EPISODE 39 - Maritime Mysteries

Oh goodness , earthquake . She likes to like nuzzle up against the side of the laptop . Who doesn't , who doesn't ? How's your Harry Potter house going ? Oh , I think we've got . We've started the potions room . We've got the walls on now , so the walls of the dungeon .

And Josie wanted because the walls of the Dolls House are like the rooms are square , and Josie wanted the dungeon to be kind of curved . So I've created these things that slot in at the side , that make it like arched . Oh nice , yeah , so I've just painted those this morning , actually Getting fancy with it .

Yeah , I just want it to look quite nice and you know I'm a bit of a perfectionist . So I wanted to actually look like a potions room , the actual Hogwarts . Brick for brick it will look like the exact replica . Need set continuity , cool , right , random blam Go . Oh , oh Lord . It doesn't have to be necessarily about you .

It could just be random , isn't it A random fact ? Yes , but we don't know . You can eat the skin of a kiwi . Do you know what ? No , I didn't , and until Lewis said that one of his friends does it at school . Yeah , it's like an apple . Who does ? They're all hairy . I know it's not appetizing , but yeah , you can eat the skin of a kiwi .

Well , there you go . I don't know , as I would be trying that , but have you tried it ? Yes , and it's not appealing . No , it's quite dry . The hairiness of it is dry , it's like almost like coconut bristle and it is like hard , Like pigskin . My random blam Did you know that crocodiles cannot stick out their tongues ?

No , but I don't feel like I've ever thought that they could . Well , let me tell you this fact . This random blam , will enrich your life tenfold . You'll be walking in a zoo with Josie and Josie will go that crocodile just stuck his tongue out at me and you'll be like I think you'll find you didn't .

Yeah , I don't think I'm ever going to come across that scenario , to be honest . Well , pigs can't look up either . Oh , I've got one as well , josie said to me the other day . She was like did you know you can't touch your shoulder with the palm of your hand . Then I was like yeah , absolutely you can . She was like no , the same one .

And you physically cannot touch your shoulder with the palm of your hand . You know what it's ? Because our muscles are too big . Yeah , and you know , I don't like to lose at things . So I was like I'm your arms , I'm absolutely going to touch my shoulder . You can't do it . No , we're near . No , don't give yourself a cramp . No , can't do it .

That is a good random blam . I love that random blams have gone from random facts about each other to just random nonsense Crocodiles and hand palms and kiwis , kiwi hair , that's like pig skin . Oh , and I did a . Pigs can't look up at the sky . Oh , random blams full circle .

Before we start the episode , my met , as you know my memory is shocking , but one of our subscribers , kerry , did we do a shout out for her ? Because I honestly don't remember doing a shout out for her when I was looking last night at the subscribers and everything getting ready for the Blam episode .

Well , I mean , if we have , she can have another one , because Exactly I don't know . And if we didn't , kerry , I'm so sorry , and if we did , I'll take it back . You're welcome . No , but just in case we didn't . Thank you so much , kerry .

It means a lot to us to get subscribers because it's continued monthly support and then , yeah , thank you , and I also also . I also really appreciated the fact that she had her name as Kerry and a little picture of a dog . Yeah , oh , I love that . Oh , kerry , oh my God .

So me and Josie we went to Mannington Hall , which is in I don't know ages away from here , and we was there all down . It was like a charity event and there was a charity there and it's called the Long and Short of it and they are a charity that bring over abandoned dogs from Siberia .

Oh , and they were looking for people to adopt said dogs and they had a dog there . Oh my God , kate , me and Josie we almost came home with it because she was just the best thing I've ever seen . She was a Siberian husky and she was 10 months old and she was .

She was kind of German shepherd looking , so she was like a black and tan and she had no ears because they'd been frostbitten off , but she had ear fluff . They looked like she had ears and she had three legs , just like a binkle . She had a , yeah , but she had a like a .

She had a small leg because it had grown deformed , so it was kind of it looked like it had a paw on the end . It was just much shorter than the rest , just one that you can hold . Yeah , she could have still . Yeah , she could have still done like paws and high fives and all sorts of things , but just not . It wasn't good for balance . But she was .

She was just the best dog . She was so lovely . Are you still considering her ? We're not ready for a dog yet . Yeah , I know that's the thing you need to be responsible . We've got a holiday coming up as well , so we would have just had her and then left Dog sitter for life .

Dog sitter , yeah , no , as much as we would have loved her , we were just not ready for a dog yet . So , no , you need to be sensible and make good decisions . We would have loved her entirely and give her absolutely everything I know , but yeah , we wouldn't be fair . I'm sure she'll find a home that will love her .

