Following a meeting of the Marine Conservation Board (MCB) on 31 March, two more watersports businesses were granted commercial licenses to dive in the Marine Park off the coast of Little Cayman.

The new licenses have been issued amid fears that the Park, one of the most popular diving areas in the world, is already in danger of being over-dived.

Even with a watersports license, commercial vessels cannot enter Bloody Bay-Jackson Point Marine Park off the north coast of Little Cayman without a special license from the MCB.

One of the conditions of this license specifies the maximum number of divers and snorkellers on any one vessel in the Park as twenty.

Licenses were granted to both Caribe Holdings Ltd, and LC Aquatic Adventures with the same conditions as all other such licenses as dictated by the directives in the law, according to MCB Secretary Phil Bush.

Caribe Holdings holds a watersports license to operate the Nekton Rorqual, a live-aboard dive vessel for a maximum of thirty-four passengers, with an itinerary that includes two-day stops at each of the three Cayman Islands.

The itinerary also allows for one afternoon in which passengers would disembark on Cayman Brac to experience land attractions.

The application to take the live-aboard into the park had included a request to amend the conditions specifying diver numbers to accommodate the additional fourteen divers on board over the limit.

Cayman Net News asked Brad Nelson of Caribe Holdings how the MCB’s decision would affect plans to launch this new dive service 29 April, since the vessel’s operators must either restrict the number of passengers to twenty or not enter Bloody Bay.

Mr Nelson said, “The board’s decision occurred so recently that we are still exploring our options at this time.”

In an interview with Net News in February, Sandy Sondrol of Nekton said, “As great as Bloody Bay is, there is a lot of other diving around Little Cayman.”

At the time, Mr Sondrol added that he hoped to dive the Park but that the other dive areas around the Island were also very good. “We don’t expect to dive only Bloody Bay,” he said.

Divi Tiara Beach Resort General Manager, Max Hillier, said, “The Nekton Rorqual must operate under the laws and we are thrilled that the MCB took the appropriate action to help sustain our natural resource.”

He added, “Time will tell, as it does with any operator, whether this new venture will benefit the Islands or just the owners of the business.”

Marc Pothier, Manager of Paradise Villas, said, “If the Nekton was granted ‘special permission’, I firmly believe that it would have been the beginning of the end of Bloody Bay. I am very glad that the MCB upheld its rules and did not cave in to special interest.”

However, there are some fears that the marine park may already be in trouble.

Peter Hillenbrand, owner of the Southern Cross Club (SCC), one of the resorts on Little Cayman said, “My opinion is that the Bloody Bay Marine Park is at or beyond capacity without negatively impacting on the marine environment.”

Dr Carrie Manfrino, President of the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) concurred.
“Coral reefs are complex and fragile ecosystems that are important for many reasons beyond the aesthetic value that is the essential focus of dive tourism,” she said.

“Globally, areas protected by no-take marine reserves are expected to have better coral reef health than non-protected areas. Coral reef health is quantifiable though a labor intensive endeavor requiring meticulous data collection over many years.”

Reproducing, diverse, and growing corals, fishes, sponges, and balanced algal growth are good indicators of healthy reefs, observed Dr Manfrino. The structure of the reef, however, is made primarily by the stony corals.

“Unfortunately, our data indicates that coral diseases are killing corals of nearly every species, rapidly,” she said.

“The total amount of coral present or coral cover has declined significantly everywhere around the Cayman Islands, both inside and outside marine protected areas. We do not completely understand how or why corals are being infected by diseases.

“We have ongoing studies at the Little Cayman Research Centre examining disease impacts and new studies that we hope will begin this summer that will explore ways that diseases might be controlled or diminished,” noted Dr Manfrino.

“We are also examining the recruitment and establishment of juvenile corals which will populate the reefs as the current corals continue to decline. Most coral species grow slowly and the rate of mortality of adult corals far surpasses the growth potential.”

The research on coral diseases is being conducted by a PhD student who is the CCMI Fellow and who received the CCMI Fellowship sponsored by Southern Cross Club and Peter Hillenbrand.

“Peter is one fine example of an individual who is willing to responsibly make a positive impact on our local reef ecosystem. SCC has, year in and year out, sponsored local youth in our sea camp programme so that they can learn about coral reef conservation,” said Dr Manfrino.

“These types of positive actions make a difference and have historically resulted in an extraordinary, luxuriant reef system with a robust fish population in Little Cayman.”

nicky@caymannetnews.com