WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.400 I never thought retirement would mean spending this much time 2 00:00:07.400 --> 00:00:10.359 among maps, let alone doubt in their very purpose. I 3 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:13.080 came to it honestly. I suppose four decades in the 4 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:15.400 world of nautical cartography have left me with a certain 5 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:18.480 stubborn faith in the lines we draw. Even in Cornwall, 6 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:21.519 surrounded by centuries of legends about vanishing ships and beacons 7 00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:24.000 lost to the fog, properly made map has always felt 8 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.920 like a promise, you are here, the land and sea 9 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:28.640 will behave. When I agreed to volunteer at the corm 10 00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.120 Or Maritime Museum, I pictured myself as a kind of 11 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.039 living annotation. I would label the old charts for public 12 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:36.920 display fran at wyward pushbins, set straight. Anything that looked 13 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.079 like a fancy from its snuck in among the true stories. 14 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:42.079 I like order, the sense that everything has, or at 15 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:45.640 least to add, its precise location. On my first week, Vin, 16 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:48.039 the curator, assigned me a back room full of rolled maps, 17 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:51.039 each bristling with brittle tape, coppery, handwritting, and the faint 18 00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:54.039 musk of old salt and paper meldy I cataloged for 19 00:00:54.079 --> 00:00:57.600 comfort year scale shaped latitude. The work had the kind 20 00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.159 of quiet it allows the mind to free will, at 21 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:01.600 least until I am all the eighteen thirty two Admiralty 22 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:04.359 chart and frowned just off the southern arm of the 23 00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:07.120 Lizard peninsula, blank sweep of water. In any chart I known, 24 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:10.760 there was a knee triangle of land, clearly labeled Iyre Island. 25 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.599 An accompanying notation in the margin, written with the same 26 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.439 calm confidence as any headland or bay, gave his coordinates 27 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:21.079 and the legend warning cholzen of ire aunt but hurriedly unprecedented. 28 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:24.120 I marked it down in my loger curiosity for a vienne, 29 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:27.319 perhaps of the next museum news letter. Then two days 30 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:29.640 later I opened a different chop from eighteen ninety nine, 31 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:32.400 this one Spanish in origin, donated by an amateur collector. 32 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:35.719 My eyes were tired from working on the finding Colonna phalaciuri. 33 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:40.319 But there again was Iyre Island, different hand, slightly shifted topography, 34 00:01:40.359 --> 00:01:42.560 but in exactly or as nearly as makes no odds, 35 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:46.280 the same position the cartographer had written in flowing Spanish 36 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:50.719 arl are seabirds abundant a voidiste passage. I sat back, 37 00:01:50.879 --> 00:01:53.120 pressed my knuckles into the small of my back, and 38 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:56.480 reached reflexively for my mug of coal tea r island 39 00:01:57.239 --> 00:02:01.239 twice separated by nearly seventy years, two different mapping traditions. 40 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:03.439 Yet neither chart matched any reference I'd seen in the 41 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:06.879 hydrographic record. For the sake of due diligence, I checked 42 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:09.280 the modern charts that Vivienne had approved for our visitors 43 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:12.719 display Not then a pale and broken wash of blue 44 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:14.599 stretched up from the headland, all the weight of the 45 00:02:14.680 --> 00:02:18.039 aisles of Sully and beyond no Blipsit was open water. 46 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:21.240 Had I missed a famous sir? I flipped open my 47 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:23.759 tattered edition of England's Phantom Miles of Fun read light 48 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:26.879 on footnotes. There among tales of high Brussel and the 49 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:30.599 vanished Lioness. No reference to hire theory won a common 50 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:34.280 mappy mistake theory too, a quickly changed place name issized 51 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:37.719 by local authorities. More likely, I supposed it was just 52 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:39.919 the same error, copied from one chart to the next. 53 00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:42.800 Yet I couldn't shake the odd precision. The names match, 54 00:02:42.919 --> 00:02:45.719 the location aligned, and even the descriptive notation shows to 55 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.400 the North Sea birds. Fock felt as if the island were, 56 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.680 if not quite real, then at least somehow present in 57 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:53.439 the minds of these far up our chart makers. Should 58 00:02:53.479 --> 00:02:57.400 I have shrugg be moved on? Probably instead, without quite 59 00:02:57.400 --> 