No, not the smash 80’s Chris DeBurgh hit, although that’s a mystery of its own, this tale is yet another strange and creepy one from the waters of the Sound. Of course, every port city has its share of unexplained weirdness connected with the sea: tales of ghost ships and mysterious disappearances abound in all the great seaside cities of the world. But this one has an element of the supernatural that simply cannot be resisted.
In 1912, a steamer came into a sawmill dock at a small town in northern Puget Sound, somewhere on Whidbey Island, now long gone. The steamer docked late in the night, and the sawmill men came down to help tie the ship up and assist in the unloading. When they reached the ship, they found the crew speaking a strange language that none of them had ever heard before, and it should be noted that many of the sawmill crew were former shipmen themselves, who had been exposed to many different ports of call and had had occasion to hear numerous tongues in their time. More than one of them were foreigners, including a Portuguese and a Swede.
The captain of the steamer was visibly distraught, and avoided speaking to any of the dockmen, instead retreating up to the harbormaster’s residence in haste and returning shortly thereafter in even more distress. In addition to the strange behavior of the captain, there is the presence on the ship of a tall, beautiful woman in a flowing red cloak.
All of the dockmen later claimed to have seen her, standing at the rail and watching their work. None of the crew spoke to her and most seemed to take pains to avoid coming near her. The captain, however, upon returning to the ship, spoke a few words to her and together they went below deck until the work had been completed.
After several hours, the steamer was unloaded and was made ready to cast off again, unusual for it was still night and most ships would have waiting until morning light to undertake their voyages again. The captain, however, was insistent, and eventually, in the dead of night, the steamer left the sawmill dock.
The ship was not far out into Admiralty Inlet when it erupted in a terrible fireball, sending burning hunks of metal and wood into the sky like fireworks. The sawmill sent out a tug to rescue any survivors, but when they reached the place of the explosion, only a single piece of scorched metal was found. Not a single body or any other sign of the steamer was recovered.
And for your enjoyment, and in honor of those who died on that steamer, the Seattle Otterman offers the following.