Concern over cruise ship anchoring ‘too close to shore’

Concerned divers and snorkellers at the Devil’s Grotto dive site in George Town on Tuesday morning alerted authorities amid fears that the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship had anchored too close to shore.

Mario Blanchette said, in his six years of working at the Eden Rock Dive Center, he had never seen a ship anchored so near to the popular site.

“They normally anchor right outside the white channel marker, and this time, they’re way inside,” he said. “It practically feels like it’s right on top of the Devil’s Grotto dive site.”

He added that he was concerned about both the reef and the safety of divers.

“I think it’s dangerous because it’s so close and the engines are running, and that’s going to stir up all the sand,” he said.

A little later, he entered the water with a scuba diving student, and though they were not at the Devil’s Grotto site immediately in front of the ship, “it was very, very loud underwater, and [the ship was] disturbing the sand so it was affecting the visibility.”

He said later in the morning, the ship appeared to have moved a bit further away from the dive site.

Blanchette contacted the Port Authority, and local resident and regular snorkeller and free diver Rachel Osborne called the Department of Environment, to voice their concerns.

Authorities say ship within anchorage site

However, the Port Authority told the Compass the ship was well within the anchorage site.

Department of Environment conservation officers who visited the site also confirmed that the Equinox was anchored in the sand and was not within the Marine Protected Area.

Osborne, who regularly snorkels at Eden Rock, said she never seen a ship come so close before.

“It seems that as long as the anchor is sited outside the boundary, the position of the ship is moot. Which seems insane, and actually dangerous,” she told the Compass. “There are tenders going back and forth near snorkelling and diving tourists. And the noise is detrimental to the marine life, especially in mating and breeding season.”

In a video she filmed of the Equinox after it anchored around 6:30am, she panned to the empty harbour area “to show all the places where the ship could have gone. There are no other boats in today so it really does surprise me that this ship, at this time, is this close, when there are plenty of other places it could go.”

Later in the morning, a second ship, the Disney Fantasy, arrived, and a third ship, Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas, was expected in the afternoon.

Roylee Moore, acting director of cruise operations and security at the Port Authority, told the Compass that the Equinox was in exactly the position it was supposed to be in, and was well within the anchorage site. “The ship is perfectly fine,” he said.

He added that port staff had re-examined the position of the ship after the call from Blanchette and had confirmed it was not encroaching on the dive site.

Speaking by phone from his office at the Port Authority by George Town Harbour, Moore said, “I’m looking at the ship right now on the camera. The bow is right on the anchorage buoy right now.”

He said people had been similarly alarmed last year when the Equinox anchored at the same site a couple of months after Cayman opened its borders to cruise ships for the first time in two years.

Matter of perspective?

He added that the worries over the ship’s apparent proximity to shore were likely as a result of perspective, as the Equinox is considerably larger than the ships that usually anchor at that site.

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Environment said it was aware of reports circulating on social media relating to a cruise ship allegedly anchored outside of the designated anchorage area.

“We have contacted the Port Authority, who is responsible for assigning anchorage points to ships in port, and they have confirmed the cruise ship is within the anchorage zone. Conservation Officers from the DoE were also deployed and have confirmed the ship is anchored in the sand and that it is not within the Marine Protected Area,” it said.

One diver at Eden Rock on Tuesday expressed concern as tender boats ferried passengers from the Equinox to shore, moving between the bow of the ship and the dive buoy. When the Compass visited Eden Rock, divers could be seen on the surface of the water, with the giant ship looming behind them.

But Moore said the buoy on which the ship was anchored was 150 to 200 feet from the dive buoy, leaving plenty of room for the tenders to pass.