Diving on the RMS Rhone Salt Island BVIs

We made a prompt start on the morning of Tuesday 4 January, beginning with the daily OCC HF Net.  Innamorata II, Wild Iris and Endless Summer all headed off to Road Town to get more supplies but, because we had recently arrived from St Martin, our fridge was still well stocked so we planned to do an extra day of diving on our own before meeting up with the other yachts again at Deadman Bay on Peter Island.

Nicky beside the propeller of the RMS Rhone

So, with the OCC Net and breakfast out of the way we moved BV from Norman Island to a National Park mooring off Salt Island.  From here we were just a couple of hundred metres away from the dinghy mooring buoy beside wreck of the RMS Rhone.

The RMS Rhone sank in a hurricane on 29 Oct 1887 and now sits on the seabed in 2 main areas.  We had snorkelled on the wreck in 2018 but now wanted to dive on it.

Spotted moral eel

Almost immediately eagle-eyed Nicky saw a spotted moral eel which kindly stayed out of its den long enough for me to snap some photos of it.

Continuing in the theme of sea creatures with teeth, we then spotted a black tipped reef shark circling a short distance away; quite a rarity for us.  Fabulous!

The wreck has deteriorated a bit since the description in our books, probably due to the effects of Hurricane Irma in 2017 but there is still a good deal of superstructure standing…. 

French grunts, Black grunts and Bluestriped grunts

… and a lot of fish using the wreck as a good hiding place.

Smooth trunkfish

I spotted a smooth trunkfish and had set about photographing it when a sixth sense told me to look up…

That was close!

…. for an awesome ‘swim-past’ by the black tipped reef shark.  Probably a bit too close for comfort!

Now I understood why all of the fish were hiding!

We did a circuit of the wreck but didn’t spend very long on the deeper section as there was more than enough coral and fish life to keep us entertained on the pieces closer to the dinghy mooring.

One area was home to a large shoal of Horse-eye jacks…

… which we were able to swim right up to.

Though there was still plenty more of the wreck to look at our tank gauges told us that it was time to head back towards our start point.

Over by the rocks, on which, presumably, the ship broke her back during the storm, we arrived back at the shallowest part of the wreck, closest to the dinghy mooring.

We loitered there for a safety stop and then returned to BV for a break and some lunch.

We hadn’t been sure that we would do our second dive of the day on the RMS Rhone but, having seen the moral eel and the shark in the morning, we though that it was worth a second tank.

Also, we hadn’t really spent much time on the larger, 150ft long, bow section of the wreck and so on this dive we did a circuit around the outside.  There is a route to swim right through the inside length of this section of the wreck but that is outside the scope of our diving qualification so we satisfied ourselves just by looking in through the jagged holes in the superstructure.

Clockwise from top left: Sand diver, Dog snapper, Queen angelfish, Trumpetfish

The visibility during our second dive was not as good as in the morning and we didn’t see any significant ‘exotics’ [Ed: Probably just as well for our heart rates that the shark had moved on.]  But there were plenty of the more ‘normal’ fish to look at.

And the wreck still provided lots of interest to the dive.

There was also more current than in the morning, so the swim back to the shallower part of the wreck was a little more strenuous than we had expected.

But we dive conservatively so we still had lots of spare air left to have a final good look at the aft section and the propeller before it was time to surface.

Great Harbour on Peter Island

After the dive we moved over to Deadman Bay on Peter Island, where we had arranged to meet the others.  We arrived before them and, with the mid-afternoon wind blowing, we felt that it was a bit rolly to spend the night there.  Instead, we moved around the corner to Great Harbour, also on Peter Island, and anchored there for the night.

Just before sunset the other yachts trekked back from their shopping trip in Road Town.  Innamorata 2 arrived first and, taking a look at Deadman Bay, pronounced that the rolling had stopped and that it would be good as an overnight anchorage.  However, since we were all set for an evening barbeque we decided to stay put in Great Harbour and move over to Deadman Bay in the morning in time for the first dive with the rest of the gang.

Salt Island, British Virgin Islands

Norman Island Bight (2) BVIs

On Friday 3 January we all headed out for another dive, this one on Angelfish Reef, off Caravel Rock on the southwest tip of Norman Island.  The site isn’t visible from the anchorage and, though it is actually closer that The Indians, it feels quite a long way to go in a dinghy.  We were pleased to be in convoy with others.

Top: Caravel Rock, the southwest tip of Norman Island.  Bottom: nearly ready to dive

There’s no dinghy string here, just 2 dive moorings so we tied all the dinghies in a cluster to the nearer one to the reef and prepared to dive.

From the mooring there’s a minute or so swim-in over undulating terrain to get to the end of the reef

Having descended down the mooring line we had a minute’s swim southeast to reach the north side of the reef, which we then followed to out right, around the tip and back east along the south side.

