Salt Island RMS Rhone BVIs

Our pilot book says that snorkelling or diving over the wreck of the RMS Rhoneis an absolute ‘must do’ so we decided to visit the site on the morning of Thursday 12 April. The wreck is in Lee Bay on the west coast of Salt Island and, with the whole of Lee Bay being a National Park protected area, anchoring there is not allowed. However, there are National Park buoys which you can pick up (for a maximum of 90 minutes) or, if those are all taken, you can anchor around the corner in Salt Island Bay, on the north coast of the island, and dinghy around to Lee Bay. We had intended to leave Machineel Bay on Cooper Island quite early in the morning in order to get to Lee Bay before the main rush of charter yachts but we were rather late on the off, which turned out to be quite fortuitous.

It was only a short motor from Machineel Bay to Lee Bay and we arrived in time to pick up one of the last red (yacht) buoys available. No sooner had we sorted ourselves out than a familiar looking boat arrived flying an OCC burgee. It was Wild Iriswith Mark and Lisa Pollington on board. We had last seen Mark and Lisa in Las Palmas at the beginning of November 2017 when they had hosted a Cruising Association (CA) drinks party before the ARC+ set off for the Cape Verdes. It was great to see them again and as soon as we were ready to snorkel we jumped into the dinghy to head over to say hello to them en routeto the dinghy line above the wreck.

Mark and Lisa were on good form but Lisa had injured her left knee badly a week or so previously, knocked over by the dinghy when landing on a beach in surf. Consequently, rather than being on their way south down the Lesser Antilles chain, heading for their summer stopover in the ABCs, they were still pottering gently in the BVIs whilst Lisa recovered. Lisa didn’t fancy risking straining her knee further and didn’t want to swim so Mark hopped into our dinghy for a lift across to the wreck.

The RMS Rhonehad been at anchor just outside Great Harbour, Peter Island, taking on cargo and stores from the RMS Conway,when a hurricane struck the vessels at about lunchtime on 29 October 1867. They managed to ride out the first half of the storm and, during the lull in the eye, weighed anchor to seek shelter or sea-room. The RMS Conwayheaded for Road Harbour but was dismasted en routeand driven onto Tortola. The RMS Rhone’s anchor cable caught in the hawse pipe and parted, dropping the 3,000lb anchor and 300ft of chain to the bottom, where they remain as a protected monument. The captain tried to get the ship to the safety of the open sea south of the BVIs but she didn’t make it and was forced onto the rocks of the southwest tip of Salt Island where she broke in two and sank instantly, taking most of her crew with her.


Despite the ravages of the intervening 150-odd years, the wreck of the RMS Rhoneis still in excellent condition. The highest part is just 6m or so under the surface and the view when we rolled into the sea from the dinghy, pretty much directly over this part of the wreck, was breath-taking.

Swimming around the stern section we could clearly see, and dive down to, the enormous propeller, as well as the steering shaft and parts of the aft hull. Swimming down and then looking up over the coral encrusted hull at the sea’s surface glowing in the tropical sun, with huge shoals of colourful fish swimming past was just fabulous: the sort of diving/snorkelling experience you dream of. Without a specialist underwater camera the pictures cannot do it justice.

The forward sections of the wreck are in much deeper water, some parts are down at about 20m, so here we had to content ourselves with diving down a reasonable way and viewing the remains from above.
As snorkelers, the best part of the wreck for us was definitely the stern section. Being in shallower water, the colours were best here as the reds and yellows hadn’t been filtered out of the light by the sea and there were myriad colourful fish swimming in and hiding around the wreck, some of which we could only see by diving down and peering into and under parts of the hull.

It’s fair to say that we all had a wonderful time snorkelling in the warm waters, enjoying the marine life and the very different backdrop. We could have stayed for far longer but we were conscious that we were only supposed to leave BV on the buoy for a relatively short time and that Lisa would, at some point, expect us to deliver Mark back to her on Wild Iris.

So, with a regretful last look back we climbed back into the dinghy and headed for the yachts. As with the snorkelling, it would have been lovely to have stayed to have coffee and a proper catch-up with Mark and Lisa but we felt that we had nearly outstayed our welcome on the buoy and more yachts were arriving all the time so that their crews could visit the wreck. So, we agreed with Mark and Lisa that we would catch up with them at a CA get-together in Leverick Bay in Gorda Sound at the beginning of the next week. Not so much a ‘farewell’ then; more an ‘adieu’.

Salt Island, RMS Rhone, BVIs