Here folks... I'll give you all something to read from my working "factional" manuscript:
{Wrecking of the San Miguel}
Fifty Souls had made it top side. Ten of which, were immediately washed overboard, as the upper deck
was taken by the next - ever growing ground swell - surfing the deck, with remaining forty odd souls toward
their awaiting fate. The rest of the passengers and crew compliment were to never surface again - staying with
the sheared pitch-bolted hull - buried under the weight of the San Miguel's unscheduled and unrecorded cargo
of bullion - crushing the air from their lungs, beneath the sea just in sight of land - they would never see..
Most of the passengers and crew still remaining on the main deck were scrambling for the rigging and the
stern quarter. It was an odd sight to Sea Eagle, watching from the top of the largest mound at the estuary
the upper deck alone - of this once great ship - surfing - into his estuary on a great rouge wave
{ just one hour yet 150 lives earlier}
Fate is the whim of the gods and they have an interesting sense of humor when it comes to man. Time
was bending itself around an event - whose destiny was ordained. The winds had risen to past gale
force and the San Miguel, after having jibed was now under bare polls - with all drogues out - still exceeding
its hull speed.. Doom was inevitable. The question was could Orlataca keep her afloat long enough for the
winds slamming the heavily burdened vessel - from the north-northeast to drive the San Miguel up and on the
beach. Orlataca bellowed a laugh and said to himself, "I'm making a pack with the devil, "To keep my ship
afloat - just long enough so as to wreck her on the beach"! "Get us some rum from my quarters", Orlataca
ordered his number two and pilot Diego Garcia. "Bring our braces and two Archebuses as well".
"Aye Captain sir", was the number two Diego Garcia'a reply - already on his way below. Once there he
encountered Juan Ramariz de Miranda. "Sir you had better prepare yourself for the worst - We are either going
down to the deep or on the beach - there is no middle ground"! Before de Miranda could respond - number
two, Garcia was gone with weapons in his hands and brace pistols slung over each shoulder. With his life on
the line, Miranda was no longer ill. Now he was scared. The king's "quinto" didn't matter - the special package
for Philip the 4th - didn't matter - the only thing that mattered was that he get out of this cabin and onto the
deck of the San Miguel. This was a death ship and he knew it. They - no sooner left port, when the plague
began to inflict its toll on the ship's passengers and its crew. They first felt a great fever - then those so afflicted's
bile went from yellow to black, next came the boils - then death.
Two passengers cast themselves over the side when they realized that the ship had been so infected. The
ship was refused port in Havana and now flew the yellow quarantine flag. When the San Miguel reached the
top of a particularly large breaking swell, the look out repeatedly shouted - land ho - off the starboard port quarter.
But surfing down the next trough - the sky disappeared - as the bow dug its prow into the blue abyss. Half
of the crew were washed overboard - before the vessel surfaced - immediately regaining hull speed. It was
impossible to take soundings in these conditions but based upon the color change of the water Orlataca reasoned
that they were in seventy to ninety feet of water and the shore would be fast upon them. The seas were so
steep - he now feared an even greater catastrophe. If his bow was to be caught in another trough as the one
she just - barely survived, she may strike the bottom and splinter - never to resurface.
Orlataca suddenly recognized the sand cliffs on the shore to be that of the bleach yard - just west of what is
known as Hobe Sound today - then the worst came to pass. In thirty-five feet of water - with an inviting estuary
within eye shot - an immense rouge wave crest picked up the San Miguel - then the combined weight and mass
of its cargo and speed, drove it down and into the wave's trough. Then its bow dug into the sea-bottom. All of
the ribs of the vessel at the canon port openings snapped like twigs from the momentum and the lower hull sheared
away - the San Miguel dropping its bottom - right there and then. The trapped air within the lower deck pushed
the upper deck to the surface - for one last brief - and wild ride
Or did the ballast pile or some of the ballast pile sit up near the original upper deck impact point and did later storm events and riptide wave actions and major storm events break up the ballast pile and drag them off shore
