The body of water just south of the Cyril E. King International Airport has a new name: Hawksbill Cove. In 1992, the airport underwent a massive construction process, which extended the runway from 4,200 feet to 7,000 feet, stretching into the Caribbean Sea. The result was an artificial cove that up until 2016 had no name – until now.
Scott Eanes, a graduate student in the Marine and Environmental Program at UVI, was the pioneer behind the naming. In the midst of writing his thesis on the habitat utilization of the critically endangered Hawksbill sea turtles, he realized that the cove had no name, and he decided it would be best to name it after its most important resident. More information is available in a news release on the Media Section of the UVI website –http://www.uvi.edu - and from this direct link.