Laura Bly –
“No Trespassing,” reads the warning plastered prominently across the hull of the USS Kittiwake, a 251-foot, 2,200-ton Navy submarine rescue ship built in 1945.
So much for obeying authority: On this sun-drenched morning in late January, I’m one of more than a dozen scuba divers gleefully winding through the bridge, mess hall, and other formerly off-limits areas of the Kittiwake, now the Caribbean’s newest – and arguably most accessible – wreck dive.The Kittiwake, whose missions over five decades of service included recovering the “black box” from the Challenger space shuttle disaster, is the first decommissioned Navy ship donated to a foreign country for use as a dive attraction.
It was sunk in early January, 60 feet down and about 800 yards off the north end of Grand Cayman’s fabled Seven Mile Beach, and tourism promoters hope it will be the first of five in an eventual “Shipwreck City.”
As a recreational diver with a basic “open water” certification, my explorations were limited to the top three of the Kittiwake’s five decks.
But I had a blast gliding through the wheelhouse windows to play “Captain Davy Jones” at the ship’s wheel, admiring the juvenile blue tangs already starting to congregate around the deck hatches, and checking out my bubbles in the mirrors still affixed to the walls of the sailors’ head (bathroom in marine-speak).
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