Into the Screaming 50s (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine August 2002

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Into the Screaming 50s (Cont.)

AT DAWN WE WEIGH ANCHOR and motor south out of Bahía Schapenham. The barometer is at 983 millibars and falling. To the southwest, streaks of blue and pink angle up from the horizon, backlighting the fantastically jagged skyline of Isla Hermite, while behind us the northern half of the sky is a mass of angry gray clouds. An hour later, having cleared Punta Lort, we swing around into Bah'a Lort. It's a broad bay guarded on the south by the towering cliff of Punta Cannelier. Within it lie three distinct coves, the northernmost of which—Caleta Norte, the chart calls it—is protected from the east by a small, domed island.

Gradually the cove opens before us, and with it comes an odd feeling of familiarity. John Rice gets out the sketch of the River Boyne laid on her side and we all cluster around, comparing it with the view. The mountains behind the beach don't seem nearly as dramatic as they appear in the drawing, but there is an outcropping of whitened rocks in precisely the right spot, a few feet off the beach, and behind them a stream comes gurgling out of the hills just where it ought to. The depth is right, too—six fathoms in the middle of the cove.

Novak doesn't even bother to look at the sketch. "This has to be it," he says. "This is where you'd bring a ship in."

I had argued the loudest for Bah'a Schapenham, but now I'm wondering. In his letter to the River Boyne's owners, Edmund Rice wrote that he "came to anchor in a snug little bay about two miles north west of Cape Lort." We are south of Punta Lort, but almost exactly two miles northwest of Punta Cannelier. Is it possible that Rice, having lost most of his charts, mistook Cannelier for Lort?

We anchor in 15 feet of water, close to the rocks. Once again Novak pulls on a wetsuit and goes over the side. Ten minutes later, he resurfaces with a couple of odd rocks that appear to be encased in a reddish coral. Haworth goes down to the forepeak, returns with an ice ax, and splits them open. They're cement-gray inside. Novak hauls himself out of the water and shrugs.

"I still think this is the place," he says.

When we spin the Zodiac into the beach five minutes later, I'm the first off the boat. I go about three steps before I spot a small black rock about the size of a charcoal briquette. I scratch it across a neighboring rock to see what kind of mark it leaves, and hand it to John Rice.

"There you go," I say, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a huge grin. "The smoking gun."

Rice hefts the lump of coal in his hand. "Well," he says. "What do you know?"

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