Thursday 27 June 2013

Back on the coast patrol... SS Poderosa Wreck visit...



It`s a mid week beach ride, but its only 9am, and i`m on holiday, so i`m getting payed to go beach riding! -:)

It would soon cloud over but morning sunlight burned through gaps in the tree canopy as i cycled the John Muir Way North..


Turn off the JMW, a couple of miles of country road and a favourite view of mine...


A 0.2 meter low tide at 11.20am  saw me heading for Seacliff...







Friend Robbie's dad, Jack Dale drove along the beach with his pick up to drop off some new creels. I helped Jack lift them over and had a blether for a bit before heading along the coast towards Tyninghame, it was after 10am now but still plenty time to go out to something that i have never been to at such a low tide as this here, i have always been at the coast elsewhere in East Lothian when tides have been as low as this, but this has been on my calender to go visit this time...












Out there at the edge of the rocks...


Just before the flat sands of Peffersands and the Peffer (East) estuary...


I managed as usual to cycle so far out, but the neon green slime is lethal and not worth the risk of a broken hip or wrist to crash on...


Where i was trying to reach was  basically on the sea bed, as you can see by these Urchins, unlike the empty shells i find washed up these are still alive with the animal inside...

I carried and pulled the bike the last 25 yards over slippy seaweed covered rocks to get to a very exposed wreck... It is of course the wreck of the Steam Ship Poderosa that ran aground here on the rocks at Schoughall on the  27th November in 1896...



250ft long you can read all about the boat, and the Wreck Report

The anchor from the ship which sits at the farm road end you have seen along with the wreck before on the blog...


But never at such a low tide as this...
This is the bow i think as large parts that look like prop shaft parts are underneath...



Need to be careful as a lot of sharp metal parts sticking up and it was real slippy...


The boiler intact as i have seen before...



There was top many sharp bits of metal protruding to risk trying to get to the boiler, which was still sitting in 2-3 feet of water so i left the Pugsley on a high rock and walked in a horse shoe shape on rocks above the seaweed to get to the the end - i guess the Bow...



The skeleton remains of the ships steel rib cage beams of the entire hull are still there underneath, covered in seaweed...


Built in Sunderland the boiler was made by this company...




The biggest parts visible above the seaweed of the wreck...







Time to get back to the bike and out of here before i become a permanent part of the coastline too...

That was ace!...




Along the sand to Tyninghame Links woods...






And the secret trail...


And home through the woods, another nice couple of hours out and about...

4 comments:

  1. That wreck's a cracker Bruce, I really need to get myself down there for a look around one day. Tempted to do it without the bike though as it sounds pretty dodgy underfoot and the Pugsley looks almost buried by seaweed in one of the earlier pictures.

    You also seem to have the knack of finding Urchins when you're out, I've not even spotted an empty shell washed up on the shore yet. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Gav. I should have had my Canyoneer boots on for grip ot there!.

    Was a few years before i found any empty Urchin shells, after the big storms.

    Still waiting to find another Seahorse washed up since beachriding on the Pugsley -:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. There's a boiler exactly like that on Reiss Sands near Wick. Much later wreck from the 1950s though.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And here it is David from a visit in 2011 :)http://coastkid.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/roadtrip-2011-reiss-beachride.html

    ReplyDelete