The Pearl Ship

[Oroblanco]

HOO-EE that is a find amigo. Mum is the word though, so anyone else reading this please don't ask. You will all find out soon I hope.

It would make sense if the man who found the Pearl Ship was from California for him to head to his home territory.
Oroblanco

 

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[pegleglooker]

Hey Oro,
Let's try another offshoot story. If we are to believe that " vikings " did come to this area. Then around what year or years would be most logical ? Remember, that the find is supposedly high in the Sierra Blanco's or Fishcreek mts. So when was the last time the water level was that high

PLL

 

[Oroblanco]

HOO-boy Pegleglooker thanks for shoving me out onto the THIN ICE! I say thin ice because there is so little evidence of any Norse visitors to the southwest. We do have the strange story of the Mayo tribe in Mexico, which might be telling of the arrival of Norse colonists who were absorbed into their tribe (this would help explain the common light-colored hair and blue eyes among that tribe) and the story of the people who say they saw a Viking ship in the desert, including supposedly at least one photo. One part of your question I will have to go look up, I just don't know the altitude we are talking about (above sea-level) or the various dates of when the region was flooded. As for the other part - when would the most likely time period be for Norse visitors, I would say it would be between ~980 AD (when the first Norse reports of sightings of the Americas started to float around in Norse lands) and around 50 years after the sudden disappearance of the western Greenland Norse colonies, which was ~1350 AD. In that case up to 4000 people just stepped off into space - the common theories are that they died off in a plague, or they were all killed off by hostile Eskimos, etc but there is pretty much no evidence to support either of those ideas.

I would put it close to that 1350 date, as the period was turbulent in the west Greenland colonies, this would be a time when i expect that Norse people living there, finding the winters growing worse and summers so brief and cold that crops failed, plus the tide of Christianity was not welcomed among these hardy pioneers who clung to the old Norse pagan religion of many gods and goddesses, so in a way they were like the later Pilgrims who emigrated to America is search of religious freedom. If a Norse explorer were sailing up the west coast, like the similar story of Iturbe, it is possible that they sailed up the Colorado river only to find themselves trapped in an inland sea that was drying up FAST. If these explorers never managed to return to other Norse lands, their story would be lost to us - unless we find it in Amerindian myths?

When would you say the most likely time period would be for a far-ranging Norse explorer to have reached the region amigo? Thank you in advance,
Oroblanco

 

[pegleglooker]

hey Oro,
Sorry about my " nudge " , but I figured you of all people would probably know. Remember also the Seri Indians also had red hair and blue eyes. As to when I think they came through.... that's a tuff one, only because i don't think the water level was that high in the last 1000 years. But i am NOT a expert. The only semi-logical answer would be that they " may " have been up the Gulf of California, and the Seri's may be the proof. However Getting a boat got high in the Mt's. The only answer I can think of was they were trying to transport the boat to the shore, and most likely the locals told them the way. Or gave them bad directions so they ( the locals ) could attack and kill them off. If they were abusive to them.. How's that for Theory..

PLL

 

[Oroblanco]

NO apols necessary amigo, as I rather tend to believe that at least one Viking ship did make it to the West Coast of America, which could explain some things. I had forgotten about the Seris too. Your theory of how a ship might end up high in a mountain rather than low down in the valley, is a good one - we know that Norse raiders did in fact haul their longboats up out of the waters in order to portage them across land to reach another lake or river, so it is not farfetched.

I have another possible time period when some Norse might have showed up too - I had forgotten about Erik the Red's colonizing expedition to Greenland, in 985 AD. If memory serves, only 11 out of 27 ships actually made it to Greenland, the rest being scattered by violent storms and some of them were never accounted for. One or more of these ships of colonists might have gone off course and ended up far south, it is not impossible they might have become lost and ended up sailing right around South America either trying to sail around the world, or simply trying to find Greenland or any other Norse land. These would have been of the Knaar type, which were not really "longships" but merchant sailing ships capable of holding a fair amount of cargo. (Just a side note but this is the type of ship used by Leif Eriksson to colonize Vinland, not a Viking longship) A longship might have accompanied the fleet of colonists in merchant ships though, and would be the likely ship to use for scouting out in advance.