Yeah , she was with a foster family at the moment and she's looking for a permanent home . So , guys , if you want to adopt a dog , poppy the long and short of it . They're on Instagram as well , so you can see all the dogs yeah , all the dogs that are on there that need a dog tin . You can have a look at that Just adorable , kind of .

On that note , I would like to give a very sad shout out to Donna , who we have done a shout out before . She has a wonderful dog called Thunder and he's beautiful and on the YouTube video . I shall post a couple of pictures of him now . But the other night wasn't it quite himself ? He'd been himself all day , absolutely fine , wasn't quite himself ?

In the evening took himself out into the garden and just kind of laid in the garden and Donna described it to me as very much like Marley and me . You know where I mean . I've heard rumours of it . I stopped reading the book and watching the film for the sand .

And when it's raining and he goes outside and goes Marley , this is someone like him not to come back in , I was like the end he's gone for a lovely refreshing walk , exactly . I was like in my head he's like oh , there he is and he comes bounding back in . But yeah , so Donna knew that there was something not quite right with Thunder .

So she brought him inside and they thought we'll keep an eye on him . So they've laid down . So Donna was like , right , that's it , we've got to get him to the vets . They took him to the vets and sadly he had a very large tumour all around his heart , just covering heart completely .

And they then found out that he had a second tumour in his abdomen and , yeah , sadly they had no choice but to let him go to the rainbow bridge . So it's been a very sad time , especially for Donna she's . You know , they've recently lost Peter and they lost Kaya .

Now they've lost Thunder out of the blue , and he was a young dog , he was a young , healthy boy . So things like this just come out of the blue and kind of knock us for six . But you know , if everyone can just send loving vibes to Donna , charlotte and Cameron , or Bla as I call him , this episode is in memory of Thunder .

Morning Morning , morning , morning , morning , alright , so one of the children has gone back to school . Aha , the same this end . One child went back today . The other ones not back today , the other ones , yes , my apologies for the amount of times that I said , oh god , in your episode , the one before last I clawed out my own eyes .

I found that incredibly difficult not to think about and feel and you know I felt like I was going blind . But yes , I apologise for the sheer amount of times I lost count when I was doing the editing , the amount of times that I say oh god , oh god .

I don't mean to be , you know , offensive to anyone , religious or anything like that , but I mean it could have been worse because I could have been screaming all sorts of horrendous obscenities . But , um , yeah , josie pointed out to me actually that I said I think it was in the last episode when we was talking about car shopping .

I said a five car door instead of a five door car . We're all used to it . Yeah , we're so pretty bad at island , we expect it . I mean , yeah , that's not , that's not just like a one-off thing . There's so many things that you say that I think . Yeah , I thought , oh , kate must not have . Well , must not have . Josie's got an antenna for it .

Whenever I say anything like that and I get things backwards or I say stupid things , she's got an antenna , she like hones in on it . Yeah , I mean you said that that's part , that's part of your charm , I think , and you know I'm an idiot the listeners embrace it and love it . So Thank you guys . Yeah , there you go .

We notice , we notice , but don't judge . We let it go , we let it go , yeah . So that's , that's all of my notes , so let's crack on . I have got another . Fairly like , our recent episodes have been half an . Oh sorry , do you need to nap ? Oh , I do apologize , there was yarn in it . I always need to nap , you know me , I know you do .

That's something else that we love and accept about you . Well , either eat or yawn . Eat or yawn , yeah , sometimes at the same time . So , yeah , our last few episodes have been relatively short half an hourish , 36 minutes , 37 minutes , that kind of thing , and this one's going to be I mean , it's already probably an hour and a half long because you know me .

But I want you all to know I am building up to a big story . So I'm kind of , you know , little episode , little episode , little episode and then boom , huge episode . That will take about six weeks and I won't . But yeah , there's a , there's a big one coming . So I thought it's all right if I do a couple of like , shorter ones , can't wait .

So today , maritime mysteries , so stories of the sea . So in layman's terms it's about ghost ships . Great , that's it . I like maritime mysteries and if I find more which I have kind of I have done throughout my research , we can do a maritime mysteries part two .

So I've recently been on a ferry and I was like the sea is super scary and mysterious , isn't it ? Yeah , like it's just like its own entity , like the sea . And yeah , it got me thinking and I was like let's delve into it . So the first maritime mystery is one of the most well known , popular , whatever way you want to call it the Mary Celeste .

