The Great Snorkel

Liz and I decided to go on a little snorkeling adventure to the Kittiwake wreck.

Ready to head out to the wreck

I use the word "wreck" very loosely... the Kittiwake was actually sunk off Cemetry Beach in West Bay in January this year to form an artificial reef for sea life and become a diving destination for the many tourists that come to the island each year.. and of course for the locals to enjoy too. 

Only after our visit to the wreck did I read on the official website for the kittiwake that you are meant to use a licensed operator and pay them the entry fee along with their charges for taking you out to the wreck by boat... oops!
 From the official kittiwake website:
Scuba Divers & Snorkelers:

The Kittiwake ship wreck is a private park and attraction that is managed by the Cayman Islands Tourism Association. All visitors to the Kittiwake ship wreck are required to pay an entry fee.

- Scuba Divers = US$10.00 / CI$8.00 per day (single use)
- Snorkelers     = US$5.00 / CI$4.00 per day / snorkel
- Annual Pass   = US$31.25 / CI$25 per year
- Lifetime Pass = US$500 / CI$400

I'll have to make sure that I get myself (and whoever is brave enough to swim out there with me) this fancy blue wristband and hope that no-one reports us for swimming there! 

The swim was much further than we anticipated. Here we are posing for a self portrait about half way there. Luckily there were some boats at the wreck so that we knew where to swim to. There is a bouy out there, but from shore it is tiny and so we used the boats as our guide. 

Looking back at the shore... about three quarters of the way there

It was a tad more of a swim than we had anticipated from the shore. Swimming half a mile along the beach is fine, but swimming half a mile out to sea AWAY from the shore? That's a whole different story. Unfortunately for Liz, she is a keen horror movie watcher and the deeper out we swam, the darker the water became and the more her mind started bringing back images of some of the ocean related horror movies she'd so eagerly watched over the years... but before she could dwell too much on that, this huge dark shape suddenly appeared below us, we had made it to the Kittiwake!

Kind of spooky when all of a sudden this jumps out at you from the blue... even when you're expecting it

The Kittiwake was sunk in 62ft (19m) of water, but as she's quite a large vessel, the top of the ship is only about 15ft (4.5m) below the surface. If Liz and I had swum just another 80ft (25m) or so further out to sea we would have reached the Deep Wall Drop Off where the ocean floor drops from 70ft (21m) to about 5000ft (1.5km)!! YIKES! Even though I don't watch ocean related horror movies, that freaked me out, and I'm glad that I only discovered that fact from JP once we'd arrived home safe and sound.

Divers down below about to go in for a better look

Liz doing some underwater interpretive dance for the fishies

Liz diving down for a pose ... or is she giving me the finger?

As you can see, the top of the ship is quite near the surface

Two thumbs up from me.... that was before I remembered we still had to swim back.