The Tribune

DIANA Rock is an enigmatic non-rock that still plays on the imaginations of mariners. Diana Bank is lacking solid land and thus cannot claim descriptors like “cay” or “islet,” so it settles instead on “bank, reef, seamount” and “shoal.”

According to the United Nations’ Gazetteer of Undersea Features, this sits right in the middle of the Crooked Island Passage, 55 nautical miles northeast of Duncan Town, and about 20 miles south of Long Island and south-west of Fortune Island or Long Cay. Not shallow enough to sink ships on most days, the sudden shallows can put out a confused and dangerous cross sea which are box-like and can overwhelm vessels. The banks are also just another worry and anxiety to navigators threading a passage fraught with currents and rocks. In 1921 the Montreal Star spoke of the fear those aboard a ship named Forester felt as she “smelt her way rather cautiously through Crooked Island Passage… Diana Rock  has guardian fangs of barrier reef and insignificant elevation of nine feet lying plumb in the fairway.”

In 1920 Captain Weebe of the  steamer Chappel reported that a ship was aground on Diana Bank off Acklins, and that her “stern was far down while her bow stood out of the water completely.”  As a consequence, “vessels are warned to give the bank a wide berth.” A British survey vessel named HBM Mutine reported that Diana Bank has between 50 and 60 feet in 1914. In a 2000 fishing guide, Willis McKinney Jr. was taking charters in his twin-engine Whaler to Diana Bank, where the birds pinpointed shoals of yellowfin, skipjack tuna, dolphin, wahoo up to 100 pounds, kingfish and billfish.

A ship’s captain reported in July 1889 how Columbus “would have little trouble finding the Bahamas now, as the English Government has put up a splendid lighthouse at San Salvador with a bright light visible 19 miles which is heartily appreciated by mariners cruising in these waters – before many good vessels were lost here.” He then commends the array of Bird Rock and Castle Islands: “as soon as they lose one light they pick up another,” and then notes the passage is “the most used by vessels bound to port in Haiti, Cuba, or the Caribbean Sea.”

Off Fortune Island one cheerful captain blew a whistle, and in response “a light is flashes ashore which informs us that we are seen,” followed by eight Bahamian laborers rowing out to the ship “ready to work” on cargo and other tasks for food and 50 cents daily, after they “make their mark” or sign an agreement. Fortune Island was a major stevedoring port for many decades, yet the light is a modest affair, hand-lit and hung from a tree in some cases.

The 380-ton steam ship Tropic of Philadelphia wrecked at the southern point of Fortune Island, or Long Cay, Crooked Island in June 1883, according to ships’ agents. She had recently taken rebel troops and ammunition to Haiti, and “steered in too close and struck the sand bar.” Though wrecked, her crew were saved.

Friend and foe use lighthouses to get where they are going. In fact, during World War II the U-boat commander Staats recorded in his war diary that he intended to go through the Crooked-Passage “during the day when visibility is quite good.” The afternoon of July 31, 1942 Marion Carstairs, the owner of Whale Cay in the Berry Islands, in her large motor yacht Vergemere IV approached from his right. A Ragged-Island-built sloop named Go On was sluggishly slatting its sails off the submarine’s port. The Germans might just have seen her in their Zeiss binoculars.

Staats reported smugly: “Land in sight! off the port bow. Test diving.” That was Bird Rock Light. And this was just the first of six of U-508’s positions for July 31, starting at midnight, then 4 am, 8 am, noon, 1:50 pm as it cleared Bird Rock, and 4 pm, then 8 pm. It approached Haiti the following day. This U-boat was just one of over 100 to patrol the Bahamas in 1942 for a year or so.

At the same time a rescued American sea cadet wrote that “when we reached Bird Rock Light, we were signaled by a yacht, that they had been sent to rescue us.”

That night 48 survivors of SS Potlatch were transferred in the wide natural anchorage known as Portland Harbour. Then, at 9:30 pm Vergemere IV hauled up its anchor and swiftly swung around toward the north and got under way. There was wreckage and bodies reported along her course – some 30 miles to the south, southwest of Long Island’s southern tip – by a US Navy Patrol Craft just days before. Another U-boat was reported by an aircraft a night before they set out.

About a quarter century ago an adventurous entrepreneur passionate about stabilising, restoring, and living in light houses, became an industrious hermit on tiny Bird Rock. Over time he earned the nickname “Lighthouse Man,” though his real names is Chritopher Owen. He doesn’t like to take full credit for any of his work, and he prefers to work alone. That said, journalists and others have identified as the inspiration for the story in Jimmy Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land. Owen is said to be the inspiration for the character Tully Mars and set on the same lonely island lighthouse in Buffett's 2004 bestseller.

Lighthouse historian Annie Potts said that Dave Gale, instrumental preservationist, also walked Buffet through how historic lights function and are kept moving, in great detail. Owens now lives in coastal-rural Connecticut, has diaries of his efforts to restore Bird Rock Light. The story, like all stories, has been blended in the retelling like tequila. Owens remains affable and approachable to this day. I recall when a friend and I touched at Landrail Point via mailboat we were told of the Lighthouse Man, and pointed in the direction of the offshore islet.

According to the  New York Herald in September 1908, the Norwegian fruit ship Yumuri wrecked at Castle Island. Owned by the United Fruit Company, Yumuri was 18 years old and 473 tons, on her way from Texas when she was overwhelmed by a hurricane. The boats were crushed in half when the men saw Castle Island Light. The captain managed to lead his men two miles from the wreck to Castle Island. When they made it ashore after a rough landing, the keeper led them to the floor of the tower, where they were rained on as though in a well.

Volunteers from a ship named Prins Willem I of the Royal Dutch Mail Line made it through boiling surf to rescue survivors Signals were sent by the overwhelmed light keeper and Dutch Captain A. R. Nybeer made it ashore and ascertained the survivors needs.

After beaching, then anchoring, then trailing a line, then wrecking on the beach, one of the Norwegian sailors refused to budge and remained on Castle Island, saying he “had had enough of the sea.”