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Carnival Inspiration damages reef?

lbrooks34

By lbrooks34,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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osufhorn

osufhorn

Posted
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After reading the article, it doesn't sound like the reef was damaged, but that they got really close to a bunch of divers and went into an off limits zone. If you look at the dive shop's website http://www.aquasafari.com they were diving paradise reef at the time which is right next to the international pier. It looks like Inspiration strayed a bit from her approach to the pier and went over paradise reef and scared the #*^@ out of a group of divers, fortunately it doesn't sound like anyone was hurt.

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lbrooks34

lbrooks34

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Here is what a Pricess cruiser posted on Scuba Board:

 

We were on the Princess Cruise lines ship Grand Princess in port at Coz when this happened. The Inspiration came within 50 yards or less of colliding with us and we were tied to the dock! A cold front had hit with some nasty thunderstorms. I took a picture of the wall cloud of the storms coming with the Inspiration in the picture. A few minutes later I took another pic, noticing it was closer, and went back inside our room. A few minutes later my wife yelled and when I looked up the ship was on us. A tender seemed to be trying to help the ship move. They appeared to be having trouble dealing with the high winds that had broadsided them. You could tell from the prop wash that they gunned the engines and the ship pulled out from us. We went up on deck and saw the ship headed toward a group of dive boats nearby after rounding our bow. They turned to starboard again and we could see the sand kick up, so we knew they were near bottom. We were wondering if they hit a reef or not. Glad the divers were OK.

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Carny

Carny

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Why does local government,let diving close to piers? Seems like everytime,we've docked there prop wash always blows sand up from bottom. Also they have a rep. on ship the "pilot" just 2 cents

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EuphoriaII

EuphoriaII

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Why does local government,let diving close to piers? Seems like everytime,we've docked there prop wash always blows sand up from bottom. Also they have a rep. on ship the "pilot" just 2 cents

Perhaps the question is, why do they allow cruise ships so close to the divers? People have been diving that reef long before the cruise ships started coming to Cozumel. Also, if you read the thread on Scubaboard (linked above) the ship came within only a few feet of grounding itself on the reef. In other words, this ship isn't supposed to be there just because of DIVER safety, it isn't supposed to be there for THE SHIPS safety. This ship ventured out of control into a protcted marine sanctuary.

Also from the Scubaboard thread :

"According to the reports of dive masters with Aqua Safari, the force of the

propellers raised sediment so that it was impossible to see the palm of

your hand. This situation produced panic among the divers who scattered

away this way and that fearing for their lives and at the same time taking

a risk of being sucked up into the enormous propellers."

 

This is a more shallow, near shore reef that is frequented by many less experienced/novice divers. If I were under there with my son, I would have been terrified.

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