The Curse of Oak Island

Dear readers,
I feel that before you read this I owe you a bit of an introduction to what exactly Oak Island is, where it is, and the mystery surrounding it. If you already know the history behind Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada then be my guest and begin my story. For those of you still reading this introduction I would first like to tell a little bit about my knowledge of the cursed island in Canada. I first heard about the island from a TV show on the History Channel and from then one I was hooked and decided to spend the next few months of my life on becoming an "expert" on the island. Basically, to make a long story short, there is a pit on Oak Island that was discovered in the 1800's by two guys looking for treasure who had seen strange lights on the island at night. They decided to check it out and found an area that had appeared to be dug up, so they started digging and several other companies and people have decided to dig to find out what is at the bottom.
Now you are asking, "Why haven't they reached the bottom of the pit to find the wealth beneath?" because the pit keeps flooding once the diggers get to a certain point. Now, no one knows what is at the bottom of the pit or why it floods or what those strange lights were, except Scully. The following story is her actual account of what occurred on the island during her visit. This is the first installment and I will post the other soon as long as Scully allows it. You are about to dive into a mystery that needs to be solved and a secret that several "secret societies" don't want to be solved because of certain reputations and pride. Read her accounts carefully and at your own discretion.
Yours Truly,
Nick
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There is an island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is several miles away from the small town of Amherst, about a ten hour drive from New York City and is the home of the fabled “Money Pit.” My name is Scully and I have devoted the better part of my life to figuring out the story behind the curse of Oak Island. I have spent thousands of dollars, ended numerous friendships, and have been called many names, of which my favorite was the name the young man called me in Idaho before leaving for my trip to the island, Decelerate. Hah! The baselessness of the word overwhelmed me and I couldn’t help but laugh.
I know more about Nova Scotian history, the Knights Templar, and anything even slightly related to the curse that to call me decelerate is idiotic! Crazy? Yes, maybe so, I have been called crazy the most of any word. I do admit that maybe the devotion of my life to an island that may or may not have a hidden treasure is a bit crazy but all my research points to that it does. You see, my research has pointed to one astounding, completely plausible, realization of what lies at the bottom of the Money Pit, The Holy Grail. Literally the Holy Grail, the proof is all too overwhelming to disregard, no I am not mad or crazy, not even the slightest insane the proof was realized after a conversation I had with an old Nova Scotian man just outside of Amherst, Canada.
On my first and only trip to Oak Island my team and I decided to settle in at a small little bed and breakfast just outside the small town of Amherst, Canada. We had been driving for the better part of three-thousand-one-hundred-and-ninety miles when we finally reached the small town and decided that sleeping in the van atop the digging equipment and cameras wasn’t going to be an option any longer. It was about 6 o’clock when we got to the small inn and there was a man seated on the front porch in a rocking chair dozing off with a cup of coffee in his hand and a cigarette still burning in the ashtray next to him, I’ll always remember that man. As we walked up the rather squeaky steps to the entrance we awoke the man, “Oh sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you, sir,” I said.
“That is quite alright, enjoy your stay here in the beautiful town of Amherst!” he said back to me. What a good sport, I thought, anyone in America would have instantly given you an attitude and wished inconveniences on you for the rest of your stay.
We checked into the inn and we went our separate ways to our rooms and called it a night pretty early. I woke up after a strange dream that I can’t recall anymore, all I know is that it was strange and involved a bucket of sand. The clock read 3 AM and I was now wide awake, I decided to take a gander out of the window adjacent from my bed looking down onto the front porch, there I saw the old man still sitting there, this time with a cigarette in hand and coffee placed on the table. It was probably a balmy twenty-five degrees outside and he had no jacket so I decided to join him and bring him a jacket to warm up.
Once I got down to the porch I sat on the rocking chair next to him, he instantly knew what I was there for and told me to keep my jacket. Eventually, a conversation began and he was also deeply interested in the curse of Oak Island. He was telling me about his own theories and how he believed the Knights Templar had created flood tunnels to keep their treasure safe. Interesting I thought, pirates were my first thought but knights? He then handed me a piece of old parchment inscribed with the letters "VI" and, "The people shall not forget the Lord, to offset the hardships of winter, and the onset of plague the Arif, he shall pray to the Lord." Proof of the Knights Templar? The verse did sound rather prophetic. I thanked him for the paper and decided to try and go back to sleep, a big day was ahead of me.
