WHAT-TO-DO - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - JULY 2003
Dive sites with a story Wrecks honour fallen marines WHAT-TO-DO - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - JULY 2003
Warm water with 100-ft visibility, dive companies with state-of-the-art equipment and exceptional dive sites bring thousands of divers to The Bahamas every year. Wrecks are fascinating to explore, and several are scattered around New Providence. Divers Haven and Bahama Divers offer scheduled dives to wrecks off the north side of the island, such as the Mahoney and the LCT, as well as charters to other sites. Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas and Nassau Scuba Centre favour wrecks south and west of New Providence.
Four of these intriguing dive sites are legacies of the so-called Lobster War of a quarter century ago. They commemorate a tragic incident in The Bahamas' efforts to protect territorial fishing rights. The incident grew out of escalating animosity between Cuban fishermen and The Bahamas over the rights to fish in Bahamian territorial waters. The animosity eventually pulled both governments into the fray.
Here's the way Dr D Gail Saunders and Michael Craton describe the incident in their book Islanders in the Stream - History of the Bahamian People.
Boats intercepted
"From December, 1979, Cuban MiG fighters several times "buzzed" BDF [Bahamas Defence Force] vessels patrolling the fishing grounds of the Great Bahama Bank, especially when they were in the process of making arrests. Around 5pm on Saturday, May 10, 1980, the HMBS; Flamingo intercepted two Cuban vessels engaged in fishing some two miles south of Cay Santo Domingo, fifty miles north of the Cuban port of Gibara. The Cuban boats fled but were quickly overtaken and ordered to stop, which they did only when shots were fired across their bows. The BDF boarded the boats, arrested their eight crewmen, and towed the boats toward the nearest settlement, Duncan Town, Ragged Island," according to Saunders and Craton.
Gunfire erupts
About an hour later, two Cuban MiG fighters appeared and fired bursts of machine-gun fire to the side and in front of the Flamingo, which was towing the fishing boats. When the BDF vessel did not halt, the MiGs flew off to rearm.
An account from the BDF says that "At about 1845 hours (another hour later) when HMBS Flamingo was some one and a half miles from Cay Santo Domingo, the Cuban military aircraft returned and commenced attacking HMBS Flamingo with rockets and machine gunfire. A second salvo of rockets struck the HMBS Flamingo. She was in danger of sinking so her crew were ordered to abandon ship." While in the water trying to swim to safety "the fighter planes came in again strafing the area with bullets from their machine gun," says the BDF report. The commander and part of his 19-member crew eventually made it on board one of the Cuban vessels, only then discovering that four of the marines were missing.
"The HMBS Flamingo sank and the MiGs withdrew," said the report. The survivors, including a few who were injured, made it to Ragged Island with their prisoners in the Cuban boat. They walked into Duncan Town early Sunday morning and radioed Nassau. At 9:30am, the MiG fighters, a long-range transport plane and a helicopter returned and buzzed the settlement. "At one point the helicopter actually landed on the island," near the anchored Cuban fishing boat, says the report.
A chartered DC-3 arrived with BDF and police officials from Nassau. It was harried by the Cuban planes as it came in to land, and its departure with prisoners and wounded was delayed more than two hours by the presence of Cuban planes and the helicopter. Marines sailed the seized fishing vessel to Nassau the next morning.
Cuba apologizes
The episode did not receive a lot of international press and was downplayed by Cuba. It did arouse most Bahamians, especially when Cuba "suggested that the MiGs were counterattacking presumed pirates, called for the arrest and trial of those attacking the Cuban fishing boats, and accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of setting up the incident as a provocation," according to Saunders and Craton. The Bahamas released the eight Cubans on an $80,000 cash bond, made a formal complaint to the UN Security Council, and demanded from Cuba a full apology, reparation for families of the slain marines and compensation for the HMBS Flamingo.
In July of that year the eight fishermen were convicted and, according to Bahamas News Bureau writer Larry Smith who covered the case, Cuba agreed to pay $10 million in compensation for sinking the boats and killing the four seamen.
Saunders and Craton said "the Cuban government acceded to the Bahamian demands, apologizing for "an unfortunate mistake' and paying $400,000 for each of the dead marines" families and nearly $4 million to replace the HMBS Flamingo."
Cutters renamed
Some time after the deaths of Able Seaman Fenrick Sturrup, and Marine Seamen Edwin Williams, David Tucker and Austin Smith, the US Coast Guard donated four aging Cape May-type Coast Guard cutters to the BDF. These 95-ft craft were named the Upright, Current, York and Shoalwater. When commissioned, they were renamed in honour of the four slain officers.
The vessels served the Defence Force for nearly 10 years before finally being decommissioned as too old and costly to maintain. The Defence Force decided to sink them throughout the islands as dive sites.
Sinking the cutters
The David Tucker (ex-Upright) was the first of the decommissioned cutters to be scuttled by the Defence Force off western of New Providence, in consultation with local divers.
The next (and the first one headed for the Out Islands) was the Austin Smith (ex-Current). She was destined for San Salvador to be sunk as a dive location. As she was being towed south she sank on the western side of Highbourn Cay, Exuma, clogging the traditional mailboat lanes. She was refloated and towed to the eastern side of Highbourn where she now sits upright in 60 ft of water on the slope into Exuma Sound. The problems encountered in towing the vessels any distance for relocation discouraged the effort so it was decided to sink the other two closer to home.
The Edwin Williams (ex-York) is a dive site at the Arena, a shark area eight miles due south of Coral Harbour. Derek Tozer, master instructor, boat captain and part owner of Nassau Scuba Centre, says the Edwin Williams is now sitting upright in 45-50 ft of water on the edge of the wall of the Tongue of the Ocean. "It's an extremely popular dive site with lots of fish about and plenty of sharks," says Tozer.
The Fenrick Sturrup (ex-Shoalwater), part of one of Stuart Cove's favourite locations, lies upright in 55 ft of water off Clifton Pier. In August 2001 the Captain Fox, an 80-ft fishing trawler was sunk in 40 ft of water forming the third trunk of Nassau's newest dive site "The Steel Forest." The Captain Fox joined the Manana and Fenrick Sturrup on a sand bottom that starts at 30 ft and slopes to 120 ft where it drops over the edge of the Tongue-of-the-Ocean wall.
The HMBS Flamingo, sunk just 40 days after being officially commissioned, still lies on, or perhaps off, the Columbus Bank, an extension of the Great Bahama Bank, somewhere near the southern tip of Ragged Island. No attempts have been made to locate, salvage or refloat her.
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