Betty Mouat

It was a bitter cold day at the end of January 1886 when Betty Mouat took passage on the Columbine, a ship bound for Lerwick. At fifty-nine, she was traveling from her home at the southernmost tip of the Shetland Islands up the coast to town to sell her knitting. All she carried to eat was a bottle of milk and some biscuits. The voyage should have only take two or three hours, and Betty was the only passenger.

Eight days later, the Columbine smashed into the Norwegian coast, three hundred miles to the northeast. Betty was still the only passenger; she was also the only person on the ship.