Oroblanco

 

[pegleglooker]

I was just thinking how freaky would that be... A scouting vessel goes out and never comes back...and there you are in the middle of the ocean or gulf with locals ALL around. As much as I would like to think I would have been a explorer in another life, there is always something that makes me go weeeelllllll I mean these boats were not made of metal,ahhh no lifeboats, just people who want to kill you at every turn..

PLL

 

[Oroblanco]

Pegleglooker wrote:

these boats were not made of metal,ahhh no lifeboats, just people who want to kill you at every turn..

Well amigo consider that the ships used by Columbus, da Gama, Magellan, Drake etc were all ships built of wood, and two of these made it right around the world. A Norse Knaar ship very likely would have a small "lifeboat" actually a river-boat, with shallow draft, that would be used for exploring up rivers, as 'lighter' boat to ferry goods back and forth in places where the ship could not get to shore etc. Then as far as the natives are concerned, we ought to consider that the region was never "thickly" settled with Indios, and the 'stone-age' weaponry of the Indios was not quite on a par with European steel weapons and armor. The superiority was not so marked as later when the Spanish arrived with gunpowder, but in recorded battles between Norse and Amerindians, the superior weapons and armor of the Norse generally won out. This is borne out in Iron Age history, for in virtually all combat-type encounters between the "civilized" folks using iron weapons and armor versus 'primitive' stone weapons and skins, the 'civilized' folks were able to defeat the primitives. So a small part of Norse, finding themselves in a foreign land populated by more primitive people (primitive meaning only in weaponry technology) could possibly survive for at least a while. Then too, if we compare the reactions of most Amerindians to the first encounter with Europeans, a good majority of them started out friendly or at least not openly hostile - the very strange-ness of the encounter and appearance of the foreigners seems to have lowered suspicions rather than raised them. All that would be necessary, for such a hypothetical party of Norse to survive (again for a while at least) would be to encounter ONE tribe of Amerindians that was not hostile, from whom they could obtain food and a little protection.

One other thing - in at least one description of the supposed "Viking Longship" in the desert, the witness said that the hull was covered with metal plates, and not to dismiss the idea of a Viking ship, but the Norse never covered the hulls of their ships with metal plates. (There are other, even more ancient people, who DID though!)

For the sake of anyone reading our discussion but with no information besides what we banter - here are a couple of tidbits published years ago:

But there would seem to be an even stronger possibility that the ancient ship which has been seen by at least some desert people arrived five centuries before Cortez. Does it sound impossible that a Viking ship sailed our western coasts a thousand years ago? It seems even more impossible that Indians who had never seen the Vikings could have imagined a correct description for one of their ships. And it is possible that one or more of their ships could have traveled the true Northwest Passage, above Canada and Alaska, in a warmer epoch. That voyage has been made in modern times. And the Norsemen were colonizing Greenland and adventuring on to the shores of North America around the year 1000. A colony existed on the west coast of Greenland for hundreds of years — a Norse searching party being sent to discover what happened to it and rescue survivors in 1354. A sword, axhead and shield grip dating to about 1000 and declared authentic Norse work were found in western Ontario province, Canada.

Dane and Mary Coolidge, in their book The Last of the Seris, make the definite statement that blue-eyed, yellow haired Vikings did come to Tiburon Island in the Gulf long ago, and that members of the expedition became the founders of the blue-eyed fair-complexioned Mayo Indians on the Mayo River, Sonora. The Seri Indians of Tiburon have legends and songs of these early white giants, who came in a long boat driven by sweeps, who were whalers living in big houses by the sea, in their own land. Whose weapons were the bow and arrow and spear. With them, said the Seris, was a redhaired woman, wife fo the captain, who wore her in big braids down her back and was even fairer than the men, who dressed in heavy clothes and had a big cloak or mantle. (Freydis, daughter of Eric the Red, was in command of a Viking ship to the east coast of North America, in 1014, so Viking women did sail.)

The blonde strangers stayed on Tiburon Island a year and four months, and then they sailed away with four families of Seri, promising to bring them back when they returned. But they never did return to Tiburon. Perhaps their long boat was grounded and abandoned somewhere in the Salton Sink and they walked out — either to Arizona where there was an early legend of blonde and redheaded Indians — or even as far as the Mayo River.

