Joe’s best ever beach find won’t go for a bomb
IF you should find an old Navy mine on the beach, the one thing you should never do is take it home.
Instead ring 999 immediately to alert the coastguard. However tempting it may be, do not roll it home to use as a foot stool.
But that is just what a man from Penzance has done. And as he relaxes with a cup of tea, feet up on the explosive device, he looks remarkably relaxed.
Luckily, the man in question is Joe Gray, expert salvager of all things weird and wonderful, and, unlike your typical pirate of Penzance, a stickler for going through the correct channels – especially when it comes to treasure that might go bang.
The mine is, of course, inert. A training mine used by the Royal Navy, and confirmed by them and the coastguard as completely safe.
Joe said he very sensibly doublechecked it before he even approached the object. But still, every time he pats the mine like he is patting a trusty old car, people nearby tend to flinch.
Joe, who owns Shiver Me Timbers reclamation yard near Penzance, discovered the sea mine on rocks at Perranuthnoe, near St Michael’s Mount, at the beginning of February. It is believed that the mine had already been there for a couple of days, most likely washed in when a huge swell hit the south coast.
The dummy practice mine would have been tethered within a mine field which was laid off Whitsand Bay near Plymouth for a Royal Navy training exercise. Having spoken to the Royal Navy, Joe says that it was a joint English and French exercise, which used an autonomous vessel to deactivate the training mines.
“This one has obviously come adrift and come down the Channel to say hello to us in Mount’s Bay.” Joe said.
He explained that the sea mine would originally have had the word ‘INERT’ written across it, but this has peeled off with the rest of the paintwork as the large metal sphere travelled down the Channel and smashed against rocks.
Although the mine is completely safe, even with your feet up on it, it was still a hazard whilst at sea, where it could have collided with ships or ended up getting caught in a fishing net. Even on the beach, the inert mine was a cause for concern, and would eventually had to have been salvaged on behalf of the Royal Navy.
Joe is quick to point out: “I would just like to say, if anybody does find one of these on the beach, you have to absolutely go through the correct channels, and they are to dial 999 and call the coastguard, if you find a suspicious object on the beach. Obviously this is as suspicious as an object gets!”
He explained that under normal circumstances when finding something that doesn’t look like it might explode on the beach, you still have to log the item with the government’s Receiver of Wreck. Then, if nobody comes forward to claim the object after a year, you can keep it.
In this case, however, Joe knows that the owner of the mine is the Royal Navy, so has to offer them the opportunity to come and collect it, if they decide they want it back.
But Joe is crossing his fingers and hoping that the Royal Navy won’t want their old banger back.
“I would love to keep it, but I have to offer it back to them. I’ve wanted one for quite a while, you may not believe it.”