A jogger running along Ireland’s southern coast last Sunday
spotted a most unusual sight: wedged onto a rocky outcropping below was a
mysterious 2,400-ton ship. The Irish Coast Guard was notified and sent a
helicopter to rescue any crew members aboard.
It turns out, the boat was a “ghost ship.”
The MV Alta was sailing from Greece to Haiti in September
2018 when it became disabled in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Ten crew
members were stranded aboard and eventually rescued by a US Coast Guard cutter.
Officials reached out to the ship’s owner, hoping it would hire a commercial
tugboat to tow the vessel to shore.
What happened next is unclear.
What we do know is that, last August, an ice patrol ship
manned by the British Royal Navy spotted the MV Alta in the middle of the
ocean. The vessel reportedly then crossed toward Africa, drifting north past
the Iberian Peninsula and into the Celtic Sea just south of the British Isles.
A massive storm over the weekend produced waves up to eighty
feet tall. They apparently brought the MV Alta to land as well.
Officials determined Monday that there was no sign of pollution. On Tuesday, a contractor was to inspect the wreck at low tide to determine what to do with the ship.
Let’s consider the “ghost ship” as a cultural
metaphor.
‘God loves each of us as if there were only one of us’
We live in an empiricist culture that believes “seeing
is believing.” Of course, we cannot use that maxim to prove its truth.
Nonetheless, we focus on what we can experience. Wars
overseas are less relevant to us than shootings near home. Brexit matters more
to the British and the Europeans than it does to the Australians.
And a ship floating in the middle of the ocean makes no news
until it makes land.
This focus on personal experience can cause us to value
ourselves by how others value us. A psychologist once taught me this formula:
“I am not what I think I am. I am not…
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