Blackbeard’s Pirateship Anchor

A 3,000 pound anchor has been recovered off the North Carolina coast on Friday, by Archaeologists from what they believe to be the wreck of the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship! It is hoped that this might change plans regarding how to save the rest of the almost 300 year old artifacts from the central part of the pirate ship.

Divers had planned to bring up the second-biggest artifact on what is thought to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge however they discovered it was too well-attached to some of the other items in the pile of ballast, according to the project director, Mark Wilde-Ramsing. So they pulled up another anchor instead that is the third-largest artifact and was most likely the anchor for the ship.

The anchor, which is 11 feet, 4 inches long with arms that are 7 feet, 7 inches across, was covered with a mixture of shells, sand and other debris that has been attracted by the leaching wrought iron. Its estimated to weigh approximately 2,500 to 3,000 pounds.
The size of the anchor is typical for a ship the size of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, with the two other anchors probably used in the event of an emergency, like a storm.

Archaeologists were planning to remove the second-largest anchor, which is 13 feet long with arms that are 8 feet across, from where it is located on top of the ballast pile. But found it to be too well-attached, so the divers went in from the side instead retrieving the “everyday anchor”. This means that in the future other dives may require going in from the side of the shipwreck rather than the top.

Divers are continuing to work for four days next week, then they’ll decide how best to move forward. The dive team hopes to recover all the artifacts by the end of 2013.

North Carolina state officials are hoping the anchor as well as the other artifacts will attract tourists. The shipwreck was discovered in 1996, causing world wide attention. The largest exhibit of artifacts from will be on view at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort starting June 11.

The timing of the recovery of the anchor couldn’t be better for North Carolina tourism interest in the shipwreck. The Disney film “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” starring Johnny Depp was just released earlier this month featuring both Blackbeard and the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Shipwreck Diving NC

Everyone fascinated with the sea will enjoy reading this documentary on local shipwreck diving. The book features stories and pictures about ships that have sunk offshore this area since the early 1800s.

Local authors Fred R David and Vern J. Bender created this 66 page paperback book.

$14.95 Buy it at: http://Islands-Art.com

People from age 4 to 104 will love this book, for twelve good reasons:

* It provides short stories of the last voyage of ships that sank offshore of Sunset Beach, Ocean Isle Beach, Holden Beach, Oak Island, and Baldhead Island
* It provides actual pictures of ships that sank here, such as the Sherman, the Hebe, the Raritan, the Governor, and the City of Houston
* It provides GPS #’s of many shipwrecks off southeast North Carolina
* It provides color pictures and short descriptions of exotic marine life that inhabit local shipwrecks
* It reveals where local Shark Tooth Beds are located and describes the extinct megalodon that once roamed here * It discusses the local Cypress Tree Forest on the ocean floor
* It provides numerous embedded YouTube video hotlinks to bring to life local shipwrecks and marine life
* It describes how, when, and where to catch spiny and slipper lobster here
* It gives important information for diving local shipwrecks, including depth, visibility, currents, type of artifacts, and marine life
* It describes local shipwreck history, from pirate ships to Civil War blockade runners, to World War II U-boat victims, to the recent Valour sinking * It tells the story of Frying Pan Tower and Frying Pan Lightships
* Help us preserve the history of this area by making this book available to others.

$14.95 Buy it at: http://Islands-Art.com

Miller Pope’s Book of Pirates

From Captain Kidd to Blackbeard to the pirates of the orient . . . From bloody battles to walking the plank- from blunderbusses to cutlasses, With nearly 150 original illustrations, this volume is sure to please and inform pirate fans of all ages.

Buy this book at:

http://Islands-Art.com

• Race for Riches: a history of the origins of piracy
• Greed and Gold: a pirate’s life aboard ship and in battle
• Tools of the Trade: weapons, vessels, and pirate culture
• Rogues and Raiders: profiles of pirates through history
• Other Pirates, Other Times: the past and future of piracy
• A Roster of Infamy: a list of pirates and their vessels

“The illustrations are incredible, from the actual pirates to their ships, battles, maps, tools of the trade and treasures. For every generations’ fascination with pirates and the exotic and exciting life they supposedly led, this book will satisfy that hunger for the actual and imagined part of pirate lore.

Miller Pope is as exceptional a writer as he is an illustrator, writing with the visual in mind, always crafting his words from an illustrators’ perspective and then backing that image up with the very picture the words so masterfully created.”

- Island Living Magazine

The Tower! Just Too Cool!

Ever wanted to stay the night in a lighthouse/tower off of the NC Coast? Well you can! A software engineer from Oklahoma, Richard Neal, purchased the Frying Pan Shoals Light Tower, located just off of Southport in 2010 and has taken on the immense project of restoring the tower. His intent is to offer overnight stays to charter fishing expeditions and divers who frequent Frying Pan Shoals. Neal is taking donations and is using the help of volunteers to make the restorations.

The tower also offers a safe haven for boaters and a helipad for use in medical emergencies. “Top-end” users could fly in for a week or weekend and enjoy a private fishing vacation according to Neal.

Neal also hopes to have a cell phone tower erected on the platform. Neal, 51, is a licensed pilot who had flown over the structure but had not yet set foot on it when he made the winning bid.

The tower is a modified 80-foot steel oil drilling platform and was used by the Coast Guard from 1966 until about eight years ago as an aid to navigation. The Coast Guard turned the nautical landmark over to the GSA to be sold when the introduction of GPS and buoys rendered the tower obsolete.

A federal General Services Administration spokesman said Neal was the only bidder for the modified 80-foot steel oil drilling platform when it was auctioned off in 2010.

The tower has two floors and 5,000 square feet of living space including five bedrooms, a kitchen, office, storage area, recreation area and toilet facilities.

Prior to beginning life on the tower Mr. Neal admitted to fishing only once in his life but had gained a love of the ocean from many flights taken along the Eastern Seaboard in his small private plane.

Neal currently has the tower accessible and hopes to be “fully functional” by 2012. We are not certain what conditions are at this time but they are taking reservations! Go here to make a reservation inquiry: http://www.fptower.com/inquiry.html

 

Now the story gets more interesting…Neal has written a book, or rather a software program born on the tower has written an ebook available for Kindle download at Amazon, “Hiding In Anonymity (HIA)”all proceeds are donated to the restoration efforts. Rather than trying to explain I offer this video for your consideration.. or in the words of The Twilight Zone “Submitted for Your Approval”…

 

Check out their website and facebook page to get a better idea of what’s going on!

http://www.fptower.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frying-Pan-Shoals-Light-Station/121119241261861

Hey What’s That Sound?

Sunset Beach residents and visitors often hear mysterious noises, often compared to rolling thunder or distant cannon fire.

Although these booming sounds are regularly reported at places up and down the East Coast, the Seneca Guns seem particularly concentrated right here off the Carolinas.

No satisfactory scientific explanation for the phenomenon has yet to be been found.

The term “Seneca Guns” apparently comes from Seneca Lake in upstate New York, where the sounds are often heard.

In 1850, James Fenimore Cooper (the author of “Last of the Mohicans”) wrote a story, “The Lake Gun,” describing the phenomenon, which seems to have popularized the term. (An alternate explanation, linking “Seneca Guns” to an obscure Civil War battle in Seneca, Ga., seems dubious.)

The sounds are heard in coastal areas; observers insist they are never heard at sea. In 2005 and 2008, residents in Brunswick County reported they were loud enough to rattle windows and shake houses. In December 2001, a Seneca gun event prompted more than 100 calls to New Hanover County authorities. No serious damage, however, has ever been attributed to a Seneca gun.

Some Seneca gun events are attributed to military jets breaking the sound barrier, but the phenomenon has been reported in this area periodically since at least the 1850s, well before the air age. Southport, NC historian Susie Carson insisted that the noises are most common in fall, although reports have been logged at all times of the year.

In 2005, Tyler Clark, chief geologist with the N.C. Geological Survey, guessed that the most likely cause for Seneca guns would be shallow earthquakes occurring offshore. The problem, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, is that many Seneca gun reports cannot be connected to quakes detected by seismographs. Seneca gun-like noises were reported, however, in connection with the Charleston, S.C., earthquake of 1886.

Peter Malin, a seismologist formerly with Duke University, speculates that the “guns” are somehow atmospheric in origin; his experience suggests the vibrations come from above ground level, rather than below. In the summer of 2001, Malin installed a seismograph in a 1,300-foot bore hole near the Fort Fisher State Historic Site, in an effort to detect mini-quakes; the project was never properly funded, though, and Malin was never able to record any results.

The “guns” seem connected to similar phenomena heard in different parts of the world, such as the “Barisal guns” in parts of India and Bangladesh, the “uminari” of Japan and the “mistpouffers” on the coast of the Netherlands and Belgium.

Explanations as exotic as UFOs and the angry ghosts of Indians have been put forward.

The U.S. Geological Survey Web site rules out a few causes: Tidal waves (none reported in connection with Seneca guns), lightning (Seneca guns often occur during clear skies in fair weather), shifts in tectonic plates (the nearest plate boundaries to Southeastern North Carolina are hundreds of miles away, in the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean), loud meteors called bolides (might explain some but not all of the guns), landslides off the continental shelf (none reported during recorded history), sink holes forming (not enough limestone deposits in the area, although plenty of sink holes occur near Boiling Spring Lakes in Brunswick County), cold air meeting warm Gulf Stream air (no explanation for how this could cause booming noises) or pockets of air, trapped underground being released (such seepage rarely makes a sound).

Several people have suggested that the noises may be caused by the release of bubbles of methane; deposits of methane clathrate hydrate are known to occur in the area. Again, however, methane seepage does not usually cause a noise, and it does not come up in large enough quantities to cause explosions.

Just know that in the decades of Seneca Guns reports no one has ever been hurt and there have been no damage of any kind reported as a result of this phenomenon

Photographer’s New Book

The beaches and sea birds of the Brunswick Islands of NC are featured in new book by nationally renowned local nature photographer and artist, Ken Buckner!

Favorite Beach Photos – By Ken Buckner

Hardcover coffee table edition with 128 high quality 8″x10″ pages with 100 full color photographs.

Stroll sandy shores by the sea or the beaches of a lovely lake and see sunrises, sunsets and wildlife just as nationally renowned local nature photographer and artist, Ken Buckner viewed them through his camera.

This is Ken’s journey and you are invited to join him through these pages. Most of the photos were taken near his home in the South Brunswick Islands of North Carolina.

“I explore beauty with my camera. The photos show the journey” – Ken Buckner

The book includes the occasional “story behind the picture.” Ken wants the reader to feel some of the excitement he experienced capturing these special moments in time.

Buy The Book – $35.00

Click here to buy this book at the Islands-Art.com website!

Islands Art features Giclée Prints by nationally renowned local nature photographer and artist, Ken Buckner, the books of Miller Pope (founder of The Winds Resort and Sea Trail Golf Resort), mystery novelist Tom Rieber and renowned local Romance Novelists Jacqueline DeGroot and Peggy Grich.

The Nine Irony By Tom Rieber

The Nine Irony, the latest in the Nick Thomas Mysteries series by Local Author Tom Rieber is now available online.

Nick Thomas is a little bit of all of us; believable, lovable, tough when need be and sensitive. He is a man who got a second chance at life after hitting bottom and turned his life around.

And life was good, that is until one fateful day the walls of his life came crashing down and he finds himself framed and wanted for the murder of his estranged ex-wife.

Buy It Here! $14.95

Nick has no choice but to go underground and try and find the real killer before the police find him.

Pick up your autographed copy and join Tom’s loyal fans. You won’t be disappointed!

Local Author’s Books: Huge Hit!

Local Author and Illustrator Miller Pope has spent a lifetime as an artist Read more

Spend An Unforgettable Day!

Come to the beach and take in some history at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson Historic Site and Orton Plantation. Read more

Area Winery Wins Medals

An award winning winery near Southport, NC? Its true and the awards keep coming!Ocean Isle Beach’s Silver Coast Winery has been awarded six medals in the 2008 Wines of the South competition at the UT Conference Center in Knoxville TN.

With these six medals added to those won over the past six years the total awarded the winery comes to the 219 awards! Silver Coast Winery received bronze medals for its 2006 American Oak Chardonnay, 2005 Seyval Blanc and 2002 Merlot and silver medals for its Premium Oak Chardonnay, 2005 Reserve Merlot and 2004 Treasure.

Silver Coast Winery Winter hours (January & February) for tours and tastings are offered from noon to 5pm Wed – Sunday. For more info visit the winery’s site at: silvercoastwinery.com or call 910.287.2800

For more about the site read our archived story here!

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