Our first day on the island was a productive one, we located the pit and decided to dig off to the side of it, we decided that we would inspect the dirt for small pieces of whatever as the drill was digging. We got down to twenty-five feet when after inspection I discovered a tiny piece of metal, straight from the era of the Knights Templar. It looked as though there was a part missing from it, like it was a piece of a cross which would be even more intriguing. After further inspection by my dear friend Jason (I had known him since birth) he discovered engraving on the back of the metal.
After cleaning the dirt off of the piece of metal in the ocean we discovered it said “Sinclair.” Sinclair is the last name of the very last family to be headmaster’s of the Knights Templar, supposedly they came from Scotland to Nova Scotia after having a bounty put on the whole order’s head in Paris. Apparently the Sinclairs also were the last known family to have possession of the Holy Grail.
Could the Holy Grail be at the bottom of this pit? A pit that I previously had thought would just contain a few hundred pounds if anything, now could possibly contain the most treasured lost Christian relic.
I decided to take a stroll down the side of Oak Island Drive (the only road on the island) and soaked in the aura of Oak Island. The pure mystery of it all truly can captivate a person, thousands of questions pass through your mind constantly like: who, where, why, when, how? It’s like a broken record of difficult math problems you will never figure out the answer to. As I was walking near the road I glanced into the woods that encompasses the island and I saw something peculiar, a stone, well you couldn’t really call it a house, more of a hut. A stone hut in the middle of the woods on Oak Island, should be interesting I thought.
I made the quick decision of inspecting the hut without contacting my team first so hopefully a bear wouldn’t maul me for looking at his home. As I got closer to the stone structure I noticed inscribing on the sides and I immediately pulled out the parchment the old man had given me and there it was, VI, and as I moved around to the adjacent side there it said the same verse, "The people shall not forget the Lord, to offset the hardships of winter, and the onset of plague the Arif, he shall pray to the Lord."  
Awestruck, I stood there snapping photos of the stone hut’s writing with my iPhone, moving around the structure until snap! A branch fell and knocked me to the ground. I could hear the crows snickering at me as I pried my way through the fallen branch. As I looked back up at the stone structure I noticed that on the back there was something written that I couldn’t make out. It looked like gibberish to me but then, finally channeling my inner high school French class, I saw the word “roches.” Oh, that’s rocks in French, I thought to myself. Then everything made sense, it said, “Retirer les roches ou inonder l'île.” Remove the rocks or flood the island! I immediately turned and ran as fast as I could to the rest of the team to share my newfound information.
“Jason! I’ve found something very interesting you’re gonna want to see it,” I said.
“I have found something pretty interesting myself, care to tell me what this is?” Jason said while holding up a piece of coconut fiber.
“Well that's coconut fiber, what in the world is it doing in Canada?”
“Must be on vacation.” Jason said sarcastically “What did you want to show me?”
“Follow me!” I replied.
I took Jason to the stone hut with the writing on it and he was just as bewildered as I was, “What do you suppose we do?” he asked me.
“I guess remove the rocks like it says.”
So we began to and it was difficult, those rocks had to have weighed tons! They were as jagged as knifes too which made it all the more difficult. We finally got the first rock off of the top and looked inside the stone hut, what we saw still remains as vivid in my mind as if I just looked upon it. What was underneath the rock hut was the most important clue in the mystery of Oak Island, it was a map! It was straight from the Knights Templar time, I could tell because of the old English writing and holy symbols on the map. A land mass that looked like Nova Scotia was called “New Scotland” which I thought was interesting. Even more interesting was the fact that on the bottom of the map, it read, “Slightly drinking from thy cup till it runneth over, Holy Grail,” and exactly where Oak Island should be, it wasn’t, instead there was a light beam coming from the Knight holding a cup in the corner of the map. Could that mean the Holy Grail was there? We weren’t sure but it definitely could be.