Yeah , heard of it , yep , heard of it , love it , love it , ready , love it . Got the t-shirt Sweet . So this is , like I said , it's probably the most famous of all , the legendary ghost ship , the Mary Celeste . Originally she was built as a British ship named the Amazon . Did you know that ? Did not know that ? I did not know that . And that was in 1861 .

After changing hands a few times , she was bought by an American named Captain Benjamin Briggs . I like that , and that was in 1870 . Captain , yeah , Such a Captain name . Do you reckon he was Captain before they just born .

Born Captain , oh , born Captain , oh , okay , yeah , I named the Captain Benjamin Briggs , yeah , and he was like , oh , so wanted to be a carpenter . Captain Briggs , an experienced Captain , set sail on the 7th of November 1872 , along with his wife Sarah there's always Sarah's in our stories , aren't they ? Like you're very , very well known , yeah .

So he set sail with his wife Sarah and his two-year-old daughter Sophia , and they set sail from New York and they were heading to Genoa in Italy , carrying a cargo of industrial alcohol , industrial alcohol , industrial alcohol , and it was a voyage that should have only taken just a few short weeks . I wonder how long that would take nowadays .

Probably like four hours . However , the ship did not arrive at its destination and it was spotted on December 4th 1872 . So like nearly a month later by a British vessel called the Dei Gratia Sorry about my pronunciation and they saw it just off the coast of Portugal . Captain David Morehouse noticed that the ship was sailing erratically .

When they approached the Mary Celeste , the crew of the Dei Gratia was greeted with an eerie sight . The ship was fully seaworthy , it was in good condition and it still had all its provisions and the cargo was completely intact , nothing wrong . The only thing that was odd and missing was all of the crew and passengers that were on the boat .

There was absolutely no one on there , however . The lifeboat was missing and there were signs that people had left , but they'd left in what seemed like a panic , like there was half eaten meals , like , literally , where people had been eating , dropped their knives and forks or whatever and like legged it .

You know just a couple of things that were like knocked over , but all their personal longings had been left behind and a lot of their belongings were , like , pretty high in value as well , which they thought was obviously bizarre .

The logbook was still there , with the final entry dated on 8am November 25th , and it gave the Mary Celeste position at the time , which was six miles northeast of Santa Maria , which is the easternmost island of the Azores , and it's close enough to sort of clearly see like the land . Where was it headed ? It was heading to Genoa in Italy , so not near there .

No , captain Morehouse decided to sail the ship to Gibraltar and claim salvage insurance on it , and this didn't go well , as they were accused of murdering the whole crew of the Mary Celeste and then stealing the ship , and they were like no , no , no , we found it like this . And everyone was like mm-hmm .

After a stern three month inquiry they found no evidence of foul play . But the day Gratia crewmen only received one sixth of the $46,000 insurance money , which was about $830 each , and in today's money it would be the equivalent of like buying like a nice suit , a nice men's suit . So not really worth all the all the egg for that .

All the accusations , some theories propose that the crew may have abandoned the ship due to hallucinations caused by alcohol fumes from the cargo , and it's because it's known that industrial alcohol can produce toxic and potentially lethal fumes and , in pure form of ethanol , used in industry generally as a solvent but not suitable for human consumption .

So it would have been like hand sanitizer , probably what they used it for . Yeah , so I used hand sanitizer the other day to light the fire in the snug . Yeah , yeah , some fire . I was like , oh , I haven't got any fire lighters and I've like going through this insane hot one minute and then freezing cold the next minute .

So I thought I like quick fire , I haven't got any fire lighters . And then I looked across and there was this little gleaming , glowing bottle of hand sanitizer and I was like , hmm , perfect , into the fire , lit , went up . Lovely , it smelled a bit funny , but they thought that they might have been hallucinating Because of these toxic fumes .

Some people suggested that the ship had been attacked by pirates , while others believe that it had fallen victim to a giant sea creature Like the Kraken . Yeah , but the ship was untouched . Kraken , yeah , but he only sucked the people off . I see , left the ship , left everything else .

The where it comes to an abrupt stock with the pirates is everything had been left . Everything value would have taken the ship . Yeah , they would have either taken the ship or they .

I mean , if they were going to kill the people and throw them all overboard or whatever , there would be some evidence of that , there would be blurred or there would be a sign of struggle and that kind of thing . But I don't know , or was it some sort of mutiny ? But then again , if it was some sort of mutiny , why wouldn't they have taken their belongings ?

Why would they not have taken their personal effects ? The cargo was had a high value , like this hand sanitizer that they had in the barrels . Yeah , it was worth a lot . So if it was pirates or anything like that , they would have taken it .

