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1916 SALVAGE
We had expected rough weather, and for the past six weeks
there had been a violence of continual storms about the
ocean such as I had rarely seen. The "Enterprise" was at
anchor in Carnley Harbour 
, during all of this time, and other
than the few futile attempts to clear Victoria Passage 
in the
launch, and the once we had made an over land trip to the
western cliffs to locate the wreck site, there was little to do
except wait. On the over land trek, we found the thick
bushed terrain more difficult than the ocean, leaving us totally exhausted from the expedition. From this it was obvious the only chance we had of success was an entrance from the ocean,
however long it might take.
Eventually the weather had improved enough to clear the
sea passage and the launch finally succeeded in reaching the
cave to allow the preliminary salvage work to begin. The cliffs matched all the expectations we had heard, stretching high
above us with a stark blackness that made us feel very small.
Just when there appeared some headway with the project,
and we were beginning in the task of initial soundings, the
wind rose with a furry, giving us a real concern as the
launch was nearly wrecked upon a submerged rock so
there was little left but the return to our camp.
On the 13th of May, fifty years to the day since the wreck
of the "General Grant"
, moorings were laid at the entrance
of the cave and it seemed that with this coincidence, at
last it was our time. With the Enterprise brought round from Western Harbour, the weather remained calm as the
vessel, now dwarfed by the black cliffs that must have
been over 600ft and over hung the water with physical unease,
lay at anchor all night. Through the night, a watchful eye was
kept on impetuous nature of this ocean, and in the first
light all remained well enough for a first dive. During the day, several dives were made, and though the water was reasonably clear, there was no evidence of a wreck site of any kind.
By the end of the day though, the weather had the final
say and with the frustration of another freshening wind we were forced to return to Western Harbour where we had now set up camp.
There in the wilds of this land we remained for more than
a month confined to the land by the ceaseless storms that
raged night and day, enduring the frightful conditions. At
the first opportunity, we moved camp to North Harbour and by chance, soon struck a suitable day to take the Enterprise
round the north-west cape to the cave.
The settled weather suggested that we may at last have
encountered enough calmness to explore the area for sometime,
but once more our attempts were thwarted, as after only the
first dive, there was a dramatic change in the conditions, and
once more we had to abandon the site. The wind had set in
from the north-west with a fury, and rather than chance the
beat up wind, we ran for the shelter of Carnley Harbour once
again. This was proving to be a very difficult salvage task,
and all due to this unyielding and unreasonable wether.
However, these periods of rough wether were at last
followed by a remarkable spell of calm that surprised us all
and with some trepidation, we were actually able to take the
cutter right inside the gapping entrance of the large cavern.
I made many dives over this time, and began with the sea
floor just outside the cave entrance. Even the buttresses,
where the "Gazelle" had reported finding the wreck in 1877
showed no signs at all of a wreck, though I located what
may have been a rock ledge that might have been mistaken
for a wreck working in a heavy swell and the limited
equipment of those times. The water was clearer than I had expected and I adopted the method of being suspended
on ropes below the cutter while it moved slowly back wards
and forwards over the whole area, this way I could cover
a large area in a short time.
The sea floor was likened to a great level sheet of rock that stretched over the entire area with the only exception a few
pinnacle like teeth of rock, right at the entrance and I felt that perhaps these could prevent a sunken ship from being carried
out to sea. So from here I concluded that maybe the hulk
was in the cave itself and if we wanted to explore further,
there was little to do but dive far inside the depths of the
cave. As the others of the party were more than concerned
than I at this prospect, I rowed in and dropped and
anchor which allowed us to pull the "Enterprise" in stern
first. Although the weather was still holding, the reverberating
back wash from even the small swells inside the cave were
difficult to contend with and made the diving an arduous exercise.
However, without to much difficulty, I spent the next two days examining the cave floor with little success except for two anonymous pieces of timber wedged between large boulders
against the cave wall. There was certainly no sign of the wreck,
and apart from these obscure timbers not a sign of any thing
like a speck of the gold. Not one ounce of the 25700 oz in
the manifest or a drop of the further unknown amounts of the miners personal fortunes that were en route to England. From
my deductions, I had concluded that the large amount in the manifest would have been in solid bars, heavy in weight and
difficult to shift by even the fiercest of submarine storms.
The dive was easy in terms of depth as it would have been
in about 30 ft at the mouth of the cave and this shallowed to
21 ft at the inner end. The roof continued from the mouth
in one straight line for about 600ft into the cliffs and would have been about 60 ft above the high water mark. A ship of a
reasonable size could sail in alright, there seemed little doubt
of that, and it would have accommodated the "General Grant" easily. Far, at the very end was a stepped boulder beach,
with great hunks of rock that had fallen into the water having
been ground into spherical boulders and pushed to the
posterior of the cave. Even here on the stony beach, there
was no evidence of the wreck, not a plank, or even a nail.
It was with bitter disappointment that we had to accept utter
failure and made ready to leave this spellbinding place. After
all our efforts, I can only conclude that the crew of the schooner Daphne may have lifted the gold in their attempt in 1870.
Surely, it must have sunk with them as they were never heard
of again. They were all drowned with the gold and only the
ocean and God would know the truth. Perhaps though, it
was washed far out to sea with the violence of the extreme
storms that must inflict these coasts. Or slim as it may seem,
there may be another cave, as yet unfound and we had
located and worked the wrong the wreck site.
So, it was with embittered exhaustion and disgust, that we
raised the anchor to depart for the last time. However, at
this last hour, one of the anchors had become lodged in a
jam of boulders, and no matter how we tried to free it,
there it stayed tight. I prepared for a dive, to solve the
obstacle once and for all, but as we grappled with the
equipment to begin the dive, a large sea lion broke the
surface and with a load roar and a show of strong sharp teeth,
I fell back on the deck of the boat. The beast stayed close as if defending its space, and I felt uneasy about the prospect of
sharing the water with such a large powerful creature. Across the ocean there was the unmistakable sign of another approaching squall. This, with the likelihood of the sea lion still in the
vicinity, made us quickly abandon any plan to retrieve the
anchor and the rope was soon cut. Straight away, we were
steaming for the protection of Carnley Harbour where
we packed the camp, before our eventual
return to New Zealand.
