Powerful storm surges have scoured away many Garden Route beaches to reveal rocks not seen for a long time. This prompted Action Ads’ Julie to haul out her metal detector and she plans to see if the lower beach levels at Noetzie will yield any interesting finds.
Thinking about that reminded me of the shipwreck at Noetzie 139 years ago. I wondered whether she might unearth any buried metal from that ill-fated vessel. It really was a mysterious wreck. It was a French ship from the island of Reunion, originally called Ville Pierre and later renamed Phoenix. I could not find anything original about the shipwreck online, only information lifted (without acknowledgment!) from Winnie Tapson’s book Timber and Tides. There have been many shipwrecks around the South African coast, regarded as one of the most treacherous in the world, and several ships have been wrecked at Knysna, especially when crossing the bar at The Heads. There are records for what caused many of the South African shipwrecks, but no one seems to know what happened to the Phoenix. The wreck was found in April 1881 by John Benn, the pilot at Knysna at the time. The ship, a three-masted schooner of 145 tons, was lying wedged into a reef of rocks. “Not a sign of human life showed on board,” wrote Tapson. “Her masts and rigging, or what was left of them, were bleached quite white and it was plain to see that she had been knocking about at sea for many moons.” Benn reported the wreck and a field-cornet was posted to keep watch overnight. Tapson writes that the news of the wreck “electrified” Knysna residents, who “set off at dawn on horseback and in wagons, finding their way over the uncharted hills to the beach”, a trip of 1½ hours. Benn and helpers were already at work on the wreck. A customs officer took charge, “thinking to find boxes of dollars and doubloons. But all he found, alas, was a number of ‘dead marines’ ” – empty liquor bottles! Interestingly, the cargo logbook was still on board, and the last entry had been made in 1876 when the ship was a guano trader. There was a boat on the deck, which they hoisted overboard and floated ashore, and they cut down the damaged main mast to prevent it falling and injuring someone. What had happened to cause the Phoenix to float around the ocean with no sailors on board nor any cargo, until she wound up drifting onto the rocks at Noetzie? “No Ancient Mariner was found lurking amid the Noetzie rocks to sing the tale of tragedy that had befallen his companions, nor to tell why the ship had been so ruthlessly abandoned, and when and where. The sea never gave up its dead, nor the rocks their captive.” Of course the rocks did eventually give up their captive, as there is nothing left of the wreck. But maybe, just maybe, Julie’s metal detector might find an old metal button, a brass fitting, or even a French coin. Wouldn’t that be fun.