00:02:59.879 planning it, I slept both maps and to protect a folder, 60 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.680 and rowed out a note for Vivienne Possible an omily 61 00:03:02.719 --> 00:03:05.680 Are island recurs on multiple historic maps, no known counterpart 62 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:08.560 in modern charts worth a second look. It would have 63 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:10.560 been easy to dismiss as an old sailor's slip of 64 00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:13.479 the hand. But there was something too crisp, too consistent 65 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:15.960 about the confidence with which this non existent place streaded 66 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:19.039 its way through otherwise careful records. I felt a slow 67 00:03:19.199 --> 00:03:21.599 electric nibble of curiosity, of feeling I hadn't it since 68 00:03:21.639 --> 00:03:24.680 my ear lest surveying days, A place that shouldn't be there, 69 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:27.520 whose only obvious quality was that it persisted against all reason. 70 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:30.199 Even as I walked out into the museum's main hall, 71 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:32.360 I found myself glancing through the window at the faint 72 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:35.199 shimmer of the mid morning sea, wondering whether somewhere behind 73 00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:37.800 the haze an invisible island nestled right where it shouldn't. 74 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.360 I arrived at the museum early most days, the sharp 75 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:43.280 tang of salt from the nearby wharf mixed with the 76 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:47.680 comforting scents inside walkst hardwood boards, linseed all meldeed bookof 77 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:50.680 and Brian's stained canvas. I always made a slow turf 78 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:53.439 through the exhibits before settling in idly tracing my fingers 79 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:56.840 across battered binnacles and polished ship bells. There's something about 80 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.080 the combination of new light and old brass that makes 81 00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:02.719 the world feel exactly balanced. Vivigne presided over the museum 82 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:05.479 like a hawk, thin, wiry, sharp eyed, her hands always 83 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:07.840 smudged with graphite or sticky from some chemicals should been 84 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:11.240 using to restore paint. The other volunteers called her the map, 85 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:14.120 which but only when she was out of vyshap to 86 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:16.480 me she was a welcome reminded that certainty is always 87 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:20.120 in limited supply. Morning, Arthur, she said, without looking up 88 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:22.759 from her stack of forms. You turned up before the 89 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.000 heating habit is hard, I replied, smithing a ripple in 90 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:28.120 my shirt and fighting the urge to correct the angle 91 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:31.120 of a slantin model schooner. Near bah Peter, the local 92 00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:33.399 history teacher swept in one a gust of kelp scented 93 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:36.680 here soon after, always greeting us too loudly his job 94 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.600 as he used to joke was to put legends in 95 00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:40.759 context for the children, and to sneak newly drawn maps 96 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:43.680 out to his classrooms. I've got the pupil's making salt, 97 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.279 though corse signs. Peter announced us that morning, as Vivin 98 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:49.600 pretended not to listen. They are inventing islands wholesale. One 99 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:51.439 has a unicorn beach. Put her on your list of 100 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:55.560 charting errors. Arthur, he winked. His beard was always full 101 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.879 of baked crumbs from the bakery across the street. Most mournings, 102 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.319 the three of us jostled the tangled middle ground between 103 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:04.839 seriousness and story. The museum itself performed this dance two 104 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:08.040 brass portholes mounted next to old pub photos plaques commemorating 105 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:11.920 both real storms and entirely questionable sea monsters. Old locals 106 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:13.759 like to say Cornwall is a place where the pass 107 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:15.720 never goes away, It just turns around like a gull 108 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:18.439 hoping for chips. The town beyond the windows had the 109 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:21.759 same balance. Whitewashed terraces oval with the docks and the 110 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.839 high cliffs pressed every lane closer to the water. Everyone 111 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:27.879 knew everyone. Children grew up learning how to read nautical 112 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.680 shots before they could recite their home address. You could 113 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:33.639 see mapped painted on fish market walls, tattooed on forearms 114 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:36.680 and hung as curtains, and harbor fer and pubs. Even 115 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.560 the local supermarket