Seaman Turnsto Land on Little Cayman
Capt. LarryFoster
A seaman's life has been yielded in favourof a land-based career, as Captain Larry Foster has returned homeand taken the position of District Officer for Little Cayman.
But that doesn't mean his new job is aneasy sail. The responsibilities are broad, including attendingand recording required information for all flights and vesselsentering Little Cayman, as well as full surveillance around theisland, Customs collection, and minor immigration matters.
Government Information Services said Capt.Foster also conducts routine checks on all public places, providestransportation for Government officials, attends all fire, diveand police calls, and of course, completes the reams of documentarypaperwork that the post requires. Besides that, he is always oncall. Essentially, Capt. Foster is the Cayman Islands Governmentin Little Cayman, compressed into one person.
"It's a 24-7 job," he acknowledges,"and if there were 28 hours in a day, I'd fill those too."
A native of Cayman Brac, Capt. Foster's sea career commenced in1962. He became a marine captain, progressed to master mariner,and then spent 24 years as a mooring master.
"That was a very stressful job, anddangerous," he says, adding that there are few mooring mastersin the world. "I mostly transferred crude oil from largevessels to smaller ones, which would then normally take the oilinto US ports. In some cases the oil would be sent to differentparts of the world. My job took me to the East Coast of the US,the Gulf of Mexico and Africa, as well as the Middle East duringDesert Storm and the Iran Iraq War."
Few ships would venture close to oil-rich,yet strife-ridden, nations during wartime so Capt. Foster oftenfound himself working offshore, docking and undocking the tankersas well as supervising the oil transfer operation.
That, however, was a good place for oiltransfers because of the vessels' enormous size.
Capt. Foster had the privilege ordaunting task, depending on one's perspective of occasionallypiloting the world's largest moving object, a supertanker about1,400 feet long. That's nearly one-quarter of a mile in length.
"On those vessels, the work is alwaysdone offshore," he explains. "Those tankers need 100feet of water just to float because 85 feet are under the surface."He points out that in the 1970s and early 1980s this type of operationwas done off the Sister Islands. "But you wouldn't see anyof those around here in the shallow waters they're too big,"he says.
He's quite proud of his seafaring years,particularly that he left with a clean record not one accident.But when he decided to change gears and was appointed as DistrictOfficer, Capt. Foster found that his skills were definitely transferable.
"Although the positions are very different,"he says, "they both carry a lot of responsibility and requirea lot of paperwork! But I like this new job. There's so much varietythat no day is exactly like another."
While Capt. Foster takes great pride inhis work, he is equally proud of his family his wife, Garlin,who is a senior accountant with Treasury on Cayman Brac, as wellas his five daughters and two sons.