(from LOST SHIP OF THE DESERT )

A GHOST OF THE VIKINGS?
From "Paul Wilhelm's Desert Column," The Indio Date Palm, Indio, California, October 4, 1951.


The desert is the haunt of mystery. Sometimes men hear whispers of its past. They go seeking beyond the shimmering mirage. Into the silence they plod. A few are lost. A few return from uncharted desolation bringing back strange tales. An Indian tribe that has never seen a white man. A mine with a door of iron. Or a lost ship half buried in the sandy bed of an old sea.
The tales of the lost ships of the Colorado Desert have gathered moss, they have been told so many times. Although logical explanation gives credence to a few tales, they've been more or less exploded. Yet the fascination persists. Here's why:
In the bottom of every old seabed throughout he world bones of adventurous men on argosies to unknown lands have been found sealed with the ooze of stratified muds; it would be strange then if this particular ancient sea bed in the Colorado Desert of California was the exception. True, it is eons since a genuine sea flooded this valley, yet men have sailed in ships longer than our knowledge of history penetrates.
So there seems nothing impossible in the stories one hears. There's the tale of a ship with hexagonal spars, its wreck found by Indians all but covered with sand far up the meanderings of a dry wash in the Chocolate Mountains. One story, published years ago in ther magazine supplement of the Los Angeles Examiner, told of a Spanish galleon loaded with a king's ransom in precious stones, its wreck sighted in sand dunes northwest of Indio. One old desert vagabond who visited my oasis at Thousand Palms years back told me he had once found parts of a Chinese junk sand-and-clay buried near the oyster beds at Willis Palms.
[image] Fantastic, almost lunar, landscape in the Yuha. All this land was once under the Gulf of California, and oyster shells turned to stone are found on the very tops of these hills. Faint, shadowy lines, upper left, mark the Superstition Hills, where many believe the last ship grounded. Photo by Harold Weight.
And so the many stories are told and retold. They may all be true. For there probably were many ships. Wrecks of ships have come to light in the remotest parts of the earth.
But the story that seems most authentic is the one of the old Viking ship in the Colorado Desert. I've heard it a score of times and each time it seems more plausible. Here are the facts:
Down from the little mining town of Julian in the San Diego hinterland some years ago rode Mr. and Mrs. Louis Botts. That night they camped at Agua Caliente springs. In their first evening at the springs they had a visitor, a prospector who swapped them rarn for yarn — but all his stories centered on gold. . .
Until he drew from his wallet a few faded photographs of a "wreck of a ship of some kind" which he had found exploring for gold in the rough country down by the Mexican border.
Myrtle Botts, who is the librarian at Julian, studied the small worn prints. Then she exclaimed, "Why this is the skeleton of a very ancient ship! It's the type used in the period when Eric the Red made his voyages to America. Look, "she said, pointing to the picture of a ship half buried beside a rocky bank, "there's the high serpent bow, the curved ribs — an ancient long boat!"
But their visitor remained indifferent to the questions plied on him; his mind was intent on gold. "Can't see what's so strange about finding a boat in this desert. There used to be water here."
When Mrs. Botts asked, "Why did you take the photographs?" the prospector replied, "Seemed sorta funny finding a boat so far from water." He was a matter-of-fact fellow and had imagination only for gold. "Boats just ain't in my line," he said as he tired of the qestioning and eased off toward his camp.
In the morning the prospector had drifted on; the Botts never saw him again. Upon returning to Julian, Mrs. Botts thumbed through every book on early explorations. There was little to find of Norsemen voyaging towards "lands west." Nor did yearly searches that the Botts made uncover the ancient wreck.
But Myrtle Botts is positive the old serpent-prowed ship exists. And though the dust of centuries covers the hopes of dead voyagers on adventuresome argosies to unknown lands, she is certain that one day that lost ship of a vanished sea will be found!

By ED STEVENS
The Serpent-Necked "Canoa"
In 1917, an old Indian rode into the yard of our ranch in Imperial Valley. He was looking for work, he said, He had come into the Valley to pick coton, but his eyes bothered him and he could not see well enough to pick. He came from the Juarez Mountains of Lower California and gave the name of Jesús Almanerez. I think he was a Santa Rosa Indian.