gave away printed tide tables twice a year, 116 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:43.079 along with recipe cards. I'd lived here two decades, long 117 00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:45.279 enough from my brisk outside of politeness to soften into 118 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:48.279 real affection. Each morning after the museum, I'd take a 119 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:51.519 walk along the wharf, watching cargo get unloaded, girls ride 120 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:53.160 in the wind like they drawn their own set of 121 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:55.920 lines for the air. My world was orderly but porous, 122 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.000 full of small surprises, jokes, and the quiet tolerance of 123 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:02.079 stories that sometimes only half fit the facts. My own 124 00:06:02.120 --> 00:06:04.399 relationship with legend and truth had always been this way. 125 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.199 Maps could be flawed, stories could fill the gaps. I'd 126 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:11.879 Repeater for letting his students draw make believe islands, but 127 00:06:11.959 --> 00:06:14.600 secretly I admired how quickly a group of children's stories 128 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:17.519 could trace their way into town shared memory. Even so, 129 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:19.600 if you'd asked me whether I believed in anything a 130 00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:22.000 mat or lost, I'd have laughed and said not if 131 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:24.519 I can help it. Yet, there are certain questions that 132 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:26.800 land in your mind and won't lift off again, no 133 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:29.439 matter how often you try to show them away, Which 134 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:32.000 is why three days after my initial discovery, I found 135 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.600 myself telling vi Vienne and Peter about Ire Island, half 136 00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:37.399 expecting them to roll their eyes. We keep seeing the 137 00:06:37.439 --> 00:06:40.480 Sire Island here and here. I placed the two charts 138 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:43.199 side beside, stabbed a finger out the familiar, unlikely patch 139 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:46.000 of ocean. But there is nothing in the hydrographic record, 140 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:48.160 not even as a mariner's error. I just wondered to 141 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:50.279 f either of you had come across it in local stories. 142 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.120 Vivienn only raised her eyebrows, the coroner of her mouth 143 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:56.800 twitching Ire Island. Oh everyone knows about it, she replied, 144 00:06:56.959 --> 00:06:58.879 like I just asked whether the sun rose in the east. 145 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:04.319 I blinked, genuinely, not blessed. Are you seriously? Peter glanced over, 146 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:08.240 a reading upside down. Yeah, sure, I wear the gillemot's nest. 147 00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:10.879 He pointed through the wind to Vegas southward, as if 148 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:13.800 the island might drift into view at any moment. Kids 149 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:15.839 ask about it all the time, well more when I 150 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:19.199 was young. Maybe it's always foggy round there. Vivin nodded 151 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:22.319 with more embassies than usual. Funny you've not heard folk 152 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:24.600 mention it. Arthur see gets thick with fog by the 153 00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:27.720 island's edge. Some say it's best left alone. I grew 154 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:30.199 up here, said a volunteer named Roof, from across the room, 155 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:33.120 polishing a bell. My grandmother used to say, it's with 156 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.720 the seal's hold. Council course, no one lands, bad luck Supposedly, 157 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:38.639 or she gri into Mayvy. The council won't let you 158 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:40.959 back for a full minute. I felt as if I'd 159 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:44.040 stepped side, was into a pantomime. These went half remember 160 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:46.240 tales or wings a tourists. The matter of fact tone 161 00:07:46.279 --> 00:07:49.040 in their voices caught me completely off guard. What do 162 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:52.519 you mean, no one lands? I tried, my voice, losing 163 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:55.680 some of its intended skepticism. If it's real, why isn't 164 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.759 it on every chart? Vivin shrugged, busy with a pencil 165 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:02.240 and laminated exhibits scape. Perhaps it moves, or perhaps the 166 00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:04.920 official charts are too fixed in their ways. Some things exist, 167 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:08.720 whether are not the record keepers know? Peter laughed, legend 168 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:14.560 Trump's bureaucracy. Arthur always has ies. I hesitated, unsure where 169 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:17.759 my question would even land. But there are no physical records, 170 00:08:17.800 --> 00:08:20.519 ship logs, tied tables, nothing. Have never even seen a 171 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:24.720 reference until these old charts, Ruth jined back in cheerfully, Oh, 172 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:26.759 we talk about it when the FOG's stick or when 173 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:29.639 the kiddiwake's roost outside. No one actually claimed to have 174 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:32.399 stepped on the island. Peter claimed he'd seen it plain 175 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:34.000 in his day, from a school trip in the seventies. 