Cargo ship runs aground at Lighthouse Reef

The long stretch of coral forming the eastern wall of Lighthouse Reef Atoll has claimed another ship. According to a release from the Belize Ports Authority, the two hundred and twenty-five foot long cargo ship “Transfer” ran hard aground around eleven thirty Thursday night at a spot four point two miles south of Sandbore Caye. The vessel had left the port of Big Creek earlier that day after unloading a cargo of feed, culverts and hardware, primarily intended for use on the area’s many shrimp farms. The Transfer was deadheading to its home port of Mobile, Alabama when, for unknown reasons, it rammed the reef at a speed of around seven knots and now sits high and dry atop the coral. A team of seven, representing the Ports Authority, Coastal Zone Management Authority, Department of the Environment, Belize Audubon Society, Esso and a marine surveyor is currently on the scene to investigate the cause of the grounding and determine the extent of damage to the ship and the environment. The eleven crew members are being taken off the ship and transported to nearby Northern Caye until a course of action can be determined. Depending on what the surveyor finds, it is possible that ocean-going tugs from Honduras or the U.S.A. can be called in to haul the vessel off the reef. If that is not done quickly, however, and heavy seas batter the Transfer further aground, she may suffer the fate of ships like the one pictured here: left to rust in the sun, salt and sea for the next hundred years.