Serrana Bank
Encyclopedia
Reef
In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....
of about 50 km long and 13 km wide has six cay
Cay
A cay , also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of coral reefs. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans , where they provide habitable and agricultural land for hundreds of thousands of people...
s or islets, the most prominent of which is Southwest Cay.
The cays from south to north are:
- Southwest Cay (500 by 200 metes)
- South Cay (150 by 25 meters)
- Little Cay (less than 100 meters in diameter)
- Narrow Cay
- East Cay
- North Cay
Serrana Bank is Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n territory, though it was claimed and occupied by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
until 1981. A former base for the US military, they are now mostly visited by lobster
Lobster
Clawed lobsters comprise a family of large marine crustaceans. Highly prized as seafood, lobsters are economically important, and are often one of the most profitable commodities in coastal areas they populate.Though several groups of crustaceans are known as lobsters, the clawed lobsters are most...
fishermen.
Serrana Bank is believed to be named after the Spanish castaway Pedro Serrano
Pedro Serrano
Pedro Luis Serrano was a Spanish sailor who was supposed to have been marooned for seven or eight years in the sixteenth century on a small desert island. Details of the story differ, but the most common version has him shipwrecked on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua in...
. It was first shown on a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
map in 1545 with this name. They were mapped more extensively by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1660.
On September 8, 1972, the United States and Colombia signed a treaty recognizing the latter's sovereignty over Quita Sueño Bank, Roncador Cay
Roncador Cay
Roncador Cay is a small island of the Roncador Bank, located in the west Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Central America, 150 km East-northwest of Providencia Island....
and Serrana Bank. This treaty became effective on September 17, 1981.
On September 3, 2007 the eye of Category 5 Hurricane Felix
Hurricane Felix
The name Felix was used for four tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean.* 1989's Hurricane Felix - A Category 1 storm that dissipated in the Atlantic without threatening land....
passed over Serrana Bank.http://www.eltiempo.com/nacion/caribe/2007-09-03/ARTICULO-WEB-NOTA_INTERIOR-3706006.html