176 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:36.600 A great little drop of land right out in the haze, 177 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.759 Vivienne only said, used to watch the light off at evening, 178 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:41.720 just to the left of the bay, when the sun's low. 179 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:44.519 Each account was delivered without so much as a wink. 180 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:47.039 It wasn't an Anxiet joke. It felt more like a 181 00:08:47.039 --> 00:08:49.240 local fact, so widely it seemed it wouldn't occur to 182 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:52.159 anyone to doubt it. The feeling that I was misunderstanding 183 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:55.159 something essential, some layer of local language, or an elaborate 184 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:58.919 tradition left unexplained, left me faintly disoriented. Were they all 185 00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:00.919 pulling my leg? Or was I the only one out 186 00:09:00.919 --> 00:09:03.919 of step? That deepenable of curiosity toned to a gentle 187 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:06.960 but persistent ditch. The question was no longer about one 188 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:08.759 odd island on a couple of old maps. It was 189 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:11.159 about why everyone seemed so settled in knowledge had never 190 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:14.480 even encountered. By the time I left the museum that afternoon, 191 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:17.000 I couldn't help looking back over my shoulder, half expecting 192 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:19.399 to see our islands trangle hovering somewhere on the edge 193 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:22.879 of the horizon, just waiting to be acknowledged. The restlessness 194 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:25.919 carried over well into the next day. After an unusually 195 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:28.600 brisk night breeze, the morning air was clear enough to cot, 196 00:09:28.679 --> 00:09:30.840 the sun dazzling off the harbor's boats glittered in the 197 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.120 tidal pools. I let myself in before opening, and settled 198 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:36.320 at the small reading table in the museum's back room. 199 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:38.600 My hands wrapped round and mugged that I'd refulled three 200 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:41.919 times without remembering. I followed my curiosity where it led 201 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:45.039 straight into the archive room. The museum's archive was more 202 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:48.320 a patchwork of local generosity than any coherent system. Faded shiplocks, 203 00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:51.519 scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, a motley heap of lighthouse keeper notes, 204 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:54.600 and half the cipher diaries. On a whim, I pulled 205 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:56.919 the ship register for nineteen o two, which had been 206 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.600 donated by the terminally cheerful widow of an actual sea captain. 207 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.720 I read for an hour rivals, departures, whether minor incidents 208 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:06.480 with lines and sail. Then in the June entries the 209 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:10.000 words rounded iro dense, bird life, adjusted twenty degrees for shoals, 210 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.279 I froze. The log was knee methodical and referenced to 211 00:10:14.279 --> 00:10:18.200 other familiar landmarks near by without fuss. The mention felt casual, 212 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.759 almost beside the point rounded are no other explanation, just 213 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:25.679 something you do of sailing a coast. The logs before 214 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:28.000 and after that year made no mention of such an island, 215 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:31.240 nor did several other ship logs I checked, except for 216 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:34.519 one from nineteen fifteen, in which the writer described navigating 217 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:37.360 by fog bot beyond Are, but just a few inches 218 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:39.480 later the same captain refers to a cross him with 219 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:42.440 no land between here and sully no Ir or island there. 220 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:45.679 The deeper I dug, the more the wreckord flickered. A 221 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:49.120 lighthouse keeper's report from nineteen twenty eight refers Matto fact 222 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:51.799 Lay two for gathering at ire, Yet reports for the 223 00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:54.399 years before and after made no reference to it whatsoever, 224 00:10:55.080 --> 00:10:58.000 even stranger A voyage diary from an amateur dots mandated 225 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.440 nineteen forty five Marle of the position of Ire Island, 226 00:11:00.519 --> 00:11:02.480 but then, after scrubbing a note in the margin of 227 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:05.960 Foggy impassable, he crossed out the name entirely. I started 228 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:09.840 comparing these records to the official hydrographic survey charts. Even 229 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:12.720 in the annotated local coppice strewn with coffee stains, crowd 230 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.039 writing and playful caricature, as there were references to your 231 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:17.720 shoals off ire in some and total silence in others. 