I told him that I had a lot of mesquite wood to chop, and that suited him. But he refused to stay in the bunkhouse up by the ranch. He went down to the Alamo River and built an arrowweed ramada.

He was a very quiet and polite old man, with never much to say. He was with me three years and was always reliable.

When the first Christmas came, we had a big dinner. Then I loaded up a big platter with food and took it down to old Jesús' camp. He was greatly pleased that we would remember him on Christmas Day. So after filling up with all the food he could hold, he becdame rather talkative. I asked him what he had worked at in his younger days. He said he had worked in the timber and mines and as a woodchopper. Then I asked him if he had ever found any gold or treasure of any kind.

This is the story he told me:

"I was chopping wood with a crew of wood choppers just off the Laguna Salada. We were packing it on mule back up to the end of the sand hills where a wagon loaded it and hauled it to the Yuha Oil Well, which was then being drilled. (Ed. Note: In the Yuha Badlands, a few miles southeast of Coyote Wells, and south of U.S. Highway 80.) I think about 1898.

"It waqs late summer and the west winds wedre beginning to blow. For twelve days it blew, and then followed a big rain. We were about out of provisions so I loaded up a ten-mule train of wood and started out. The trail led along the foothills. I soon found the going too slippery for the loaded mules. So I turned off into the sand hills, which were wet and easier going.

"I had only gone a few miles when my lead mule stopped and pointed his ears. Looking that way I saw half buried in the side of a big sand hill a sarge canoa. (He meant a large canoe or ship. E.S.) It had a long neck and the head of a beast, and copper plates along the sides."

Since his boyhood spent with the Santa Ysabel Indians, Ed Stevens has been a life-long friend of the Indian people of the Imperial Valley and the San Diego mountains. From them he has learned many stories not usually told except among themselves.
"I got out of there as fast as my mules could travel. I unloaded the wood, got our provisions, and went back along the foothill trail. When I got back to camp, I drew my pay and left for the mountains, never to go back there again.

He told me that seeing tat canoa was a bad sign, and to save himself he had to leave immediately. I believe there must have been some legend about that ship among the Indians down there. Probably others had seen it, and unable to explain its strange appearance had regarded it as a "bad sign."

I was busy farming at the time, and did not have the time to pay much attention to the story. But it continued to bother me, and a few years later, I went to the Irrigation District office and asked for an old map of the area in Old Mexico. They gave me one of a survey of 1910.

As soon as I looked it over, I could see that it would have been very easy, even then, for a boat to get into the Laguna Salada in late spring when the Colorado would be in flood and meeting a high tide. The tide water went almost to Volcanic Lake. A boat could have come up the channel on the tide until it met the river current, then turned back and followed the river to Laguna Salada, where it became stranded as the flood receded.

I traced out and followed the old wagon road from the Yuha well drill hole to the head of the Laguna Salada in 1930, and I believe traces of that road would be visible yet. But I never had time to search the sand hills for a ship.

[image: area map] From this 1910 survey of the Irrigation District of the Imperial Valley, it is easy to see how a ship could have gone up Hardy's Colorado, from the Gulf, then been deflected into Laguna Salada.

There is a little "clue" hidden in the "Serpent-necked canoa" too - for we know that Norse ships usually had a dragon's head on the prow, not a serpent-neck. There is an ancient people who did make use of a particular type of figurehead on the prows of their ships, a swan - and the head and neck of a swan very well might be mistaken for a serpent, especially to a people who had no knowledge of swans.

Oroblanco

 

[Oroblanco]

Postscript, one more (repeats much the same info, but has interesting bit which I will highlight in bold type:

SAN DIEGO COUNTY
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park - For sheer volume of strange phenomena, California's largest state park must also be its most mysterious as well.
Lost Viking Ship
Agua Caliente Springs (26 mi N of Ocotillo on Hwy S2) Today, the hot and cold springs in this desert canyon are maintained as a county park. Sufferers of arthritis and rheumatism park their mobile homes here for up to six months at a time, to enjoy the springs' soothing waters.
But back in the Thirties, Agua Caliente Springs were known only to a few locals, such as Myrtle and Louis Botts of nearby Julian. Myrtle, an amateur botanist. was especially fond of the springs. since brilliant wildflowers grew in the canyons above them.

