On September 2nd Ola Möller’s
sailboat, a Beneteau 473, was found abandoned at sea with tattered sails,
some miles from Cape Canaveral on Florida’s east coast. Ola Möller
had sent a text message to his son in Sweden on August 27 when he left
Bimini destined for Puerto Rico where he had planned to meet with a friend.
It is not known which route Ola was planning from Bimini to Puerto
Rico but possibly he sailed eastwards towards Nassau. The weather at that
time was good with light winds, but Ola never reported to any ports, so
it is assumed that something happened to Ola within the first few days
he was sailing between Bimini and Nassau. The US Coast Guard scoured the
waters extensively where he was thought to have disappeared but did not
find any trace of Ola Möller or the dinghy.
Josef Henschen came to Florida in 1871.
He was a medical student at Uppsala University when he got the opportunity
to bring a group of Swedish workers to Sanford, north of Orlando. He
recruited 36 workers from Uppsala and brought them to the work at the 12
000 acres of orange groves owned by General Shelton Sanford in Seminole
County, Florida. General Sanford had not been pleased by the workforce
recruited locally and had heard that Swedes were hard working and honest.