The Mysterious Marie Celeste Essay

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The Mysterious Marie Celeste

On December 5, 1872, the merchant ship Dei Gratia was on its way to Italy when it came across a disturbing sight: a ship drifting aimlessly in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The crew of the Dei Gratia attempted to hail it, but there was no response. The captain looked through his spyglass for any sign of life, but the deck of the ship was completely empty.
The crew of the Dei Gratia decided to go aboard and investigate. That is when things got even more eerie. The closets were full of clothes. The ship’s cargo (1,701 barrels of raw alcohol) was undisturbed. The alcohol was worth $35,000. Everything seemed to be in its proper place–everything except the crew. There was not one person to be found. …show more content…

However, one crew member from the Dei Gratia stated that the ship’s lifeboat was missing, as well as a few navigational instruments, and most of the ship’s official papers.
Strangely, all of its cargo remained on the vessel. It seemed the crew had left in a hurry, but the mystery continues to interest people today. What exactly did happen to the crew of the Mary Celeste?
As for the Mary Celeste itself, there was more bad luck to come. Over the next 13 years, the ship had 17 different owners. Three of its captains died on board the ship. It was rumored that the Marie Celeste was cursed.
Then, in January 1885, Captain Gilman Parker purposefully ran the Mary Celeste into a coral reef off the coast of Haiti. He was trying to sink the boat as part of an insurance scam.
When the Mary Celeste did not sink, Captain Parker tried to set it on fire. Even then, the boat could not be destroyed–but it would never sail again. Finally, the ship was left to sink, on its own, to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The Marie Celeste remains there to this day, buried in a watery grave along with its

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