Bishop Rock Lighthouse

The Scilly Isles, of England, is the first landfall a mariner encounters when approaching the English Channel from the west. It was among these low lying, wave-washed islets that the Royal Navy experienced its worst peacetime disaster.  In October of 1707 a naval squadron, commanded by Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovel, was returning from the Mediterranean. The squadron encountered a gate shortly before making landfall and all but two of the frigates were swept onto the ledges and reefs which litter the western seaboard of the Scilly Isles.