In early 1933, she and her husband, on a wildflower hunt here, were camped at the mouth of a canyon, when a dirty old prospector wandered by and told them an amazing story. Up in the canyon a few days earlier, he had seen an old ship sticking out of a sheer mountain wall. When the desert rat then told the Bottses that he had also found Pegleg Smith's legendary lost mine, they thanked him for the information, saw him off, and had a good laugh.

But they weren't laughing the next day. That morning the Bottses hiked into the canyon, and when they passed beyond a steep grade, they saw the forward half of a large, ancient ship poking out of a mountainside, just as the prospector had told them. The vessel had a curved prow, circular marks along its sides where shields had once been, and four deep furrows in the bow. The craft was high above the Bottses, and the mountain wall that held it was a sheer, nearly impassible sheet of shale and clay. The couple noted its exact location, memorized the nearby landmarks in the canyon and excitedly headed back to camp.

Seconds after they returned to their camp, the devastating 1933 earthquake hit with full force. Their campsite was destroyed, so the two returned to their home in Julian.

Myrtle Botts was tantalized by the mysterious wreck, and immediately began to read up on ancient ships at the library where she worked. After several days of study, she decided that the craft most closely resembled one of the old Viking sea raiders, though she couldn't bring herself to believe that Norsemen sailed the ship over 40 miles of mountains to Agua Caliente. She and her husband resolved to visit Agua Caliente Springs the following weekend, and take pictures of the craft to prove it existed.

But when they returned to the canyon, they were stopped short by a slide that blocked the trail where they had hiked a week earlier. There was no trace of the ship or the canyon wall that held it. The Bottses decided that the earthquake had shaken tons of earth loose from the mountain, burying the craft beneath it.

The idea of a Viking ship stranded in the Borrego Desert may not be quite as preposterous as it sounds. During the great Norse expeditionary period from 900-1100 AD, high temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere melted away much of the Arctic ice north of Canada. At least one Viking ship may have sailed through the Northwest Passage there and down through the Bering Strait, though the prevailing east winds in the Arctic guaranteed that the adventurers would never make it back to Scandinavia.

A curious Indian legend implies that Vikings may have strayed as far south as Mexico. The Seri Indians of the Gulf of California's Tiburon Island still tell of the "Come-From-Afar-Men" who landed on the island in a "long boat with a head like a snake." They say the strange men had yellow hair and beards, and a woman with red hair was among them. Their chief stayed on the island with the redheaded woman while his men hunted whales in the Gulf. When they had finished hunting, the strangers went back on their ship and sailed away.

One version of the legend says their ship sank in the Gulf, and the survivors swam ashore and were taken in by the Mayo Indians. Even today, the Mayos sometimes produce children with blond hair and blue eyes, and say that they are descendants of the strangers that married into the tribe in ancient times. .

Others say that the fair-haired foreigners sailed farther up the Gulf and were never seen again. If, as some revisionist geographers insist, the Imperial Valley was once an extension of the Gulf of California, then the ship could have run aground on what are now the Tierra Blanca Mountains. So it may lie today buried under tons of earthquake-loosened rock and soil in the canyon above Agua Caliente Springs. .

I had not considered the warmer climate in that period, (I did recall the cold that followed it and probably drove the Norse out of Greenland) and resulting higher sea levels, nor did I think of the possibility of a Norse ship sailing through the Northwest Passage - a passage which is frozen most of the year NOW but is remaining open more and more with 'global warming' so many sea-lines are making plans to use it. Considering the region where we KNOW Norse explorers were venturing (Greenland-Newfoundland etc) which is the eastern end of the Northwest Passage.....
Oroblanco

 

[pegleglooker]

