File:  <122mor.htm>      <Contact>

 

BENEATH THE WAVES

 

Robert D. Morritt

 

Availability

 

          In my earlier days I lived in Penarth.  Climbing Cliffs to avoid the forty-foot tides was a common experience, and often the only way home. Penarth is situated alongside the Severn Estuary which flows into the Bristol Channel from where Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ‘The Great Western’ embarked from Bristol on her maiden voyage to New York, April 8th 1838.  In 1910, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the British Antarctic Expedition departed from Penarth Dock in Cardiff Bay in the SS Terra Nova. Within these pages are described early mariners, their voyages and the perils of Oceanic travel. Included are safety tips and examples of accidents and case histories of precarious situations that could have been avoided. It is recommended this book be kept aboard vessels to avoid maritime mishaps.

 

“The night was dark and dreary,
When the good ship ‘Mary Deare’ sank to the bottom of the sea,
The crew was never found,
                                                                        They all must have drowned,
                                                                        As they certainly never came ashore with me."