Do you think it's this one?
Nope! My wreck doesnt have anything "expensive" or even anything of "antique" value. But it does have a story behind it that concerns me directly. I need to dive this ship to solve a puzzle I am constantly living in.
I was born in Karachi Pakistan and have lived here 1/5th of my life. When I was 12, I went to the northern areas of Pakistan to visit my great grandmother. She was the wife of Sardar Akmal Khan (great grand dad) and her name was Fatima Akmal Khan. I was surprised to see that my great grandmother, Fatima Akmal Khan was white! She looked very European with blue eyes and white skin. Plus she spoke English with a British accent and was very much into painting and sketching. Her body language was also very British. That is unusual for people here in the North. I asked my parents where is great grandma from and they said she is a pathan! (people from northern pakistan who are relatively lighter skinned than southerners). That still did not explain her talk and over all impression. I asked them where she got her British accent and I was told that this place was a British colony back then and great grandma studied in a British school. I did not ask any more questions.
The next time I returend to my village was when her funeral was taking place e went back to the north to attend her funeral. When we got to the village we found out that she had already been burried. This is unusual because generally people wait for relatives to gather and then bury the dead. The place of her burial was never revealed for some reason but it was known that she was not burried in the graveyard where rest of the family rests.
When her personal belongings were displayed, they contained a lot of sketches and paintings. All of these seemed images from her real life like the village in 1937, the family house in 1945, scenery from the balcony in 1953 and all that stuff. My grandfather asked me if I wanted to take anything from her stuff I could take it. I looked through the paintings and there was a painting of a ship and the name of the painting was "PERISA". I took that and framed it.
One question that came to my mind after looking at that was was that if my great grandma was a Pathan and had lived all her life in the north, there is no way she could have seen the sea. If she had not seen the sea, how the hell did she paint that ship? There was no TV at that time and though photographs were common in other parts of the world, people in the north had never seen any till 1950s! The painting was made much earlier. Furthermore all her paintings were from her real life so even if for some reason she did see a picture or a painting of a ship, it seemed unusual that she would chose that as a subject of her art.
At that point I wanted to see her grave. So I flew back to the North to the village of my grandparetns. No one in our family knew her grave except for this one uncle of mine who had taken her for burial. I asked him where her grave was and he told me the address of the graveyard. I went to the graveyard and inquired about the grave of the wife of Sardar Akmal Khan. My great grandfather was a freedom fighter and was very well known. The caretaker of the graveyard lead me to this grave under the oak tree. I read the name on the grave and was SHOCKED!!! It read "Dorothy Fulton!" The year of death was the same as my great grandmas. I told him this is someone else because my great grandmas name was Fatima Akmal Khan and she was the wife of Sardar Akmal Khan the freedom fighter. This guy said this is the grave you are looking for.
That evening I asked my grandfather who Dorothy Fulton was and he got violent. He pulled out a gun and threatened that I should never take that name again or he would kill me. So I promised Id never ask. Four years later he also died and I never asked anyone else in my family.
When I was in the US I read the biography of a Captain William Lane who was the Captain of a British hospital ship. He mentions how he went around the globe on this ship providing medical services to poor countries. His crew had only three doctors and nursing duties were performed by Christian nuns. In the seventh chapter of his book he mentions the city of Karachi. His ship was docked there for 2 months and they were treating cholera patients if I remember correctly. One of these Christian nuns was named "Dorothy" and she was assigned to treat a Sardar who was brought to the ship as a patient. The name of this guy is not mentioned but the biography tells us that this nun fell in love with him. This was obviously a problem on board because nuns are not supposed to fall in love and that also with some local Sardar who probably hates the English like anything. When the other sisters tried to reprimand her she ran away with him and when the ship was leaving Karachi she refused to come on board. This whole incident of the run-away nun, was so embarassing for the priesthood that they invented a fairy tale that Sister Dorothy died due to illness.
The situation was not any less problematic to the Sardar she had married because he was a radical anti British cleric who was preaching JIHAd against the English and him taking a British wife would destroy his reputation. So he gave her a Muslim name and kept her behind the veil at all times.
Interestingly the name of this Captain William's Hospital ship was also PERISA!
The biography of Captain William Lane tells us that the ship finally sank in a storm and the crew was taken on board another ship. The place of sinking is also mentioned.
There are lots of links that suggest that the runaway nun was Fatima Akmal Khan (my great grandma) but the only way it can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt is if I the wreck down below is the same wreck that is in the painting. Thats why I wanna dive this wreck! Hope this tells you why someone with 7 dives would wanna go down 200 feet.
