Diving on Dead Chest near Peter Island (1) BVIs

Anchored in Deadman Bay on Peter island

First thing on Wednesday 5 January we moved from Great Harbour on Peter island to Deadman Bay, also on Peter Island, to join up with the rest of the fleet and enable another OCC diving expedition.

The ‘diving gang’ anchored ahead of us (plus a few other yachts)

Our laminated map for the dive from Carol

Erica and Jos (Endless Summer) were also due to reposition from Norman Bight on Norman Island, where they had spent the previous evening with friends, but they had a blockage in their fuel system and so arrived much later than intended, which put a bit of a delay on the diving plans.  Steve and Carol on Innamorata II had pulled the dive programme together, including supplying us with laminated maps to use underwater.

Swim-in.  Left to right: Nicky, Steve and Carol

Once Endless Summer had arrived, we all (Mark (Wild Iris), Erica and Jos (Endless Summer), Steve & Carol (Innamorata II), Marcel (Tomskii Kastan) and us) saddled up our dinghies and headed off in formation to the dinghy mooring at the southeast corner of Dead Chest Island, 0.6nm away across Deadman Bay, which marks the start of the Painted Walls dive.

Left: Fan coral.  Bottom right: Porcupinefish

From the mooring we had a short swim-in to the reef and immediately saw some nice coral and a Porcupinefish.  Working our way south along the headland we started to see some colour which more than hinted at the name of the dive.

Left: Queen angelfish.  Right: French angelfish

On the southeast side of the headland we explored 3 large inlets in the rocks which included some fun swim-throughs.  These are large enough to get through quite easily but for a gaggle of divers you do need to go in single file or send some divers in first and then wait for them to return.

The northernmost inlet opens into a large pool which we could all get into and explore at once……

……which must have made the resident Barracuda wonder what was going on as we schooled together really rather clumsily in comparison to the reef-fish we saw.

Yellowtail damselfish

Despite the game of advanced follow-my-leader, we still had plenty of time to look around on own and examine the small creatures that we saw [Ed: and point them out to others].

Top left: White grunt.  Centre left: Spiny spider crab.  Centre: Lobster shell remains.  Top right: Surgeonfish.  Bottom: Reef butterflyfish

We saw loads of interesting fish and invertebrates, plus a huge crab and what looked to be a large lobster but which turned out to be the shell from a huge one.

But the highlight of the trip was definitely the tunnels with the ‘painted walls’…..

…..though outside these there was plenty of good coral and the odd ‘paint splatter’.

Octopus

And on our way back to the start point we saw an octopus, but not as lively an octopus as the one we had seen a few days before.

Left: Cavernous star coral.  Right: Sea urchin

Since the water was so clear and the colours and creatures so beautiful, I tried a few close-up shots with my new dive camera.  It’s quite hard to do as you need to keep the camera very still and it’s easy to drift in the water since you don’t want to touch the coral as you try to hold position.  The pictures above came out well but many didn’t.  I might try to buy a pointer stick, much like Carol carries, which might help me to hold position touching just small areas of exposed rock or sand.

Despite the occasional frustration of collisions and working around the other group members, we thoroughly enjoyed diving with a group of friends.  And part of that fun is, of course, the ‘après-dive’.

(Left to right) Mark (Wild Iris), Nicky (Blue Velvet of Sark), Erica and Jos (Endless Summer), Lisa (Wild Iris), Steve & Carol (Innamorata II)  Marcel and Yelena (Tomskii Kastan) joined us later after the photo was taken

In the evening we enjoyed sundowners on one of the beaches overlooking Deadman Bay and, compared notes on what we had seen and plotted and schemed our diving for the next day.

Peter Island and Dead Chest, British Virgin Islands