remnants of it here. We will want to move “Beach House” closer to the pass to shorten the dinghy ride. All our dives will be either in the pass, or drifting, towing the dinghy outside the reef. For now we will stay put, likely go ashore tomorrow to meet the people here. See what they need, what we have that we can share with them.
It rained this afternoon and the weather prediction is a bit shaky for a couple days, but that will not necessarily prevent us from diving. We have good protection from every wind direction so no worries. Jerome and Scott are always talking about the next few islands, the route, the timing. It will be nice if we can stay together for a while. Our boat is definitely not 4 year old proof, so we will not likely have the entire family aboard, but we hope to contribute to a shore side potluck perhaps. And since “Na Maka’s” watermaker is broken we have offered them all the fresh water they need. They have installed an effective method to catch rain and fill their tanks that way. We have this system, but since our watermaker is not broken, have not utilized it. It is smart though, because it has been raining some every day.
Cindy and Scott
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