It was almost a classic fisherman’s tale of the ‘one that got away’.
But debris from a rocket found floating off Cayman Brac has been rediscovered by one of the same anglers.
And this time the unusual catch has been hauled ashore in Little Cayman.
Brothers Tyrone and Larry Scott first discovered the floating chunk of metal, 18 feet by 15 feet, and white and grey with a multi-coloured emblem, last month.
At the time they thought it was a piece of a sailboat and left it floating on the currents, they thought, towards Grand Cayman.
It was only later when they sent the photos to a cousin at the Department of Environment that they discovered it was the ‘payload fairing’ from a Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana in December.
Payload fairings are the protective casing that surrounds satellites on a rocket. They fall away when the craft reaches a certain altitude and the satellites are dispersed into orbit.
DoE deputy director Tim Austin traced the logos on the debris to a French aerospace firm.
Nicholas Multan, CEO of that firm – Hemeria – told the Cayman Compass in an email he was astonished by the find.
“We are very surprised to have discovered that debris from the Soyuz launcher, used during the launch of our nanosatellite last December 18, was floating into the open sea,” he said.
He said the company was environmentally conscious and was keen to locate the debris and return it to France.
At the time, that seemed unlikely.
But early on Friday, Larry Scott, one of the two brothers who made the original find, rediscovered the debris inside the reef off Owen Island.
This time, he didn’t let it go.
Scott called the Department of Environment and the wreckage was hauled ashore. It was sitting at the Southern Cross Club in Little Cayman Friday evening.
Scott said, “I pulled it off the reef and made it secure and gave it over to them. I said this time I am making sure it doesn’t get away.
“It was really nice to get it out of the water.”
Scott has been fishing on Little Cayman for the past month. He says his next mission is to locate a ‘ghost net’ reportedly spotted in the area this week.
He said fellow fishermen had alerted him to the net, which had a large marlin inside, around five days ago. It was too late and too dark for them to haul in the net.
“I have been out looking for that,” he added.
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