Shipwreck At Piccadilly

Cyril DuBourdieu

Cyril DuBourdieu lives in Port au Port East. After a career in the Canadian Army, he returned home to retire. While going to school as a young man he often joined ships to act as a Newfoundland customs agent. On one occasion he was shipwrecked in the middle of winter

IT WAS NEW YEAR'S EVE, I think it was, when we drove ashore in Piccadilly. I joined the S.S. Fernfield in Sandy Point. I would get off her when she finished up in Port au Port Bay. From there she would leave to go on to Bonne Bay.

It was 1943. At that time there were no roads on the peninsula here at all. All the freight was delivered to the various stores around the peninsula. Abbott & Haliburton was the company that owned the stores.

It was before Confederation and everything had to be checked in, because of duty being paid. Fish and so on being exported had to be checked the same way. There was an export duty on it. For that reason you had to have a tidewaiter on the ship going around the peninsula, before she was cleared from port here to go to Bonne Bay.

I used to get out of school at that time to do the tidewaiting duties for Newfoundland customs. Twenty-five cents an hour. Of course you got it from the time you joined until you got off, twenty-four hours a day.

We had left Cape St. George then, at Three Rock Cove. Then we went in to Piccadilly to land another bunch of freight - apples, flour, salt beef, and kerosene. We were unloading when the wind came up pretty heavy. The ship started to disintegrate at the pier that we tied up to.