I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the old bed and breakfast, have some dinner and regroup. On our way off of the island I felt an emptiness sensation in my stomach, now thinking back it was most likely from the fact I hadn’t eaten lunch and only had a light breakfast and not from the islands curse.
Back at the inn we were once again greeted by the old man from the day before. He was cheerful as ever as I greeted him, “Good evening sir, how was your day?”
“Probably much more uneventful than yours ma’am, how was your trip to the island?” he responded.
“Yes, eventful indeed. Well have a good night sir,” I said.
“And you too.”
Soon, after a good meal of lobster chowder the team and I retired for the day and went to our rooms. Again a nightmare awoke me right as my clock turned to 3 AM. I became restless and decided to do a little researching on the Knights Templar on my lap top. Nothing better than some early morning googling, I thought. I simply entered into google “Knights Templar”. I bypassed all of the Wikipedia articles and looked for a more credible source. Second page of my one-million results in half of a second I found a professor at Cambridge who studies and specializes in the Knights Templar. Everything about them, this employee bio page said, from who they were to what their purpose was.
I decided it might be a wise decision to call him, Dr. Scottfield was his name. He seemed like a nice fellow, graduated Yale in 1956, taught at Kent State, Case Western, Harvard, and now Cambridge. I would call him in the afternoon, I had to go to sleep now and I assumed he most likely wasn’t awake at 3 in the morning. I glanced out of the window looking for the nice man who sat at the porch to reassure he wasn’t frozen to death, I saw him sipping coffee and was reassured enough to get back to bed, another big day I foresaw.
Day two on Oak Island started out horrible, the digging machine caught a short and had to be repaired and then the water levels were so high in the Money Pit that it was flooding out into the woods. I noticed that as the tide went out, so did the water in the pit. Of course the water didn’t empty but the level of water drastically lessened.
Smith’s Cove, the cove closest to the Money Pit is man made, that much everyone knows, the why, when, how is what people don’t know. If the theory about flood tunnels is correct and the writing on the rock hut is true then possibly the rocks that make up Smith’s Cove are the ones that make the pit flood. If we could somehow remove all of the rocks that make up the cove maybe we would find something underneath the cove that is causing the pit to continuously flood.  
But to do that we would need to allow our digging equipment to be exposed to salt water from the ocean and the possibility of flooding it with the rising of tides. It was worth the risk, I thought. Tomorrow that's what we’ll do, “Jason, tomorrow I want to dig up Smith’s Cove. I think that the cause of the flood is coming from under it.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
“Well the writing on the stones we found in the woods said to move the rocks or flood the island, so maybe it is referring to the manmade cove.”
“Good thinking Scully, we’ll start tomorrow.”
Rather reluctantly, I went back to the inn we had been staying at for a lunch break that Jason insisted upon. He said he would handle the rest of the days work with the team and I could go rest for our last day tomorrow. He would call me when they were ready to call it a day on the island.
I decided to stop by a McDonalds and get a hamburger and a coke, I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. As I was driving down the road taking a drink of my coke I realized I hadn’t yet called Dr. Scottfield! It was now 2 in the afternoon so I had to call as soon as I got back to the inn. Driving back I felt like a thousand things were in my mind but I could only control one of them, what I did for the rest of the day. I finally decided to call the professor and then do nothing related to the island the rest of the day. It could be done, I thought to myself.
But what if the professor gave me some crucial information that had a call to action, that I had to do something because of the findings right now! Unlikely, he probably thinks I’m a lunatic like everyone else in the world, I’m probably just some crazed treasure hunter who won’t ever find what I am looking for, especially not in the short amount of time I was at the island. I also believed he would not even answer so I did not prepare an idea of what I was going to say to him on the phone so when he answered I was very unprepared.
“H-hello, Dr. Scottfield. I am Scully Fowel, I emailed you-”
“Yes I know, what can I do for you Ms. Fowel, it appears you are in a bind with Knights Templar terminology, correct?” he said.
“Y-yes sir, I am here in Amherst right now actually, I just got back from the island. I found this map with a Templar Knight on it, did you receive the picture?”
