Activists promote underwater paradise with free screening
(CNS): The Save Cayman campaign is inviting everyone to Sunset House this evening for a free screening of the fantastic underwater world in George Town Harbour that will be lost forever if government presses ahead with the proposal to develop cruise piers in the capital. Many acres will be lost directly to dredging but many more will be lost over the period of development and continuing operations of the facility because of silt and turbidity that will kill the coral and the marine life that comes with it.Photos and video of the amazing pristine reefs enjoyed not just by locals, residents and stay over guests but cruise passengers too will be shown on the big screen, which activists hoping it will bring home the true loss that Cayman will suffer if the project becomes a reality.
The event starts at 7pm on the patio at Sunset House.
Category: Local News, Marine Environment
When will these Caymanians finally protect their only natural resource? How stupid, short-sighted and greedy can you be- Shame on the Kirks- I expected better from you guys.
I do find it funny that on the face of it, the most vocal opponents of the pier project seem to be the expat and ‘driftwood’ communities, ie the group with no vested interest and no rights in the country. I’m sure there are concerned Caymanians as well but they don’t appear to be as vocal. Still, when the pier is built and the reefs are destroyed and the ships still don’t come and Goverment is head over heels in debt at least the expats will be able to sit back in their own country and say ‘told you so!’
Most Caymanians unfortunately have family or friendship ties to the “pro-port” families 🙁
If the expats and driftwoods succeed in stopping progress for Caymanians it will be a very sad day for Cayman!
They should not have a say in this decision, they will pack up and leave, but the rest of us will suffer from the negative economic impact as jobs are lost if we let them stop the advancement of GT and the cruise piers.
Excuse me, but they will be forced to pack up and leave and yet they still care more about Cayman than your wealthy merchants.
They care more about being part of their expat community of ideas than they do about Caymanian families trying to earn a living. They are just downright self-serving. I hope my MLA realises they don’t vote!
What Caymanians- the 3 or 4 families that are already millionaires and would be the only ones to profit from this while the rest of us and our kids pick up the tab and can one day apologise to our grandkids that we destroyed a beautiful reef to make a few Caymanians even richer? You’re incredibly short-sighted!!!!!! AND I AM CAYMANIAN!!!
Bimini and cayman are no where near similar situations. If you hade been there you would know. Keith Sahm talks about bimini all the time. They had to dredge a long shallow channel in to the pier because it’s so shallow. The Bimini pier is also right in the middle of a beach. Completely different situation and a perfect example of how save cayman is trying to dupe everyone with misrepresentation.
The cruise piers make a lot of sense, more footfall in the same jewel shops in every other port and everyone in Cayman pays for it, biggest con in Cayman’s history
Lots of pictures of pretty fishes but not much from the area that will actually be affected. Most of what I saw was I’m areas that can be protected if we’re sensible and responsible during the process.
They were all from the area to be affected, they showed which reefs the photos were from on an EIA map each time they started a group of photos. Some were from the reef area to be removed, others were from reefs in the heavy sedimentation zone, but they pointed out which was which.
Every single photo presented was from the areas being affected by the proposed cruise berthing facility. To say otherwise is just a lie and points to the idea that you have no real issues to stand on. Were you there? We were so careful to be 100% truthful that Courtney would not even take a single photo from me because all of my images were more than a year old. All of his were taken within the last month!! This is an important issue for the entire country, so lets stick to the facts and the real consequences of this project.
That’s only because Courtney got called out for the pictures he was showing for weeks that were all from 10 to 15 years ago. He had no choice. I’ve also seen the new pictures and most that are actually from the dredge area are only showing the balboa itself and this is because there is hardly any coral left there. You have to go so far outside of the actual area that will be affected to find good diving that your argument doesn’t hold water.
A very well put together and informative video presentation by the group. Thanks to the key organizers.
If CIG pushes ahead with the dock project, aside from the dredging and removal of the Balboa & other sea floor requirements, I trust they have a plan to safely move & re-locate all the sea life? I’m not referring to the coral reef as such,I refer to the fish and other invertebrate sea life that exists in the Balboa & reef nearby.
Some of the mobile animals like fish can try to move away if they can make it across the open ground. Most fish live in small hiding places for a reason and stay within a small territory. By the time they see the dredge scooping them up, it will be too late for some of them. They will be dumped in the landfill, or pumped over the wall. Most of the remaining sealife live on and literarily inside the coral structures and will have no warning to try to move a long distance. Most are slow, don’t like the light or open territory. There is no real way to move the community and moving one here and one there is not useful. Besides, there is no budget for it in the proposal. No matter what you want to try, you will still lose the special shallow reefs that are so popular with our tourists, especially those from the cruise ships. Soto’s reef and Eden Rocks/Devil’s Grotto come close to surface and are perfect for glass bottom boats, snorkeling, and so on.
Also, don’t forget that the dredging is just the beginning. The silt travels far up and down the coast and smothers the reef. Four months of silt will likely be entirely fatal to all of the sponges and corals, and several other types of sealife many hundreds of yards in both directions.
Tree huggers! These people care more about the world God created than money. There must be some way to convert them to right thinking. Like the way they change homos back into straight people.
I just re-read my comment. Jeez I’m funny
Isn’t that funny the way it seems that people who wave the Bible the most are sometimes the very ones who want the most money. They are either planning to be very small camels or buy a needle with a really, really big eye.
Pure fear mongering from the “anti port” group. They exaggerate the EIA findings and promote the worst case scenario as a guarantee if the project moves forward. It’s rubbish! The reality is 90% of the risk can be mitigated with good construction practices, as the EIA states, yet they conveniently leave that part out.
