We live by the sea in Northern Sharjah. The other day, after the bout of bad weather that trashed our brand new and unused gazebo, we noticed a ship washed up on the Sharjah Corniche, seemingly dug into the sand back first, a small tanker by the looks of it. It's not often you see shipwrecks on the beach by your house and we were mildly curious as to quite how you manage to end up beached in Sharjah - it's sort of hard to miss, so it can't really have been a case of lost at sea. She's officially a shipwreck - more info here. Today, a second ship ended up smack bang next to the first one. Now there are two shipwrecks on our beach!
To wreck one ship on a beach may be regarded a misfortune, to wreck two looks like carelessness.
The Sea Mermid, the first ship, has now been joined by the Lady Rana, quite a large vessel (81 metres long, in fact). There's a pervasive stench of hydrocarbons in the air. We're wondering if a third will turn up. It seems so very odd that two ships should be beached in two incidents and end up feet away from each other. The Lady Rana had a very lucky escape indeed, at least she's in one piece and missed the vicious stack of rocks to her right. She's flying a Panamanian flag, but two years ago was flying a North Korean one. Shipspotters have already got her down as beached in Sharjah!
The Sea Mermid is a double mystery. Did they get the name painted on the cheap by the world's only dyslexic maritime signwriter?
Hahahah... Sea Mermid! She found the wrong place to park!!!! Keep us posted on the third :-))
ReplyDeleteOooh... would love to see this in person and take some pics. Can u post location on Google Map?
ReplyDeleteDyslexic maritime signwriters occur in literary fiction:
ReplyDelete"Prid of Ankh-Morpork" in Terry Pratchett's Jingo and "Goalend Van Titty" in George MacDonald Fraser's The Pyrates.
I never imagined a real one though!
Apparently, the vessels were advised to run aground after encountering difficulties in 10' swells.
ReplyDeleteBloody hell - either the captains are incompetent or the vessels aren't seaworthy. Or both.
Haven't heard of such shipwrecks! Hopefully there is no or minimal damage.
ReplyDeleteWOW. This is a first.
ReplyDelete