Assessing the risk from the Bermuda Triangle

One of the best things about retirement is that you can do things that you didn’t have time for while you are working a 60-90 work week. Unfortunately for me, not being conditioned to all the fake news that flows through the internet, as I was too busy at work, I found myself googling the Bermuda Triangle. I have been on Zoom calls twice a week with the Salty Dawg Sailing Association preparing for the sailing voyage south with them and not once did this topic of the Bermuda Triangle come up. I realized early on that sailing from Hampton, Virginia to Antigua takes a course smack through the middle of the Bermuda triangle so I wanted to find out what to expect and watch out for on my journey south.

The first hit took me to YouTube where a scientist carefully evaluated all the evidence about sailing and aviation disasters that have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle and concluded that the chance of a disaster is the same as anywhere else in the world. One of the strongest bits of evidence is the fact that insurance companies have not recognized this area as high risk. The Bermuda triangle is the area between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. There are ships going through this area and it is a heavy shipping route from Europe and South America to North America. I found some comfort in all of this until I read my insurance policy. “Under no circumstances are you to enter the waters in and around Bermuda. If you do, the insurance policy will be null and void”. My research on the internet found this to be baseless, so armed with this strong internet evidence I fired my insurance company…… The next insurance company that I hired agreed that this was a ridiculous clause to put in the policy so I hired them. The new insurance agent that I spoke with scoffed at the folklore surrounding the Bermuda Triangle and  confirmed that there is no such thing. They did, however, add in a rider that stated there will be an additional $2500 fee for going more than 250 miles off shore. When I consult the map, 250 miles offshore takes me smack through the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle was never mentioned on the new policy, but I am left with the sense that they know something that I don’t know……

More research on the internet revealed that USS Navy cargo ship USS Cyclops went missing with more than 300 people on board in the Bermuda Triangle. In March 1918, USS Cyclops set out to sail from Brazil to Baltimore through the Bermuda region carrying 10,800 tons of manganese ore with about 309 crew members on board.  The ship was never heard from again. After an extensive search nothing was ever found. No wreckage or bodies were ever recovered. The captain of the USS Cyclops never sent a distress signal, and no one aboard responded to radio calls from other vessels in the vicinity.

One of the most mysterious incidents is the tale of the Mary Celeste. It was discovered on Dec. 4, 1872, floating aimlessly at sea. It had left New York heading for Genoa, Italy with 7 crew on board including the Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife and 2 year old daughter. When the ship was found several months later here was nothing wrong with the ship, but the lifeboat was gone, and no one was on board. Some have speculated that they all abandoned the ship because of a delusional phenomena that happened while traversing the Bermuda Triangle…..

There is another mystery associated with the American white oak schooner Ellen Austin. In 1881, the 210 feet long Ellen Austin was going to New York from London when she stumbled upon a ship drifting near the Bermuda Triangle. The ship seemed sound, but it was obvious that there was no one on board. Captain Baker of the Ellen Austin boarded the abandoned vessel to find that everything was functioning, and there was even food on plates in the dining room,  but no sign of the crew. The captain placed some of his crew on the ship and set to sail together. However, after two days of sail on calm waters, a squall separated the path of the two ships. Days after the storm, according to the stories, the ship was spotted again and Ellen Austin caught up to it and was able to board the ship only to find that there was no one on board. The captain gave up on trying to bring the ship back to port and it was spotted again several years later still drifting…..

On January 31, 1921, Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground on the treacherous rocks of Hatteras Diamond Shoals, North Carolina. There were speculations that the vessel was involved in rum-running. However, when the investigation team from Barbados reached the vessel after days of effort in the rough sea, what they found was a deserted ship with all crew members missing along with the crew’s personal belongings, ships navigational equipment, logbooks, and life rafts, among others. There is speculation that they may have run out of water in the Bermuda triangle and started drinking sea water. The resulting hypernatremia made them delusional and they jumped in the shark infested waters trying to swim for a non existing shore and were eaten or drown.

There have been over 100 ships that have gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle and some have never been seen or heard from again. Christopher Columbus records seeing some green lights at night during his trip to the new world and analysis of his log puts these siting’s in the Bermuda Triangle. This unusual phenomena  has never been explained.

The google research arrives at a few plausible explanations for the disasters that have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle from holes in the planet’s electromagnetic force causing compasses to malfunction to waterspouts and rogue waves. Sailors are great storytellers especially when there is a lot of time. In May of this year, I was sailing back to Toronto from the Bahamas with Marlo Baydala. We had a lot of time to tell stories. He felt that one explanation was release of methane gas from the depths. Marlo is a geologist and had been involved with drilling for oil during his career. He had also spent a great deal of time studying the depths in and around the Caribbean and Bermuda. Much of the Bermuda Triangle has depths of up to 8 kilometers. The Bermuda Triangle also has the ideal conditions for methane gas formation. Large bubbles of gas that are released from the depths could  mix with other large bubbles over the 8 km rise to the surface. This could create a huge crater where ships could fall into and be swallowed by the sea. Because methane is lighter that air, a large bubble could cause an airplane to lose lift and crash into the ocean sinking to the depths.

My boat is on its way to Annapolis by truck. From there I plan to take it to Hampton, Virginia, an 18-hour sail down the length of Chesapeake Bay. Sometime around November 1, 2022, when an appropriate weather window appears Neil, Paul and I are going to sail Ileana to Antigua. You can follow me on https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/ileana/ If the blip on your tracker suddenly stops…… well, I will leave it to your imagination as to what has happened…..