Ghostapalooza I

Blame it on the Lady Luvibund.

The Lady Luvibund sailed down the Thames on 13 February 1748 toward Kent's North Foreland bound for Oporto.

Captain Simon Reed had brought his new bride and wedding party aboard, along with his best man and first mate, John Rivers. Rivers had been a rival for the bride's affections and in a blind, jealous, homicidal, suicidal rage, Rivers attacked the man at the helm and swung the ship toward the Goodwin Sands.

Shakespeare referred to the notorious Goodwin Sands in The Merchant of Venice as "very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcase of many a tall ship lie buried."

The Goodwin Sands is near Deal, off the coast of Kent in the far south east corner of England. The town received its Charter as a Borough in 1699 and was added to the list of "Cinque Ports," five coastal towns granted certain privileges in return for maintaining a fleet available to the king at a moment's notice.

"The barbarous hated name of Deal should die / or be a term of infamy."

                                         —Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Dafoe

  The Deal Boatmen would entice ships into the notorious Goodwin Sands and plunder the cargo, leaving crew and passengers to drown.

Back on the Lady Luvibund, no one noticed the course change until the ship smashed into the Sands and sank. No one survived.

Fifty years later the captain of a coasting vessel was skirting the Sands when he saw a three-masted schooner, with sails set, heading toward him. The two ships narrowly missed colliding, close enough for the captain to hear  sounds of merriment from below deck. Back on land, he reported the incident only to be told that fisherman had seen the same ship breaking up on the Sands. Though they rushed to the ship's aid, they found nothing.

In 1848, a similar incident was reported. The 50-year return of the phantom Lady Luvibund was on, attracting nutjobs from around the world to the village of Deal. 

Numbered among the nutjobs were the proud members of B.O.O.

We stayed at a pub called the King's Head, in a room overlooking the English Channel. The proprietor, Graham Stiles, informed us the pub had its own ghost, that of the original owner from the sixteenth century, Miss Miles. She drowned in a vat of beer and continues to visit the pub every 13 February.

From the log:

3:35 pm: The mysterious presence of Miss Miles or the Lady Luvibond made Sarah call her colleagues, "goobers," and then she farted, something she never would have done otherwise.

But alas, the Lady Luvibund stood us up.

The Disappointment

While we were a little heartbroken about the Lady Luvibund, we did have something strange happen. Leaving the microcassette recorder on "voice-activation," we fell asleep. This is what the recorder picked up. That's Ohio coughing in the background.

The Weird Bangs

We continued our adventures, including a harrowing experience with The Big Hook.

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The Big Hook

General comments:

- Though the sun was shining, the wind was a bit brisk. Catherine remarked: "Hmm. No wonder these people perfected the art of wool."

- The cow of the mind knows no fences.

- Spies go through a lot of underwear. It's all those close calls.

- At Deal Castle, Catherine thought it was ironic that a castle built by Henry VIII has a sign that reads, "Mind Your Head."