Local surfer, Tim Albury, found something unexpected while surfing offshore at Elbow Cay on May 30; space debris from a rocket that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean just miles north of Elbow Cay.

With the help of Troy Pritchard of Hope Town Volunteer Fire and Rescue the debris was towed onto shore where a representative from SpaceX was able to retrieve the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing and the data recorder.

“I actually thought it was pretty cool. The SpaceX engineers were very eager to find this piece because it still had data recorders on it that had a lot of info on them,” he said.

He said that engineer, Joe Bussenger, travelled to Hope Town and took full responsibility for their debris and having it cleaned up.

He said he also had a call that another piece was on Island Marines boat ramp, and after checking it out found it was also theirs, but from a previous launch.