“Yes I did, it is a Knights Templar map. I am going to tell you something Ms. Fowel, please do not be surprised. The treasure is on Oak Island. It is the Holy Grail and you can get it,” he said dramatically.
“I-I can?” I asked nervously.
“Yes, but I must warn you to be careful on going about it. The Templar knew someone would go after the grail so they protected it with a flood tunnel. It is under Smith’s Cove and you must dig it up. Once you do that you will need to block the flood tunnel and pump the water out, understand?”
“Yessir, we had already planned to dig up the cove’s beach tomorrow. But sir, how do you know the Holy Grail is down there?”
I could sense my question had triggered something in the professor that had been weighing on him for awhile, like he was waiting to tell me the information and proof the grail is there.
“Because, when the Sinclairs left to Nova Scotia to continue the Templar order in the New World they had something with them, it was in one of knights diary that had accompanied them on the journey to Canada. A diary we just found a year ago. He said the grail was with them and they would use it to convert Canadian settlers to the order, the grail had some sort of power but we don’t know. If you do get the grail I will pay a substantial-”
“Sir, I know what I have to do.” I didn’t. “Sir, I will get the Holy Grail if it is the death of me, thank you for your time, I will be in contact.
“Thank you Ms. Fowel.”
It wouldn’t be the death of me to find the grail, in fact it was the death of a good, dear friend of mine. What would happen in the coming day, if I didn’t care about my friend, would be triumphant. A large success for personal gain, but rather meaningless without a friend there to share the glory with. It still haunts me to this day, I don’t quite know how it happened but I’ll tell it the best I can.
The third and final day on the island started like the previous two. A quick breakfast and a drive to the island. The one thing that stood out from the previous two days was how on our way there everyone was quiet, like before a storm everything is calm and still, we were heading for a storm, just not caused by the weather but by the pit.
Once we got to the island we began digging up the cove, pretty uneventfully I may add. As we kept digging, our equipment began to sink into the ocean and we had to use the diving gear which had only one air tank with about one hour on it. Jason insisted that he go down and dive into the ocean to see what was under the cove. I allowed him, not thinking that maybe something catastrophic could happen. Jason was a good diver, not the best, but I was sure he would make the right decisions and keep himself safe. I was to watch the time to make sure he wasn’t under water too long.
15 minutes had gone by, he wasn’t up yet. Next thing I knew thirty minutes had gone by, still not too worried, forty-five minutes he finally surfaced. “You won’t believe what was down there!” He said very excited.
“What was it?” I asked.
“The flood tunnel, just like you said. We have to block it somehow and pump out the water.”
“Use the rocks!”
As he returned down to the flood tunnel I didn’t realize it would be the last time I would see him. Five minutes passed, okay I thought, he still has ten minutes of air left. I began to pump out the water from the pit and noticing that the water levels were actually receding. Excited by the sight I added our second pump and began pumping water out twice as fast. Fifteen minutes passed and Jason hadn’t surfaced yet, I began to get worried. I grabbed a pair of goggles and tried to look for him. There I saw him, with the air cord stuck on a rock that I had told him to use to block the flood tunnel. I dove into the water, hoping the best, but he had been there for fifteen minutes, dead.
I blamed myself and still blame myself. If I wasn’t so worried about pumping out the water from the pit I would have been watching more closely and been aware that my best friend was hooked on a rock, drowning because of lack of air.
But we couldn’t leave the island, not yet. We had to get to the bottom of the pit first. I don’t know why but an intense feeling came over me that I needed to. Maybe it was greed, maybe it was the islands curse, or maybe I was numb to the situation. Whatever it was I descended down the pit to get whatever lay at the bottom of it. I struggled down the pit, falling and losing my footing occasionally. I pushed past the debris and found a small chest near the bottom, the chest was covered in Christian symbols.
I saw Sinclair carved onto the front of it with a faded gold gloss used to fill in the carving. It was painted in a faded red and gold which I figured had faded over time from the amount of water in the pit. I noticed the keyhole was undone and made of brass along with the joints of the chest. One joint was missing on the far left side of the chest, I wondered how it had happened. Finally, I thought. This is what I had been waiting for, for what seemed like an eternity.
I opened the chest.  
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