Shipwreck Bay News

Mind boggling” is the only phrase to describe recent events in the marine market. Last month the industry was front-page material for most major consumer press publications, which is rarely a positive sign. At press time, salvage operations were underway aboard Castor to prevent the vessel from splitting open and spilling thousands of tons of gasoline into the western Mediterranean. The ship, which developed a 60-ft. crack in its deck during a voyage through rough weather in late December 2000, has become a lightning rod for the debate on safe haven for damaged ships carrying volatile cargo. Attempts to bring the ship into Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco were repeatedly thwarted.

It seems that the stricken oil tanker that fouled Charles Darwin's Galapagos island paradise cannot be moved and is set to become an artificial reef, teeming with fish and home to seals and exotic birds, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Sunday. The Ecuadorean Navy had hoped to clear the semi-submerged "Jessica" from the tiny harbor of San Cristobal island where it ran aground last week, leaking the bulk of its 240,000 gallon fuel cargo into the archipelago's pristine waters. But while the wreck may be an eyesore in the prophetically named "Shipwreck Bay," in time it will become an artificial reef and a new habitat for marine life, Coast Guard salvage chief Ed Stanton said. "Seals will start living on it, birds will begin perching on it. It has already attracted fish," Stanton said.

Tarquino Arevalo, captain of the Ecuadorean-registered Jessica which last week fouled the Galapagos waters with oil after running aground, told Reuters he had misjudged his entry into the prophetically named Shipwreck Bay outside the tiny harbor of San Cristobal island. "The truth is I didn't even know the rock was there. It was over-confidence on my part, I am completely to blame," the 58-year-old sailor said in an interview. "I didn't do it on purpose. This has nothing to do with my crew, it was my fault, not theirs," he added. The Galapagos are home to birds, tropical fish, sea lions and the famous Galapagos giant tortoises, but the only known damage so far to wildlife has been four dead pelicans and a dozen sea lions smeared with oil.