The 22 May 1975 edition of The Caymanian Compass reported on the continuing saga of Jean Doucet, the former president of Interbank, who had left Cayman on a private jet ahead of the bank going into compulsory liquidation in September 1974. The front-page news was that Doucet had been arrested by police in Monaco, an action requested by Cayman’s police after “a lengthy period of surveillance” on him in the principality, according to a police press release. A Cayman police superintendent was to travel to Monaco to bring Doucet back here to answer to charges of fraud.
Another front page story told of a man being taken off a plane on a stretcher after being flown from Honduras. Carvell Bush had been diving for black coral off Guanaja Island and, after reportedly making four dives in a day, two of which were of 115 feet, he became paralysed with the bends. The plane had to fly to Cayman at an altitude of under 60 feet because of the man’s condition. He was treated at the Cayman Diving Club’s compression chamber at Dr. Polson’s Cayman Clinic, with a spokesman noting he had improved and was not in danger.
A section of the editorial covered Cayman commercial fishing, where it gave “full marks” to Bob Soto for going into large-scale fishing at “an opportune time”. Noting that the price of fish, as with food in general, was high in Cayman, it added, “it is little short of ludicrous that islands as rich in marine life as Cayman should have to spend thousands each year importing fish”.
In the aforementioned story on Bob Soto’s new venture, he estimated that $80,000 of fish are imported each year and that the time was ripe to launch a modern Caymanian fishing industry. Photos with the story showed Soto, owner of Bob Soto’s Fishing and Diving Headquarters, on his new diving boat and the fishing boat he would be using.
