Cape Breton's Magazine

board her. Now, we've never rummaged through that broken stern section. I've al? ways been tempted to take the underwater cutting gear out there and cut a big hole in her side and get in and see what's going on. But it's just one of those projects you don't get around to doing. There's lots and lots of diving to be done at St. Paul's. (And before it's destroyed. How come people aren't down there tearing it apart now?) Well, it's a tricky spot to go with a small boat. You don't know what the weather's going to be. I know there's some divers have gone out there, and been advised to keep a careful eye on the weather, and got caught in winds and so on, and got the daylights scared out of them, so they've never gone back.... There's sea life too. There's seals and codfish and sharks and porpoises and whales--on the passage back and forth to Dingwall, you see gray whales, you see blue whales, you see finback whales. Pods of blackfish. We've been in the water with them up there.... (If I understand correctly, St. Paul's Is? land is a place that you go to because you know there's been a wreck there.) Right. That's a busman's holiday, when we go to St. Paul's. We've kind of adopted a look-don't- touch attitude toward St. Paul's ourselves. There's (another wreck at St. Paul's) that I don't even have the name of. Somebody The Department of Community Services providing services and financial assistance to those who need them. For more about services and programs, contact your local office of the Department of Community Services listed in your telephone directory. Department of Community Services somewhere along the line told me it was wrecked about 1903, somewhere in that area. They didn't know the name of it either, but they remembered the date from a story. But in any case, she was wrecked on the south side of the island. And had a cargo, it ap? pears, of dishes and that sort of thing. As well as a cargo of steel rails, too--that one had some steel rails on it. And her forward section is pretty well pounded and ground up in shallow water, but the after end of her is in a little deeper water. And we've recovered a few chamber pots from her, and water pitchers, and sugar bowls, and that sort of thing. My dad's got one of the chamber pots. I've got the bell somewhere--! think it's down in the basement buried somewhere. But you know, that's the sort of stuff-- what the heck is wrong with doing stuff like that? You know, it's not historically important at all. Then again--of course, these wrecks are such, too, that you can go and--well, we'll say we're out looking for brass and copper. Pick any one of them, you can go around and spend a day or two and you can clean it up. There's no more visi? ble. And you go back the next spring, after the winter storms, and my God, there can be brass sticking out everywhere. So you clean it up again, I've been doing this for years. And you go back, and maybe you'll get more 5 years from now than you did this year, (Same place.) Same place, same wreck. Plates get tossed around and expose some? thing else. Or a bed of gravel that's bury? ing up some wreckage gets washed away, and you go back and there's nothing but bedrock and hundreds of pieces of junk--you know, brass--laying around. (Is there any danger for the divers in what you're doing?) No. Very, very little. Very little. You know, you don't go in under? neath things--there's very few cases where you can. But occasionally you can get under a piece of plate or something like that. CAPE BRETON REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY TRANSIT INFO 539-8124 PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Get your DISCOUNT BUS TICKETS at Shoppers Drug Mart stores In Industrial Cape Breton 58