Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Paddy54, post: 631942, member: 19250&quot;]Before the survivors left for Batavia , van der Stell had already received a dispatch from Olaf Bergn at the wreck site. Four men under the command of the ensign Bergh took 8 days to get to the wrecksite. The men whose names were Aernout Calcoen, Christoffel Henningh, Jurgen Klingh &amp; Olaf Bergh found that she had broken to pieces on the rocks. After having walked along the beach they found the following articles that had been washed up: 20 mum pipes 1 cask wine;2 casks ships beer; 26 casks tar pitch; 1 copper cooks kettle; 80 bottles of wine and brandy and a broken empty money chest lying on the beach.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Bergh requested vab der Stell to send one of the English survivors to show them where the hull had struck[waar de bodem was gebleven] so they could get the specie out of her. A small section of the afterpart was sticking on a rock and as the sloop from the Johanna was badly damaged they had to repair it before they could sail out to it.</p><p>On July 1st Bergh burried 4 corpses that they found lying on the beach and these graves must represent the first English graves in South Africa.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>They continued looking for more washed up wreckage durring low tide and managed to find amoung the rocks 613 reales.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Then on the morning of the 6 th July they again set out and to their astonishmentfound a chest lying on the rocks. The chest a very poor looking chest was kept together with iron hoops and the cover was attached by copper wire. The whole thing was about to fall apartand certainly would not lasted another high tide. When they openedit they found 15 bags of Spanish dollars.Over the next couple of days they found 1 ship metal bell, weighing 40 lbs, 1 iron anvil, 4 broken tin dishes and 3 iron cannons, 2-12 and 1-8 pounderthat were still under water,but with the sufficient force of men could easily be raised. Also 1 anchor, 1 small copper morter and pestle and various ropes and blocks.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Olaf Bergh asked if a carpenter with all his tools be sent to the site to enable them to repair the sloop.Simon van de Stell also offered to send a native diver,by the name of Pay Minah to dive amongst the wreckage.There is no record of this diver being successfull amongst Berghs journals but a refference was made by Bergh in 1686 whilst salvaging the Nostra Signora de los Miliagros that pay Minah was very sucessfull.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in