Imagine you are hiking the Mojave Desert. A white-hot sun’s radiant heat beats down. A broiling wind blasts sand and dust across a barren, unearthly landscape of scrub brush, tumble-weeds, and large craggy rock formations.

You seek the shade of the boulders, and upon rounding the corner of an unusually large one, you stumble upon an astonishing sight.

An ancient tall-masted sailing ship! It’s in ruins, listing to one side, and its bow has a hole around the boulder that presumably sunk it. The shredded remains of sails hang ominously from the collapsed rigging. It’s buried in sand up to around where the water line should be. It’s collapsed in places, and sunlight pours from spaces between the rotted cladding.

The whole thing looks like something you would see at the bottom of the ocean, or in the cove of some forgotten island; except it’s in the middle of the freakin desert!

There isn’t water around for miles, and certainly not waters you would be able to sail a vessel like this one on. So what’s the deal?

Well, that scenario above is from my imagination, but it’s an approximation of a local (Southern California) legend. I wanted to first paint a picture in your mind of what a curious sight this would be and why if true, would be an unforgettable story indeed.

As awesome of an image that is, the story of how a sailing ship could have ended up in the desert is even more fantastical.

Legend has it that in the 1600’s a Spanish ship filled with treasure and pearls found itself trying to outrun a storm on the sea of Cortez. On the old Spanish maps, California is depicted as an Island.

The crew would have thought sailing up the sea of Cortez would lead them to San Francisco Bay, and back out to the Pacific. Well, California is not an Island, and the end of the sea of Cortez is nothing but desert. So how is this ship supposed to have sailed into the desert?

 Because of the storm, the Colorado River and the Salton Sea overflowed and combined; flooding the whole Colorado river delta from the sea of Cortez to the Salton Sea.

 So the captain sailed up assuming the maps were correct and got all the way to the Salton Sea before sinking trying to find a way out. The area dried out after the flood waters receded leaving one treasure ship all alone in the desert.

 In another version, a pearling ship with Juan de Iturbe as the captain sailed further up the Sea of Cortez then he ever had before; outrunning a storm and in search of more pearls.

He went through a narrow passage and found an inland sea to wait out the storm. When The narrow passage they sailed in on vanished the boat became stuck. He and the crew packed what they could and set out to trek through the desert. Sometime later they arrived at a Spanish settlement to tell the tale.

Even if this did happen, the ship is way out in the middle of the desert how would a legend like this get started?  Someone had to see it right?

Well, in 1775 a dude named Manquerna (sounds like Macarena huh?) was on an expedition to survey the land for Spain.

He traveled by night to beat the heat and stumbled upon a huge old ship filled with pearls. He took what he could and set out to find it again but was never able to.

The next account occurred in 1892. A prospector claimed he found a ship in the desert. He launched an expedition, but got lost and had to be rescued. He was found dehydrated and delirious the search was vessel was called off.

That’s the last time anyone has supposedly laid eyes on it.

So is there / could there have been, a ship in the desert?
There would have had to have been just the right conditions for the delta to have flooded enough for a ship to sail through. If it did happen, what could have become of it? It could be at the bottom of the current Salton Sea, buried under shifting sands or destroyed by the weather. Some say that Manquerna or the Prospector actually did find it and quietly sold its treasure and destroyed it.

Others say it's a fanciful myth with the cinematic image of a ship in the desert being too good not to make up stories about. Or maybe it's out there now. The shifting winds revealing it's treasure-laden hull; waiting for someone to rediscover its riches. Now that would be a good a story!
Thanks for reading! - Mike O.