Roncador Bank

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Roncador Bank (Spanish Banco Roncador ) is an isolated location, atoll -like coral reef in the southwestern Caribbean Sea.

Geography

Roncador Bank is located about halfway between Jamaica and Costa Rica, 140 kilometers east of Providencia and some 220 km north-east of San Andrés. The mainly in the western part largely submerged coral reef is about 15 km long, up to 6 km wide and covers a sea area of about 65 sq km area. At the northeast tip of the fringing reef lies Roncador Cay, by far the largest and most important of the Roncador Cay Bank. On this 600 × 300 -meter Cay there are some abandoned buildings and an erected in 1979, about 25 m high lighthouse. The Cay has no permanent population, but visited regularly by fishermen.

On the eastern fringing reef are two small, vegetation-free sand honors without geographical proper names.

History

Roncador Bank first appeared in 1601 under the name Arrecife Roncadore on a Dutch map. The islands were claimed in 1856, citing the Guano Islands Act of the United States, and in 1949 annexed. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the U.S. military built numerous buildings used on Roncador Cay. On September 8, 1972, a agreement on the transfer of the Roncador Bank and two other coral reefs of Colombia was hit. The agreement was, however, only in 1981 ratified by the U.S. Senate, so that on 17 September 1981, the islands came under Colombian sovereignty and the San Andrés y Providencia province have been assigned. On the reefs of Roncador Bank several ships ran aground, so in February 1894, the USS Kearsarge and the Panamanian Pamir Sound in 1991. September 3, 2007, Category 5 Hurricane Felix passed the coral reef.