232 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:22.519 No consistency, just a recurring ghosts in the records. Peter 233 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:25.559 agreed to help me dig further. After school, we walked 234 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:28.279 down to Saint Patrock's Primary. He showed me a whole 235 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:32.000 line of children's illustrated maps. I made dragons, an exaggerated 236 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.960 of lighthouses. Several drawings included Ayre Island, invariably just south 237 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.159 of the headland, crayon notes, reefs segels live here or 238 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:43.159 were the seals rest or fog stay away? The idea 239 00:11:43.159 --> 00:11:45.320 of the island seemed embedded and had the youngest learned 240 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:48.679 picture of their own. Wild At the town library, Missus Stallaway, 241 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.159 the gray haired librarian with the uncanny ability to recall 242 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:53.440 every title shelved in the last ten years. Let us 243 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:56.000 sort through stacks of local almanacs and pocket guide books. 244 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:59.559 Some editions had a short paragraph the curious ire Island 245 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:01.360 often try uded in mist is said to break the 246 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:04.559 view south. Other editions skipped the place entirely, as if 247 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:06.799 the island had been ghostedded it out of local knowledge 248 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:09.120 for several years at a time. When I asked the 249 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:11.279 old attounts for the ones who spent afternoons in the 250 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:13.639 garden or on wooden benches painted every spring, whether they 251 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:16.279 needed it or not, they mostly offered warm fogg soft stoys. 252 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.759 Missess Aynel, who'd been born two houses from mine, said 253 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.960 she remembered seeing the island shadow from the windows growing up. 254 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:25.200 She described it as a blow, like a patch of 255 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:27.279 land that wasn't always in the same spot, but was 256 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:29.360 always just there, whether you could step on it or not. 257 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:33.360 Others were more philosophical. Maybe it's just what we called 258 00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:36.120 the miss bank, said mister Jameson, whose sons run one 259 00:12:36.159 --> 00:12:38.799 of the fishing boats out of the harbor. Falk can 260 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:41.440 look like anything can. Sometimes the mind fills him more 261 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:44.080 than the icy. But even he seemed reluctant to let 262 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:47.080 the idea go entirely. Not one person claimed to have 263 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:50.240 actually landed on Ire. Some agreed it was myth, an 264 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:52.799 old habit and nursery jape, but none seemed to doubt 265 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:54.840 that the island, however it was defined, was as real 266 00:12:54.919 --> 00:12:58.360 as any conversation about the weather. The line between story 267 00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:01.559 and memory twisted into a single road rope. Two days later, 268 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:04.799 brood Infrun and so old tuboks of donated seaside postcards. 269 00:13:04.919 --> 00:13:06.879 I found a card with creases so deep I nearly 270 00:13:06.919 --> 00:13:10.879 overlooked it in cheerful blockie type Greetings from Ira Island. 271 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:13.879 In a faded photograph, a rocky outcrop, possibly even the 272 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:16.720 real coastline, taken from some unfamiliar angle, had been printed 273 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:18.720 with a child's skull rowned to a spot in the mists. 274 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:23.159 Seals here deeded nineteen seventy six. The stamp was familiar, 275 00:13:23.159 --> 00:13:25.879 but the postal address was real, matching a local house 276 00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:28.159 on the outskirts of town. I felt as though the 277 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:30.039 more I looked, the more the lines between record and 278 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:33.919 myth blurred. Ira Island's existence flickered through history and across 279 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.559 generations in precisely the manner of those rare places that 280 00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:38.919 managed to be both everywhere and nowhere, both fact in 281 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:41.840 the local daydream. Instead of lining up the evidence into 282 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:45.480 a crisp empirical line, I found myself gathering handfuls of contradictions, 283 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:48.960 official and an official, both documented and erased. There seemed 284 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:51.120 to be no solid boundary. The island was real in 285 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:53.759 the public mind, yet absent from every authority. It was 286 00:13:53.799 --> 00:13:56.840 present in Skolchovn's career on absent from navigational radar. It 287 00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.279 sat in lobooks and postcards as a placeholder for something 288 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:03.080 between memory an invention. Somewhere along the way, my curiosity 289 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:06.159 had outgrown the technical. The puzzle was no longer what 290 00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:09.200 is our island? But how can everyone believe in it 291 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:12.840 so convincingly? Despite every effort documentation makes to insist otherwise? 