Investigations were conducted to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance , but they failed to provide any kind of definitive explanation . I guess the lifeboat was never found . No , people never found lifeboat . Never found nothing . What do you think happened ? Mystery indeed . Why would there be ? This is the Dyatlov parcel over again , isn't it ? Isn't it ?

So what you're saying is you think it was Bigfoot that took them all off the boat ? Why would they all have left in the middle of their Meals ? They would have . They would have left because they would have been . They would have all perceived that they were in danger . That's the only thing , agreed .

I mean , they must have all perished on the life , life like the ship wasn't damaged or anything like that . So I don't think it would have been bad weather . She'd be better off staying on the ship and not In the yeah , not in a small life , but so , so strange . But there's been many , many , many investigations . Nobody has even come close to an answer .

But I do feel quite intrigued by it . So I might . It might warrant an episode all on its own next

. Next is the cursed squando . Back in 1890 , a Norwegian ship , squando , docked itself on the embarked arrow in San Francisco . It was said that the captain and the first mate got on really well right up to the point when the captains wife came on board .

No one knows exactly what happened between the three of them , but sadly it was to be the first mate's last voyage . In a violent rage , the captain and his wife not only murdered the man , but they also hacked off his head .

The murderous couple then tossed the headless corpse into the San Francisco Bay , but strangely enough they decided to keep his head in a locker under the captain's bunk . I don't know why you want to do that . I mean , if you're going to kill someone , you wouldn't you just kill him and like , just push my bitch ?

I don't know why you had to like hack someone's head off . Yes , that's a bit much spit like overkill . Literally Soon after the headless corp of the first mate was discovered in the San Francisco Bay and the captain and his wife were captured and then executed . The story of the ship doesn't finish there . You'll be pleased to hear .

The owners of the ship found a new captain and a whole new crew and plopped them all on there . However , within a month , four crew members mutinied and killed their captain oh gosh , and the next two captains met the same fate , or similar , should I say one dying from poison , from a bad cut on his hand , and the other during a violent school at night .

So there was big waves . Third captain fell over , died never to be seen again . It's a bit like the defense against the dark arts teacher , isn't it ? Yes , curse , cursed role , cursed role . By 1893 the entire crew , fed up with the cursed nature of the ship , deserted it in Bathhurst , new Brunswick .

The ship's reputation as a haunted and cursed vessel made it impossible for the owners to take , to hire a new crew and they were unable to even keep the night watchman . So this is back in the day where if you left the ship , you couldn't leave a ship on its own , you couldn't just like park it and go , let's go to the pub , because it'd get nicked .

There were pirates and Jack Sparrows all over the place . So if you didn't have a crew on the ship , you had to have a night watchman . One night watchman made his quarters in the captain's cabin but when he lit a lantern he felt something firmly grip his arm . He glanced down and he saw a hand , and the hand was covered in blood .

In gripping fear he traced the arm to its body , halting at the dripping neck where the head should have been . A noise caused the watchman to slowly turn to the locker under the bunk . As it opened he saw a hideous , gory , bloody head that came out of this locker and it rolled across the floor to his feet .

The watchman snatched his lantern and legged it out the door , spending the rest of the night out on the deck . And this was exactly the same story for the next seven days . They all said exactly the same thing . They were all hired and then quit within a couple of weeks of working there . They never stayed longer than a few weeks .

And then they came back with they felt someone gripped their arm . They looked and they were all like I don't know . They were all like I don't know . They were all like I don't know . They were all like I don't know . They were all like I don't know . They were all like I don't know . And then they came back with they felt someone grip their arm .

They looked , there was you know someone there with no head . Then they hear the creaking of the locker , door open , turn around , head rolls out , leg it out , leg it . And then they go to the ship and sell it off as materials . Legend says that on foggy nights , the curse chip can still be seen sailing off the San Francisco coast .

Next one is the Mummy Ghost Ship , and this is super short . This one when Filipino fishermen boarded a seemingly abandoned yacht in 2016 . So this is like the most recent . They weren't prepared for the site that they would find . They found a mummified body of a German sailor , manfred Fritz Borat , and he had been sailing around the world for about 20 years .

He'd been last seen in 2009 . And one of his friends said that he'd heard from Borat through Facebook In 2015, . There was no evidence of foul play , so a year would seem about enough time , you know , from the time they found it in 2016 to the last time he was heard from in 2015, .

A year would be about right , as they found him as a mummy , but they thought it's been warm , salty air , perfect conditions to mummify a body over a year .

