This afternoon Russ and I headed out to do some snorkeling. The excuse was to give the ladies some "girl" time but we all knew that this was a chance for Dad and Grandpa to get out and see if we couldn't find the holy grail of snorkeling for us since we got down here, the Wreck of the Geneva Kathleen. Back in June of 2007 when we first moved here we saw a snorkel site on the map for the Wreck of the Geneva Kathleen near the Reef Resort on the north side of the island near East End. We asked where the site was and never could get a straight answer. We never did find it and over the years several attempts to locate it have gone unfulfilled. It even became a running joke that there was no such thing as the Geneva Kathleen. Then about two months ago I found a website with explicit directions about how to get to the wreck site from a beach we had been to on Northside.
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| Lion Fish swimming around the wreck |
So today when Russ wanted to do some snorkeling, this was the perfect excuse to follow the directions and see what we could find. We headed out into some strong swells and the waves crashing into the shore. The wreck was supposedly next to some cliffs and so we had to be extra careful not to get caught in a wave. After swimming about a hundred yards along the shoreline we came upon the first wreckage and exploring led us to discover three or four distinct sites where wreckage could be found. At the end of this post are some photos of the wreckage and above and below this paragraph is a lion fish we found swimming at the site along with a juvenile.
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| Very poisonous spines so no touching and pictures only from a safe distance |
Lion fish are not native to the Caribbean but are actually invaders from the Pacific. They are dangerous so we give them a wide berth whenever they are sighted. It is believed that some escaped from an aquarium in Florida during Hurricane Andrew back in the 90's and they breed so quickly that they have expanded through the Caribbean. This fish is actually quite bad for the local waters as they are in large numbers and they eat off all the young of other species so they are not a welcome sight even if they make for pretty interesting photographs. There are lion fish tournaments held quite often down here for the expert divers who are the only ones that can catch them since you must have a license to do so. This is part of a concerted effort to cull the herds of them now in Cayman waters.
