The Wreck of the Totnes

There's something deeply moving about the remains of a ship which has been wrecked and abandoned. At one time it vibrated with life, from its movement, from the places it visited, from the people who were its crew and passengers, people who were dependent on it for their safety on their voyage. A ship is so alive it has personality: traditionally, they have always been female - one hesitates to speculate why, though the Guardian has some interesting suggestions here.

These are the remains of the SS Totnes, a 283grt 38m long coaster built in 1918 and stranded on the sands at the mouth of Loch Fleet in Sutherland near....

 ....the village of Littleferry. She was carrying coal at the time and came ashore on 12th January 1937.

There are always good reasons for a wreck. I couldn't find much about the loss of the Totnes other than a record in Wikipedia which states that, on the same day, the Finnish cargo ship Johanna Thorden ran aground in the Pentland Firth, broke in two and sank with the loss of about thirty lives. This suggests that the weather was.... well, what one might expect in the seas around Scotland in January.

So the Totnes lies amid the wide, shifting sands of the Fleet estuary but she has company. It's a lonely place but that makes it an ideal habitat for ducks and waders. On the day we were there, in May 2018, the waters around her were crowded with eider.