Normally it takes like , obviously , a lot longer than that , but they thought , yep , that's fine , until they did an autopsy and the autopsy revealed that he'd been dead for about a week , but his body was fully mummified . How does that happen ? Naturally In my head he's wrapped up in bandages .

No , it literally just means that it's like , you know , when you do a slice of orange and you put it in a dehumidifier machine and it literally sucks up all the moisture out of it and then , obviously , and then it's kind of preserved for years and years and years because it won't go mouldy , it's got no moisture in it .

So essentially that's what mummification is like in a human . So it would literally be like he'd been dehydrated to an extreme level . But yeah , the autopsy said he's only been dead for about a week . So but something , something had turned him into a mummy and he was still on his boat . That was saying , did he have provisions and stuff on his boat ?

Because it could be that you know he'd run out of everything and he was dehydrated and starving and emaciated . And yeah , I mean it could be . The process is already pretty much happened if you've dehydrated . I mean like proper mummification would take unless it was in the right conditions . But this is what they were saying .

They said the mummification of his body would be in keeping with , you know , the conditions that he was in it's quite warm , it's obviously very salty , because you know he's at sea .

The mummification process would be about what we'd expect if he'd died a year ago and his dead body had been laying on the deck of the boat For a whole year with the salt bear and the warmth and all the rest of it . So , but yeah , the autopsy said nah weak , which is . They find out how he died ?

Nope , just been turned into a mummy by some kind of dark magical force , I'm assuming . Yeah , it's the only reasonable explanation . And next we've got the beichimo . So the beichimo was a cargo ship out of Scotland in 1931 . The vessel became trapped in the ice and the crew again legged it .

They couldn't get it moving , so they said we'll temporarily abandon it and come back at a later time . So they went off and they were seeking shelter in a nearby settlement . Eventually it freed itself and the crew returned . But then shortly after that it got stuck again . So you know , they obviously got in their little boats and they legged it back off .

A blizzard struck and the ship literally vanished , like it . Just they went back and it just wasn't there . The crew said there's only one explanation it sunk . But later they learned that it appeared somewhere else . So they said okay , so it must have freed itself and taken itself off on its travels .

After boarding the beichimo , they retrieved their valuable cargo and they left the ship behind , assuming that it's just no longer sea-worthy . So they abandoned ship for good , legged it , the beichimo sailed on and it sailed by itself for 38 years . Oh , my goodness . The last sighting was in 1969 when the becimo was frozen again in the in the pack ice .

She hasn't been seen since and there has been boats and boats and boats looking and there's also been many , many searches for her wreckage , but she's never been found , never been found . So it seems like there's , I mean , 38 years she was off on her own and then she was suddenly 38 years later she was just suddenly seen again .

But when they go and look for her , I mean there's a whole shitload of boats now they just can't ever find her . They can't find her whichever way they look and they've searched for the wreckage , never been found . But every now and again she just suddenly appears out nowhere , even though they've searched for her when she wants to be found .

Yes , proper , ghost ship . Yeah , the end . Yeah , ghost is . I find the . I've got a book about like unexplained mysteries and things and there's a lot of ship ones in there as well , like wreckages and things , and they're just so strange . It's odd , isn't it ? Because it's ? These ships were people's whole lifelines .

They were a massive , massive investment to build , to maintain , to crew and captain . I just think if people were going to abandon ships , it would have to be for a really , really good reason , and why wouldn't you then like go back ? You know , and it's just so weird , so weird , yeah , yeah . The Mary Celeste . I absolutely no idea what .

What could have caused them to leave the boat ? But it's the same as the Dial of Pass , isn't it ? What could have caused them to leave the tent ? I know , I really just want to know these things Just feel it fly on the wall . Yeah , time machine , it would be , would be great , yeah , yeah .

So if you've got any maritime mysteries , any spooky ghost stories , let us know . Yeah , if you have enjoyed listening to our episodes , make sure you rate us and leave us a review on whatever platform you are listening . We absolutely love hearing from you guys . So you can also help support our show by donating to our Buy Me a Coffee link .

We will make sure that you get a massive shout out and a big thank you in our next week's episode . You can also follow us on social media at Perplexed Podcasts . We're on Facebook , instagram and if you want to see more videos and blooper reels , subscribe to our TikTok and YouTube channels .

You can also email us your stories at perplexedpodcastsgmailcom and you can find all the relevant links in the episode descriptions . Thanks for listening . Bye , bye . I made this stew the other day and was eating all the raw meat out of it . Right , love that , oh my God . All right , I overshared , let's move on . We all learn .

Sorry about that , okay , so anyway .