Hello Oro.. and friends,
I have checked into this, as per your quote Oro. Myrtle was DEEPLY involved with the wildflowers of the desert she even started a ( even I remember correctly ) holiday that is celebrated in Julian to this day. She was the head librarian and when she passed her daughter kept her files. However recently the daughter had passed and donated her file to the Julian Hist Soc. Problem is .... there " really " is no Hist Soc. The files are kept at someones house until a place can be arranged. I have tried on and off for 3 months to get in contact with them, they have no answering machine and NEVER answer the phone. The real question is which canyon. Canebrake is the most noted and the closest ( the quote said the walked up the canyon the next morning )but not necessarily the only canyon. If you look at the pixs it's hard to pick out a canyon that looks like it had a landslide due to a earthquake ( the orange dots are where earthquakes have happen ). Beside if you follow the Hank Brandt story ( see California ) he talks of seeing a boat on the eastern side of the Fishcreek Mts. This was verified by Myrtle Teague fro a article in Desert mag ( July 1966 ). Palm Springs is not that far from Fishcreek and one could leave and still get to Fishcreek by morning. here are some pixs to ponder...

PLL

 

[Gossamer]

Hello, does anyone have a theory, model... anything about when the last time in history that water was in those area's high enough for a ship? I found a group of 'climatologist' but (LOL) its above my head.
This is fascinating and thank you in advance for your help!!
Janiece

 

[Oroblanco]

HOLA Gossamer and everyone,

Gossamer wrote:

does anyone have a theory, model... anything about when the last time in history that water was in those area's high enough for a ship?

This is what the 'official' CA govt site has to say:

The Salton Sea was so named in 1905, but its history begins in the Salton Basin of ancient times – a time removed some 10,000 years.

The present-day Salton Sea is a body of water that currently occupies the Salton Basin, but it is certainly not the first to do so. Historic evidence and geologic studies have shown that the Colorado River has spilled over into the Salton Basin on numerous occasions over the millennia, creating intermittent lakes. The first lake to arise was Lake Cahuilla in 700 A.D., which formed when the Colorado River silted up its normal egress to the Gulf of California and swung northward through two overflow channels.

Evidence of an ancient shoreline suggests that Lake Cahuilla occupied the basin until about 300 years ago.

(From http://www.saltonsea.ca.gov/histchron.htm)

There is more on the ancient Lake Cahuilla here at:

http://home.att.net/~amcimages/singer.html

This site includes a photo of ancient Amerindian FISH TRAPS, dating back about ~400 years, eloquent proof that the lake existed and persisted well into the European arrival on the scene. So the skeptics' claim to a good reason why no Spanish "Pearl ship" or Norse longboat could ever have sailed into the lake, because it only existed many thousands of years ago - is patently false.

The US Bureau of Reclamation has this:

HISTORY
The Salton Basin, a below sea-level topographic depression extending from Palm Springs, California, on the north to the Gulf California on the south, has undergone historic cycles of filling with water and drying up. Lake Cahuilla, the most recent predecessor to the Sea, last filled between 300 to 500 years ago and at one time had a surface elevation slightly above sea level.

(Whoops almost forgot, this extract from: http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/saltnsea/ssbro.html)

Iturbe's story says they sailed up the Colorado river and entered a vast body of water (which is almost certainly Lake Cahuilla) that they believed to be a passage around the "island" of California, only to be un-happily educated to the fact they had entered a fast-shrinking inland lake, which they were unable to escape with the ship. The story would explain how the English pirate Cavendish might well have made the same fateful error with his famous ship the "Content" and how a Norse explorer, having successfully made the Northwest Passage, could have sailed inland thinking to round the continent.

I hope this is useful to you.
your friend,
Oroblanco

 

[Gossamer]

I found this article amazing...Oro and you will too... a scientist actually saying that Chaco Canyon was a 'black hole."
Thank you for the info, I'm off to read.
http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/~sleavitt/TRTWinter2001.pdf

Janiece

 

[pegleglooker]

Hey all,
God you just gotta love this.. don't you....I am a TRUE believer that solid "deep" research is what is the most important part of any hunting. I mean how can you hunt without knowing " all " the background ( or at least as much as one can find ). This is DEFINATELY where the arche's come in. Afterall that what they do and for this purpose that is who I will quote. Gossamer, your question is VERY valid, but hard to answer. You see, even the arche can't agree on this. But this is a chart that they have assembled ( See pix salton history ). This also shows how it aligns with the Spanish explorers. Notice that only the major players are shown. There is also a pic that shows the encampments of the early Indians ( See pix saltonarchehistory ). This is important because it would show where the shoreline was at that particular time. What we are looking for is " proof " and that is what arche's HAVE to do. Let's hear it for the arche's. YYYEEEAAAHHH... To give you a direct answer to your question please let me let the arche's answer :

