The La Famille Express shipwreck: its story, and how to see it

• What it is: a former Soviet supply ship, stranded since Hurricane Frances in 2004.
• Where: in the shallows of the Caicos Banks, about two miles off Long Bay Beach.
• Can you climb it? No. She’s rusted through, and people have been badly hurt trying.
• Ways to see her: a one-hour jet ski tour is fastest, a three-hour group tour adds a reef, Iguana Island and lunch, and a private boat runs on your own timetable.

She was built in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s (accounts give 1952 or 1953) as the Fort Shevchenko, named for a port town on the Caspian Sea, and spent her first career as a service ship running supplies out to offshore oil rigs. Decommissioned in 1992, she knocked around the Baltic for a decade, was renamed La Famille Express under a Panamanian flag in 1999, and spent her last working years hauling bulk rock around the Caribbean.

On September 1, 2004, Hurricane Frances, a Category 4 storm, passed just north of the islands and caught her at anchor off South Dock with nobody aboard. She dragged that anchor almost 12 miles across the Caicos Banks and came to rest in a few feet of water about two miles off Long Bay Beach, with the anchor still on the bottom near her. Nobody ever floated her off, and two decades of sun and salt have turned her the color of brick against the turquoise.

Good to know

Seeing her without a tour

You can pick her out from Long Bay Beach on a clear day, a rust-colored block on the horizon, but she’s farther off than she looks: about two miles, too far to wade or swim. Long Bay is the island’s kiteboarding beach, facing into the east-southeast trade wind across flat water, and experienced riders do kite out to her. Strong kayakers and paddleboarders make it occasionally too, but for a casual paddler it’s two exposed miles out and two back, with nowhere to rest. For everyone else it’s a jet ski or a boat.

Depth and sea state

She sits on the Caicos Banks, the vast shallow plateau south of the Caicos Islands, so ocean swell never reaches her, but wind chop does. The trade wind typically blows 12 to 20 mph from the east-southeast, enough to make the ride out bumpy and wet on a breezy day, so a calm one is the smoothest. The water around her is shallow and clear, which is why snorkelers see her lower hull without diving, and why only boats with a shallow draft can get close.

Enjoy her from the water. Twenty years of salt are taking the steel fast: there are holes right through the hull and deck, razor-edged plates and broken glass, and the flaking paint, rust and old fuel residue make a dust you don’t want to breathe. People have been seriously hurt climbing aboard, there’s jagged metal in the water around her too, and she’s two miles from the nearest help. Climbing and jumping off her aren’t allowed on any tour or charter now, whatever the older videos show.

A jet ski is the fastest way to the wreck, and the most fun getting there. The one-hour tours make it the main event; the two-hour Caicos Cays & Shipwreck Tour adds the cays and mangrove channels; and the three-hour Ultimate Seafari circles it on the way down the south coast to lunch at Noah’s Ark. One honest trade-off: a jet ski circles the wreck for the photo and doesn’t stop to snorkel.

On your own boat, the wreck is one stop in a day you plan. Most private charters can take you there and snorkel around her, and you choose how long to stay and what comes next: a reef, Iguana Island or a sandbar for lunch.

Snorkeling around her is the one thing a jet ski can’t give you. The boats carry masks and fins, and the water is shallow enough to see everything below her waterline from the surface.

Good to know

She sits in water so shallow that the deepest yachts, like the 62ft Lux Yacht, can’t reach her. The boats below all can.

The three-hour Snorkel, Shipwreck & Iguana Tour runs on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 9 am and 1:30 pm, visiting the wreck between a reef snorkel and a stop at Iguana Island (open Monday to Saturday), with lunch and rum punch on board. It’s priced per person: $148, or $114 for children aged 3 to 12. The Snuba tour does the same route on the same days and adds a guided Snuba session, breathing underwater from a tank that floats on the surface, no certification needed ($211, children $137). A $20 round-trip shuttle from the Grace Bay area can be arranged after booking.

Most ways to the wreck start in Leeward, 5 to 15 minutes from Grace Bay, and the ride across the banks is part of the fun. You will get wet on a jet ski, so wear the swimsuit, keep sunglasses on a strap and put the phone in a waterproof case or a lanyard pouch. For the classic shot, get low on the water side with her bow against open sky; polarized sunglasses held over the phone lens cut the glare off the water, and the rust looks its reddest in the warm light of mid to late afternoon.

If the wreck is the point, the 1HR La Famille Express Shipwreck Tour is the one to pick: a private hour for just your group and a guide, $274 all-in per jet ski with up to two riders, with life vests, a safety briefing, dry bags, and the guide shooting your photos and video. If you want to swim around her as well, take a boat: the 35ft Catamaran’s four-hour half day is $1,484 all-in for two plus $114 for each extra adult, so $1,712 for four, with snorkel gear, a bathroom on board, fresh fruit, a charcuterie platter and rum punch, and the wreck as one stop among three or so. Every tour and charter on TCI Experiences is handpicked and verified for safety, service and upkeep; the price includes taxes, a deposit secures your spot, cancellation is free up to 24 hours before on the jet ski tours and 72 hours on the catamaran, and a request is confirmed within a few hours, nearly always the same day.

For more on the jet ski tours, see jet ski tours in Providenciales, and for the rest of the day, half day or full day.