292 00:14:13.559 --> 00:14:15.919 I retreated one evening too, the rising Anchor, the pub 293 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:18.120 favored by both the museum staff and a certain type 294 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:21.679 of local wag. Curiosity had clearly become a living rumor 295 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:23.639 as soon as I ventured the subject its bread like 296 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:26.759 cinders in a dry field. You remember, Joe, that time 297 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:28.279 you thought you saw the herd of deer on ire, 298 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:31.440 said an old fisherman. As I sipped my dark ale Joe, 299 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:33.519 perhaps six decades past the age he had last raised 300 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:35.480 against any deer, took his pipe out of his mouth 301 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:38.039 and admitted, I might have been, or might have been 302 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:40.559 a low cloud, but it was something all right. At 303 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:43.120 the table behind me, two women debated with ire was 304 00:14:43.159 --> 00:14:45.039 the size of a football pitch or two fields with 305 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:48.360 a stream? Both, however, agreed that some one's always seen it, 306 00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:51.000 If not you, then the person next to you. I sat, 307 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:53.039 not sure whether to laff or challenge them, but to 308 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:55.519 swept up in the mood to jew either. The stories 309 00:14:55.600 --> 00:14:57.919 rolled on of lost couts, full of island wind, of 310 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.120 nights when the falcrn carried the echo of seabirds that 311 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:03.559 couldn't be found elsewhere. Every claim was rooted in certainty. 312 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:06.200 Every contradiction met with the gentle, tolerant logic of old 313 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:08.399 friends who have long since given up carrying which parts 314 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:11.279 of their shared history were fact in which fiction. When 315 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:13.600 the pub quieted oppressed the issue, has any one here 316 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:16.840 ever set foot on ire? The general foughful silence. One 317 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:19.600 person smile best fully and said, that's not really the point, 318 00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:22.240 is it. I walked home through quiet streets, the light 319 00:15:22.279 --> 00:15:24.320 from upstairs windows blotting the night wetly on to the 320 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:28.240 uneven stones. I found myself rehearsing arguments folk are woven 321 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:30.799 into place. Old sailor's habits may be a joke that 322 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.440 became a tradition too cherished to correct. But as my 323 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:36.399 keys rattled in my pocket and another idea surface, less comfortable, 324 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:39.360 much harder to let go. What if the boundary between 325 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:43.120 remembered anne reel was thinner than I believed. Ire Island 326 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.000 wasn't simply a cartographic accident, nor merely an in joke. 327 00:15:46.679 --> 00:15:49.440 It was something kept alive in speech, memory and rich seal, 328 00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:52.120 something that flickered between presents and absence according to the 329 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:54.840 act of being recalled. I began to wonder, was the 330 00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:57.279 act of remembering ire Island as a ton enough to 331 00:15:57.279 --> 00:16:01.120 make it locally real, a self perpetuating conscer entences marked 332 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:03.399 out in story imap and island whose main quality is 333 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.759 that its remembered in unison across the generations. That thought 334 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:09.720 was equal parts unsettling and thrilling. What else in this 335 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:11.960 town or in the wider world might ere such a 336 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:16.279 precarious existence hovering somewhere between agreement and actuality. Nevertheless, I 337 00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:19.399 slept poorly all night. I dreamt of violins appearing and 338 00:16:19.399 --> 00:16:22.159 disappearing with the tides, each one exchanging its name only 339 00:16:22.159 --> 00:16:25.159 when spoken aloud. It was the kind of misty, cornish 340 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:27.679 morning that seemed to pull the world closer together, softening 341 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:29.840 the edges until even the sharpest stones on the shingle 342 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:32.840 beach seen to blow beneath your boots. The air was thick, 343 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:35.840 humming with invisible moisture in the distant clinking of mordships. 