Cyclical Character
Until recently, it was commonly thought that the late prehistoric presence of Lake Cahuilla had been a single episode spanning at least five centuries, between about AD 1000 and 1500 (Rogers 1945). Subsequent evidence from radiocarbon dating and stratigraphic observations established that the lake's rise and fall were repeated events (Waters 1983; Wilke 1978). A minimum of three fillings and recessions occurred between about AD 1200 and 1700 (Figure 6.1; Laylander 1997a:64-68). This suggests a frequency of roughly one lacustrine cycle every 200 years, but that frequency may merely reflect the level of resolution that is presently obtainable from the radiocarbon dates. The possibility that additional cycles occurred during this period cannot be ruled out. There may have been earlier lacustrine episodes prior to AD 1200, although the question of their number and timing remains obscure (Love and Dahdul 2002; Waters 1980).

It is mostly accepted that around the early 1600's that Juan de Iturbe " may " have sailed north through a " narrow entrance " and into Lake Cahuilla. Thomas Cavendish is the next leading candidate. One of his ships was to have sailed into the lake in the year 1587.
de Iturbe is a interesting subject to me, because there is so little written about him. One report writes that the King ( Philip III ) did not trust Alvarez de Cordone and sent Iturbe to watch over him. Yet another says that Iturbe was handpicked by de Cordone. I have seen reports that list de Iturbe in his first voyages as a more or less the kings accountant and was to report to the king only. This may be why Cordone had him on his list and promoted him rather quickly. The only true report will be whats in the Spanish Archives and I haven't seen those yet. So that will have to wait.
Mr Cavendish ( see pic is written into history via Richard Hakluyt in Voyages of the Elizabethan seamen to America ( 1880 ). Hakluyt is listed as from 1552?-1616. The exact quote is as follows " we left the Content astern of us,which was not as yet come out of the road. And here, thinking she would have overtaken us, we lost her company and never saw her after. " It goes on saying that they left the city of Aguada Segura or Puerto Seguro ( which later became Puerto del Cabo ) and headed to the Islands of Ladrones. There also the story of the burning of the Santa Ana and taking 22,000 peso's in gold. BUT it does not say which ship it was on. I think this ship was found out on the Yuha desert ( see pic lostship ) .
Gollum ( from Tnet ) has stated that the ships may have been a Caravelle and I do agree with this. They didn't need a lot of water to sail and they could carry a big load ( see pic caravelle ). to be continued

 

[pegleglooker]

Being continued.
If you look at the date chart above you will see that for the year 1587 the lake should have been close to or empty. Which to me means that a ship would not have been able to get that far north. Because of this, that is why I think the ship found out on the Yuha could be that ship. However for de Iturbe.. the timing looks right. There is a book out called " the Salton Sea " by Redlands University. I had the fortune of meeting one of the people who wrote this book. The book is absolutely GREAT.. but not cheap ( $ 60 ) but well worth it ( see pic saltonseaatlas). This book has a ton of computer graphics from the sea and well worth the price and go through the history of the area from the prehistoric age and up. Maps of this time were all over the place some still showed California as a island and some don't ( see pic 1587 ) and 200 yrs later ( see pic venegas ). Now the question is was there a " pathway " a river that would allow a ship ( caravelle ) to sail north. The answer I believe is yes, check out this pix of the Alamo river and just how big and deep of a path it cut ( see pics alamo river1 and 2 ). So see we can show a reasonable ability for a ship to get into the Salton sea area and we can show a approximate good timeline. We also have a " good " candidate for the voyage. Now all we need is proof.... and that only comes in the shape and form of heavy metal, wood, a ship's bell and a ton of digging.... I hope this will help in your search and answer a couple of questions for you..

PLL

 

[pegleglooker]

Hey all,
trying to add a little " proof " to the tale. I recently found some interesting history from the bancroft collection. It basically says that in the 1543 ( I think ) that a Captain Alarcon sailed up the Colorado River and may have made it up to just before or after the Gila junction.

