Day 13 - The Devil's frying pan, a seal and stories of heroes.

Today I drove down to Cadgwith and walked around Lizard point to Kynance Cove. Apart from seeing a seal, this area is full of things to discover; The Devil's Frying pan (a huge collapsed cave),

The new Lizard Lifeboat station, opened in 1961 and rebuilt in 2010 to accommodate bigger lifeboats (with it's memorial to the twelve crew of the Ardgarry, that was lost in December 1962, despite the lifeboat and its crew spending 14 hours at sea during the storm searching),

The Lloyds signal station, Bass point look out station, The Marconi Huts,

The Lizard Lighthouse and the old Lizard lifeboat station which closed in 1962 (from where the RNLI's most successful rescue was launched in 1907).

Let's go back to 1907, The White Star Liner 'SS Suevic' was on the final leg of it's journey from Australia to Southampton, with 524 Passengers and crew onboard, when during a howling gale and dense fog, it struck the Maenheere Reef, a belt of half submerged rocks one mile off Lizard point.

The Lizard lifeboat along with three other boats from Cadgwith, Coverack and Porthleven, each manned by 15 men. Each boat was open, wooden and 39ft long and each was rowed by six of the crew.

Over the next 16 hours, these four boats returned again and again to the stricken vessel, despite the fog being so thick the first boat only realised it had reached the Suevic when it struck it's hull, throwing one of the lifeboat crew overboard.

Miraculously, ever single person aboard the Suevic was saved, The Lizard lifeboat rescued 167 persons during six trips, the Cadgwith lifeboat and it's crew ensured the safety of another 227 (Cadgwith lifeboat station closed in 1963).

I have taken much of the information above from this article, where this amazing story can be read in full here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/ss-suevic-the-greatest-sea-rescue-5332365.html

Ordinary men, volunteers and undoubtedly heroes.