Google Street View captures Mary Celeste shipwreck
Google has mapped one of Bermuda’s most famous shipwrecks using images obtained from the Catlin Seaview Survey.
The wreckage of the Marie Celeste, a paddle steamer which sank in 1864, can now be explored using a computer as part of Google’s Street View project.
The wreck, also known as the Mary Celestia, lies more than 50 feet underwater and is popular with divers for its large paddlewheel, which is still visible.
The 225-foot ship is thought to have sunk while smuggling ammunition and supplies from Bermuda during the American Civil War.
The Mary Celeste left port in Bermuda on September 14, 1864, stocked with meat ammunition bound for Wilmington, North Carolina, but never arrived at its destination.
Commissioned by Crenshaw and Company, a running company in the war, the ship carried cotton out of Wilmington to Bermuda, returning with war supplies and food.
It is thought to have made eight trips before it sank, and that the crew escaped with their lives, apart from the ship’s cook who died after returning to claim his possessions.
As part of Google’s Street View project the search giant has also mapped other famous diving sites around the world.