"Before turning back Alarcon says he passed a place
where the river flowed between high mountains; he
states also that he went eighty-five leagues which
may mean any distance from 100 to 250 miles up
the river; and further that he advanced four degrees
beyond the latitude reached by Ulloa. The mountain
pass with a medium estimate of distance would seem
to indicate a part of the Colorado above the Gila and
below Bill Williams Fork; but Melchor Diaz found
Alarcon s letters two months later at a distance which
he estimated to be only fifteen leagues from the
mouth, so that if these were the only letters deposited,
Alarcon s statement of distance is grossly exagger
ated. It may also be noted that he mentions no
stream corresponding to the Gila, as he would natu
rally have done had he passed its mouth. 30

The name Buena Guia was given to the river from
a part of the motto on Mendoza s coat-of-arms, and
on the shore, near the mouth, at a place called La
Gruz, a kind of chapel was built and dedicated to
Our Lady of Buena Guia, The return was in Octo
ber or November probably, and the fleet touched at
several points on the coast during the voyage south
ward. At the port of Colima, probably Natividad, 31
Pedro cle Alvarado was found with his fleet. He
attempted to exercise some authority over Alarcon,
who, after delivering to Luis de Castilla and Agustin
Guerrero his narrative of the voyage, 82 sailed away in
the darkness of the night "to avoid scandal"."

( Bancroft works vol15 history of Northern Mexico states section 89 )

If you look at the chart from the arche's this " should " be a low watertime, and if in a low watertime one can make nearly to Yuma. Then just how far can one go 70 years later during a high watertime Any thoughts on this

PLL

 

[Oroblanco]

Well my thought is the obvious - with higher water levels, it should be possible to navigate MUCH farther inland and up-river. If the Pearl Ship was in fact a shallow-draft vessel, the odds are this boat could have traveled very far indeed!

Thank you for posting that too amigo! You do know that you are driving me into a craze to go and hunt for that lost "ship in the desert" don't you? Not sure how I could justify such a trip, at least not until we have some kind of a shack up to spend next winter in, but the idea is tantalizing!
Oroblanco

 

[pegleglooker]

Hey Oro,
This will drive you more CRAZY!!!!! I think I know where at least one of the ships is... Trouble ?? Yes, it is not in the States....

PS: There is proof via a photo... I'll email you.. I have some new stuff on Pegleg too.

PLL

 

[Oroblanco]

Dang amigo - it sounds like you will be making a trip, probably soon! Oroblanco

 

[Old Dog]

PLL,
Safe journey My friend.
Seriously. I hope you find your treasure!

Thom

 

[pegleglooker]

Hey all,
I thought I would add a little more to one of my favorite subjects. I think now I can PROVE that travel up the Colorado river IS and has been possible for quite some time. During the late 1800's the military used to send troops up the Gulf of California to the mouth of the Colorado river via steamship. It was in the early 1900's that all this stopped. Here is a quote from the environmental defense website ( http://www.edf.org/home.cfm ):

" In the 16Th century, Spanish sea captains sailed up the delta, believing that the Baja peninsula was an island and that the delta would lead to the Pacific. Two hundred years later the U.S. military ran supply boats from the Gulf of California to forts as far north as Yuma, Arizona. The river once carried so much freshwater downstream that when it collided with the Gulf of California's formidable tides that inundate the lowest reaches of the delta, an enormous wall of water would form. One such tidal bore capsized a passenger steamship in 1922, killing 86 of the 125 passengers and stranding the rest.

The 20Th century brought development in the Colorado River watershed that changed the delta dramatically. The U.S. federal government dammed the river under policies designed to attract people to the desert West, and water was siphoned off to grow crops, shrinking the volume of water flowing down to the Gulf. Later, cities in the southern Rocky Mountains and throughout the Southwest began to divert water for domestic and industrial uses. "

Since there was proven " traffic " from the Gulf through the Colorado to Ft Yuma as late as the late 1800's it's not that far fetched to assume the coming up the Colorado earlier was available. The silt that finally shut down the mouth of the Colorado and formed the delta must have choked of the access later than thought. Otherwise how could a boat get up to Ft Yuma ?? Ok, now if anyone has a different theory or another view of this. Then I open the gates.....

Enjoy
PLL