344 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:38.159 I hadn't managed more than two hours sleep, but I 345 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.720 felt wide alert. My body moved before my mind caught up. 346 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:43.639 I found myself walking the long arc of the shore 347 00:16:43.679 --> 00:16:45.720 east of the Lizard, Carrying the oldest of the two 348 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.440 charts stuffed under my jacket. I retraced the lines of 349 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:50.840 the map as I walked, beats crunching slate and seaweed. 350 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:53.000 I stirred as close as I could to the very 351 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.720 point where, by both old maps estimation, Ire Island should 352 00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:58.240 have risen from the sea. I looked out over the water, 353 00:16:58.360 --> 00:17:00.600 shrouded in thick banks of fog, daylight barely able to 354 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:03.279 press through. I was ready, I think, to reject the 355 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:05.920 whole thing. But as I was quinted into the haze, 356 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:09.200 I saw it forethought I did. Just where the coordinates landed, 357 00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:12.640 A shadow detached itself from the mist, not a vague smudge, 358 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:15.359 but an honest, almost a fine profile, a low triangle 359 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.200 of land, battered rock on one side, pale underbelly, rising 360 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:21.279 out of the breaking waves. I stared, mouth dry, my 361 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.960 mind flickering between a marouche and reel, wanting to blink 362 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:26.640 it away, and only half daring to The sight held 363 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:30.839 for how long a minute less, just enough for me 364 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:33.880 to catalog features and outcrop of stones near the north side, 365 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.559 something like sund of pale grass, fleck along the shoulder, 366 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:39.519 a burst of sea birds against muted sky. Then the 367 00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:42.799 fog shifted and the island vanish completely. I without apology, 368 00:17:43.319 --> 00:17:46.079 I stood there, shivering, angry at myself for believing, then 369 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:49.279 doubting them, believing again, for the next hour. I ran 370 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:52.079 back through town, heart hammering, flagging down Vivienne and Peter 371 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.279 on their way into the museum. I insisted, half wild 372 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.000 that they come see for themselves, though I must have 373 00:17:57.039 --> 00:17:59.480 looked half craze, clutching a chart and gesturing at empty air. 374 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:02.400 We returned together. The fog had burned away, the water 375 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:05.759 calmly indifferent to us scrutiny. Viviens quinted at the horizon, 376 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:08.920 shaking her head, but not mocking Peter always the joker 377 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:11.559 lifted his phone for a photo anyway, but the sea 378 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:13.559 was as blank as ever, just the steady drumming of 379 00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:17.039 tide against stone. Back at the museum that afternoon, things 380 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:20.960 got stranger still. The council was holding an event. I 381 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.960 waited outside, distracted until the mayor, her sash trailing like 382 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:26.240 an orambeld a new plaque on the overlook near the harbor, 383 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:29.559 in raised letters, I or Island Lookout, dedicated to the 384 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:33.319 generations who have shared our maritime horizon. Children clambered over 385 00:18:33.359 --> 00:18:36.519 the stones, laughing, asking their parents about Alan picnics and stores. 386 00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:39.319 A few snap photos of the plaque with their phones. 387 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:43.160 When I returned to the museum's gift shop later, still bewiltered, 388 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:46.359 I found a new rack of glossy postcods. There. Between 389 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:49.640 brightly colored life butts and familiar sunsets were three different 390 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:54.000 photographs labeled Ire Island. One breaftickingly indistinct, seemed to show 391 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:56.160 a pale shape on folk bound water. It features just 392 00:18:56.200 --> 00:18:59.400 familiar enough to pinch at recent memory. The label in 393 00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:02.319 plain type Ire Island seen from the coastal path twenty 394 00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:05.480 twenty one. I rushed to the museum office hot thudding 395 00:19:05.559 --> 00:19:08.480 and pulled up the mapping software we used for interactive displays. 396 00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:12.400 Nothing unusual at first, but then as I crossed reference 397 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:16.279 to coordinates, a fleck appeared, a tiny annotated triangle Ire Island. 398 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:19.559 The record updated before my eyes, switching between presents and 399 00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:22.880 absence as I toggled the map layers. I called vivienover. 400 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:25.759 By the time she looked, the icon was gone. Was 401 00:19:25.799 --> 00:19:28.799