Environmentalists and ocean lovers in general are outraged after diver Scott Prodahl shared a video on YouTube that shows a cruise ship’s massive anchor scraping along a coral reef, causing significant damage. From his video description:
Another sad day for the reefs of Grand Cayman. Today we noticed that the Pullmantur Zenith (a division of Royal Caribbean Cruise lines) was anchored oddly close to the reef so we decided to go out and have a look...As you will see in the video, a massive portion of the reef out front from Don Fosters and Eden Rock was completely destroyed today. The Department of Environment was contacted but nothing could be done because this was a designated anchorage zone and they were given permission to drop anchor. In the previous several decades this pristine portion of the reef was never needed as an anchorage location but for some reason today, when there was only 4 ships in port, it was deemed necessary. As part of the marine park, we are not allowed to fish here, not allowed to hunt lobsters, you can't even pick up an empty shell, all in the name of conservation?....but for some reason you can drop an anchor and wipe out a reef that took thousands of years to grow.
This video was shot roughly an hour after the anchor was dropped, I can't imagine what it looks like now.
The video shows the long anchor chain stretched out along the reef. At around the 1:39 mark the ship’s anchor begins to move (warning: loud, sudden noise on the video), scraping away delicate coral reef with it.
Even with the video, Grand Cayman officials say the cruise line did nothing wrong:
Despite the destruction and the anguish of locals, the country’s environment bosses told local media there was no wrongdoing by the Zenith cruise ships crew and they did not violate any rules when they dropped anchor in George Town’s harbour on Tuesday.
Watch: