Far below the surface of the ocean is something that doesn’t belong there. A school of fish dodges its broken mast, while still others make their home in its cargo hold, among forgotten gold doubloons.
Click start to play today’s Word Search and discover pirates, merchants and buccaneers of ages long past.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), there are an estimated 3 million shipwrecks spread across ocean floors around the Earth. Who knows what stories lie forgotten in the deep?
One such ship generated much excitement among nautical archaeologists in 1996. That was when, after nearly 300 years underwater in North Carolina, US, the remains of Queen Anne’s Revenge were found. Once the flagship of Blackbeard, the most notorious pirate in history, it terrorised the Caribbean before running aground in 1718.
According to the Smithsonian magazine, the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, US, the ship was once called La Concorde, but when Blackbeard seized it from French slave traders, he renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge in honour of then English monarch, whom he served during England’s war against France in 1702. After offloading most of the slaves and crew and capturing their gold, Blackbeard used the massive warship (which was armed with 16 cannons) to raid and plunder across the Caribbean. He even acquired a kind of small-scale navy along the way and was in charge of a huge crew.
Another shipwreck that still captures the world’s attention is the RMS Titanic, which lies 3,800 metres below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, near Newfoundland, Canada. The passenger liner, which was once the largest ship in the world, hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, US, in 1912 and sank within three hours.
In 2019, an expedition to the Titanic found that nearly 100 years after it sank, the massive boat is deteriorating and vanishing. The constant onslaught of strong currents, salt corrosion and metal-eating bacteria is causing the ship to make its final return to Nature.
Which historical ship stands out in your mind? Play today’s Word Search and let us know if you found all the words at games@gulfnews.com.