They are gambling with this countries future. Don’t get duped by these fear mongering clowns.
THEY are gambling with the countries future? not the ones looking to borrow money our grandkids will still be paying back with no promise of receiving anything more than we have now, and in the process destroying the very attraction tourists come to Cayman to see.
I still yet have to see what there is to gain from building the port, no reports from the Jewelry shops etc that support it and the marine builders that get a tasty slice. Are they having trouble to show what the average caymanian will get from this, they and their children will certainly be paying for it for years to come.
There will be no future for you family when crime in cayman rivals Jamaica.
and then no cruiseships will come in, and we all will still be paying off an unused pier
The plan itself calls for the fixed dredging pattern that we showed directly from the report, to the screen. It is the ONLY scenario. I personally pointed to where the Balboa is under where the south pier will be, and dredging reaches Soto’s reef. Now, use your imagination in the Caribbean. IF a report says that for sure, silt will kill from Eden Rocks through Soto’s reef, in the best scenario, and then they describe the next two scenarios –which do you think is more relevant?
Also, they admitted that their data was based on the settling rate of sand after a norwester on seven Mile Beach. Silt is MUCH, MUCH slower. So clearly, the report is way too optimistic. But we stuck with just the first scenario and showed photos only from the immediate area, under the prime circumstances. Courtney would not let me enter some photos from the reef in front of Sunset House, because we wanted to stay with the absolute, guaranteed kill zone.
We mentioned that there is a high probability of the silt going further and doing more damage. Have you ever watched a massive dredging project that scoops up the bottom of 23 acres of bottom? Have you ever seen a barrier stop the silt? Especially in a terrain with high and low coral structures? It is not very effective. The gamble is — What if YOU are wrong and we lose our reputation as a wonderful cruise destination of clear water and close snorkeling? Your decision is PERMANENT. It can never be fixed. That is the real gamble. Delaying this project and looking for a better option is not nearly as risky, and there are other options.
“They are gambling with this countries future” is fear-mongering too, you know. What will really happen if this particular berthing facility isn’t built? Will cruise ship arrivals drop in any meaningful fashion, or will they continue on roughly the same growth curve as now? I’d love to see real data on this, and I haven’t yet. Why not do all the cheaper, easier stuff we can ALL agree on first, see what happens, then revisit this (or another, if a better plan can be made) port idea if we still think it’s necessary? IF we try the easy stuff and it doesn’t work by itself(and it’s all still necessary WITH the port, too, so that’s part of the job done right off the bat), AND the pro-port folks show real data on why it’s unavoidably necessary, I think it would be a whole lot easier to convince people.
The science of this dredging is not shown in the movie or slides how can it be fair? Will you show areas of the world where dredging was used to make a port in a coral reef and that the reef is not being used today for fishing or diving. You people are using emotion instead of science. NO THANK YOU
They used Baird’s own slides and work, so if it wasn’t scientific we just wasted a lot of money.
you mean like this one in Bimini? you need to watch it all and probably lose the soundtrack but I think it clearly shows what life would be similar to here after dredging …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr0KCbbv8b0
We showed a photo of a dredge in action but we do not have the money to go traveling all over the Caribbean to photograph reefs that have died. However, in places like Charlotte Amalia, the bottom is virtually all silt from their different type of environment. They have mountains and runoff and a shallow lead-in and the ships really stir it up big time. You can only see a few feet away and need a compass and a lot of skill. Certainly not a tourist place. We are unique in having coral in our harbour. Cozumel does not have the type of coral formations there either. You walk down to a pier, you have to walk through a lot of stores, and then walk part way further to the street but I got bored and got back on the ship. (It was a special health education cruise and I wanted to work out before the next lectures.)
In Jamaica we did not stop at the regular port the outside my window was just brown mud. they do not have much in the way of reefs like Cayman does. No one does. At least we do have reefs because we do not have Mayan Ruins, we do not have mountains and water falls, we are not a large country with lots of scenic panoramas. But we do have clear water in our harbour, a beautiful beach and stingray city and that is why people come here. Taking away one out three major destinations while adding a lot more cruise tourists is simply poor planning.
Was all of this too emotional for you Anonymous, 3:33. At least I believe enough in what I am saying to put my name to it. More than I can say for you.
Cathy no travel is needed. Baird did the research for us and explain ed that cayman is little risk for resuspension during operation of the port because of the depth of water and the lack of really fine sediment in out harbour. They noted other ports that do t hve an issue and said that George town has even less risk. We understand that it is emotional for you but inspirational passion without sound insight leads to disaster.
Less risk(than Barbados, specifically), but not none. Here’s the Baird document on suspension.
Not true…Baird said at the meeting, which I attended so heard it from the horses mouth, is that they have data for suspension travel involving sand only…not silt and that they could not (and indeed would not) stand up and say it would not travel further in suspension. Sand bears little relevance to silt in water due to its density.
The full report shows a sample size of 0.005mm as what is modeled I the simulations. Sand is quite a bit bigger than this. Nice try to discredit but throwing out false information will not get you anywhere.
Will there be free beer?
And to go with the free beer, free fried lion fish?
Sorry–we would have loved to give you all a free beer, and we appreciated the huge turn-ou in spite of that. At the peak we had about 140 people. It was standing room only. And they had questions, and ideas and were interested. Angela Martins graced us with a lovely, brief and to the point talk. She is a lovely speaker.
the videos were all done by volunteer Jason Washington, and Courtney Platt spent his entire week taking new photos so that we could all see what was down there. Not only informative, but entertaining as well.