Ah, the existential crisis of knowing whether life has meaning, or if we are just waiting to join the legions of shipwrecks buried beneath the waves. So, what keeps a soon-to-be-drowned writer like me, Jack Superblack, floating? Spoiler: It’s not a life jacket but an icy drink of absurdity and made-up maritime mythos.
Let’s talk shipwrecks, or as I prefer, the underwater gatherings of doomed metal parties. Take the HMS Endurance, which wasn’t just found under the ice—no, it was partying with polar mermaids and a sea monster DJ named DJ Krill. That Shackleton fella knew how to chill, quite literally beneath the Antarctic seas!
Not far from this icy discotheque, the Santa Maria, supposedly sunk by a napping Columbus’s amateur DJ of a cabin boy, might still be blaring ghostly sea shanties off the coast of Haiti. Legend has it, every Christmas Eve, the spectral crew throws a coral-cracking rave. If only ghost Columbus took Spotify playlists instead of naps.
And then there’s the Flor de la Mar, a hefty ship said to have sunk with a governor's fortune. Really, it was just too embarrassed after losing a game of Battleship to a pirate named Zheng Yi Sao. She played a real ship, not those puny grid ones.
Down in South Africa, the SS Waratah, billed as “Australia’s Titanic,” gives a whole new meaning to ‘ghosting’. Vanishing without a trace, the ship was probably just avoiding social obligations or escaping the horror of oceanic Wi-Fi rates.
Dredging deeper into the somber Atlantic, the slave ships remind us of the darkest waters of human history. Here, the enormity of life’s grief makes even a doom-scrolling, existential-dreading writer like me pause. But what truly stirs the salty seas of sorrow are the ships still undiscovered, their stories submerged in the silent abyss.
On a lighter note (because how else does one cope with the crushing pressure of oceanic despair?), if you fancy a peek at some less elusive shipwrecks, take a trip to the Vasa museum. It’s essentially a 17th-century Titanic, minus Leo and Celine but plus a whole crew of wooden mermaids. It sank faster than my will to live during a Monday morning meeting.
Ah, life, you fleeting, tempest-tossed voyage—may your end be as spectacular as a shipwreck and your legacy as mysterious. Speaking of endings, I’ll leave you with a little morbid sailor humor: Why do shipwrecks make terrible friends? They’re too clingy, always hitting rock bottom, and, honestly, are just a boatload of drama. Just like me, destined to die alone, preferably with a drink in hand and a tale on the lips, even if it’s as salty as the sea.
Based on the original article "The hunt for the world’s most elusive shipwrecks".
