These small islands are hopefully done with their pirates but that doesn’t mean they still don’t host a shipwreck occasionally. So slip on your smoking jacket fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering of The Philatelist.
These were visually well done stamps but they lack the key detail of what ship you are looking at. That is what you have The Philatelist for. Well perhaps they were worried about treasure hunters. One of the two cargo holds of the Kirk Pride held bags of cement mix. They wouldn’t have done it this way now. Scuba diving tours of their shipwrecks are now big business on Cayman. Not so much for the Kirk Pride, the wreck shifted into ever deeper water over 800 feet. Sorry but it gets pretty dark and scary that deep.
Todays stamp is issue A85, a 35 cent stamp issued by the still British Overseas Territory Cayman Islands on May 22nd, 1985. The sun may never set on the Empire but don’t call them colonies. Cayman itself must be thrilled to no longer have it’s former status as a Dependency of Jamaica, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/14/cayman-islands-1935-one-group-of-caribbean-islands-avoids-poverty-by-breaking-away-and-staying-a-colony/ , they can’t be depended upon. This was a 4 stamp issue of shipwrecks around the island in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.25 unused.
The Kirk Pride was an 170 foot long cargo ship that displaced 498 tons. It was built in 1947 and spent it’s life working around the Caymans. In January 1976, it made an unscheduled stop in Georgetown with engine trouble. The two cargo holds contained bags of cement and the other a Volkswagen. A nor’easter was approaching and it was worried that the ship would damage the pier when the wind and waves began to pound. The ships engine started and it was able to move away from the dock in reverse. To go forward the engine had to be switched off to shift. It would not restart and so was helpless to control where the storm would take it. It was driven into a reef that left it with a gash and water coming in. It was hoped that the sump pump would pump the water out fast enough to keep it above water until the storm was over and the leak could repaired. Unfortunately the winds shifted and with it the position on the reef. Now the gash was bigger and the ship was in 3000 feet deep water. The ship was abandoned with no loss of life. There was no effort made to salvage the wreck because of the belief of the depth.
In 1985 a small research submarine spotted the wreck in only 800 feet of water. The bow and the stern were wedged onto two small underwater hills. This was shallow enough for deep sea divers to be able to go have a look and the BBC did an episode about it on their travel show “Wild Caribbean”.
Sometime in the early 2000s the wreck shifted again and went deeper. Nobody ever came for the Volkwagen, I wonder how much is left 44 years later.
Well my drink is empty and the website’s publishing machine tells me that this is my 700th offering. I may pour myself another. I hope you are enjoying these as much as I am. Come again Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.