Back in October, when I was in the throes of a self-imposed, month long sobriety experiment – I stayed in on a Saturday night and wrote a strange article about Disney’s old school 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Ride. When I re-read it now, it’s quite funny and definitely the work of someone who is pining for a lost childhood memory. And definitely not used to being sober on a Saturday night. Regardless, I read this amazing article yesterday about a sub-wreck that’s been rediscovered off the coast of Panama:
“A British explorer has found an early submarine that he believes was the inspiration for Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s vessel in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.”
“She was built in 1864 by a visionary craftsman, Julius Kroehl, for the Union forces during the American Civil War. But the boat, called Explorer, was never used in the conflict and was subsequently taken to Panama where she was used to harvest pearls.”
A maritime museum in Canada had a record of the ship’s final resting place, and asked the explorer to check on it when they heard he was in the area. The Explorer was the first primitive sub to have a reversible airlock which allowed crew members to leave and then return to the ship whilst it was submerged. The museum had an 141 year old written report on the demise of the Explorer which detailed the abandonment of the ship and the simultaneous deaths of the entire crew… but it wasn’t from drowning!
“The submarine, which measures 36ft by 10ft, was lying in under 10ft of water off Isla San Telmo, an island in an archipelago known as The Pearl Islands, since being abandoned after three years in the pearl industry. Her crew all died from what was described then as a “feverâ€, but what was more likely to have been the bends after they regularly submerged to about 100ft to work.”
Read the full article if you’d like. It’s amazing how yesterday’s trash becomes an influencial, modern treasure. It’s also amazing how whomever I leant my 20,000 Leagues DVD to has not yet returned it. Still more amazing is the fact that I just admitted I forget who I leant it to, and thus will never see it again. May ye get the bends, ye scallywag!
I went to Disneyland when I was three with my Pops, and one of my three big memories of the trip was the 20,000 Leagues ride. By today’s standards it hardly qualifies as a ride. But for a three year old kid who loved Jacques Cousteau shows, it was magic. Thanks for the article. Other big memories of the trip: tea-cup ride, staying in a motel for the first time.