Monday, May 7, 1923
Walked Ice Floe to Reach Steamer
Capt. Domingoes Tells of Flight from French Trawler
After Craft became Imprisoned in Ice Off St. Pierre
"I saw ice enough so far ahead of me that one would
almost say he could walk to the Azores," said Capt. Manuel Domingoes
to a Times representative this morning, when asked regarding the captain’s flight
over 200 yards of drifting ice from a crippled steamer to the hanging rope ladder from the
side of the liner Canada on Monday last.
Bound home from a visit to Portugal, Capt. Domingoes
stopped at St. Pierre to visit friends, and engaged passage from that place to Louisburg,
C. B., with other trawlers in the French trawler La Providence,
which with the party on board started out of St. Pierre, headed for the Cape Breton shore,
and when about 45 miles from land ran into a field of heavy drifting ice, dotted here and
there with towering bergs. For 14 days, the steamer lay wedged in the ice filed, her coal
diminishing, and her heavy propellers being smashed as she tried to buck her way out of
the heavy mass.
Last Monday evening, as daylight was merging into darkness,
the White Star Dominion liner Canada appeared off the bow of the
La Providence, and messages passed between the two ships, one
asking that the Canada heave to and take off the passengers, the
other replying that they could have just three minutes to make the transfer.
With barely enough time to get their few belongings
together, Capt. Domingoes and three companions put over the side of the
French trawler and started for the Canada, 200 years away,
making their way over the buckling ice as rapidly as possible. It was a risky passage and
as each climbed the rope ladder up the side of the Canada, they
received a hearty welcome from the passengers and crew.
The Canada was en route form
Liverpool to Montreal, but the ice was so thick that she could not make Montreal, and was
putting for Halifax when she came abreast of the French trawler. |
