It’s fair to say that after 275 years there is precious little on-the-ground evidence of Commodore Anson’s voyage to the places we have visited so far. In the case of Macau and Guangzhou (Canton) the land reclamation projects over the years have made the coast and river fronts unrecognisable, and of course the cities themselves have grown dramatically.
So imagine our excitement when we met with Jim Pruitt, the marine archaeologist at the Historic Preservation Office in Saipan who gave us a very interesting presentation that informed us that he had located two anchors at depths of 140 feet and 180 feet respectively in Tinian harbour that coincide with the approximate location of where The Centurion lost its anchors during a typhoon in October 1742. Given the depths they are in remarkably good nick, and clearly identifiable as an old ship’s anchors. We had travelled out into Tinian harbour the day before to where The Centurion had anchored about a mile offshore and where the anchors were lost. Jim plans to do more work to see if recovery of the anchors is feasible, and we will be following his work with great interest!