Again, navigation as such wasn’t an issue but the guide map that Carol and Steve had found and which they had copied and laminated for each set of dive buddies, showed 3 clefts, one of which leads to a shallow pool.

Stingray followed by a curious Yellowtail snapper

Identifying the entrances to these clefts wasn’t easy given the lack of scale on the sketch map but we did find them all in the end, with the Stingray pictured above leading the way towards one of them.

Left: Longspine squirrelfish.  Right: Bluestriped grunt (facing right) with French grunt

There was plenty of interesting marine life to see all around the reef……

Various corals including (bottom right) Butterprint brain coral

Top right: Smooth trunkfish.  Bottom left: Longspine squirrelfish.  Bottom right: Whitespotted filefish

…..including back towards the area we had first arrived at following our swim-in.  We circled this area a few times using up the ‘last’ of our air before heading back to the dinghies.

Octopus!

Nicky and I split off from the main group and were lucky enough to see an octopus swimming out in the open, probably more startled to see us than we were to see it!

It hung around and looked at us for a bit and then shot off along the reef, changing colour as it went.  We followed close behind.

Again, it stopped and thought about life a bit….

Making a bid for its den and (bottom right) curled up safe in its hole with just an eye keeping a careful watch on us outside

…..before obviously deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and squeezing into its hole.

Our interaction with the octopus seemed to last for ages but was probably only a minute.  We got several of the others over and pointed out the octopus’ eye in the hole but it wasn’t really a very impressive sight without having seen the rest of it.

After returning from our diving excursion we took the dinghy back around to the west coast of Norman Island, to just behind the headland we were anchored next to.  Here there is a well-known snorkelling site called The Caves and we can testify that it is an incredibly popular site.  Carol and Lisa pointed out several large shoals of Glassy sweepers in one cave and there were plenty of Sergeant majors and other small reef fish.  It was a fun swim but we have snorkelled on better areas.

Once Balou had left, heading to Road Town for supplies and to check out and then on to Grenada, we repositioned BV into her old space.  This gave us a bit more space on the shoreline, given that the wind was forecast to increase somewhat and to come more from northeast.  And in the evening we hosted the remaining crews on board BV and discussed plans for the coming days.  Most of the others needed to go to Road Town for supplies.  However, we still had plenty of food on board from St Martin and so decided that we would head over to the wreck of the RMS Rhone first thing in the morning.

Norman Island Bight, British Virgin Islands

Norman Island Bight (1) BVIs

Looking back west down the Sir Francis Drake Passage.
Tortola is on the right of the picture, St John’s (USVI) on the left

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t make the fastest of starts on New Year’s Day.  Nevertheless, having taken our rubbish ashore and visited the customs officer to purchase a National Parks mooring permit we got away from Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke a little before midday.  We’d agreed with Innamorata II, Wild Iris and Endless Summer to meet at Norman Bight and then to do some diving around Norman Island over the next few days.  The others had all left a bit before us, with Steve and Carol on Innamorata II planning to try to stop off for a dive en route.  We wondered about motoring into wind to try join them but BV was sailing so nicely that we decided to keep on tacking up the Sir Francis Drake Passage and instead tried to catch up with the other 2, who were also sailing.

Norman Island ahead and Pelican Island to the left

Our final tack into Norman Island Bight took us close past Pelican Island, with The Indians, a group of 4 rocks just to its west.

Pelican Island to the left and, just right of it, our dive site for the morning, The Indians [rocks], surrounded by moored yachts.  Innamorata II is the ketch, the second yacht from the left

The Indians is a deservedly well-known and popular dive and snorkelling site.  Anchoring is prohibited in the area but there are a number of National Park mooring buoys, some designated for commercial vessels and some for leisure boats.  There is also a ‘dinghy string’ a floating line between 2 small buoys to which dinghies can moor.  As we passed we saw Innamorata II on one of the mooring buoys and her dinghy attached to the dinghy string.  Steve and Carol hadn’t wasted any time and were already diving.

Norman Island Bight with Endless Summer anchored to our left…

Norman Island Bight was already quite busy when we arrived, so we looked at anchoring on a rocky ledge on the north side, close to Wild Iris and Endless Summer, who had arrived a little ahead of us.  The holding is not great on the ledge and we had already seen both Wild Iris and Endless Summer re-lay their anchors.  We seemed to have hit a reasonable spot first time…

… and Wild Iris back and left from us

… but when Nicky swam over the anchor to check on it she discovered that it wasn’t really dug in at all, it was just lodged up against a rock.  Though it had held OK when we had powered back on the anchor, if we swung at all the anchor could easily become dislodged and we would drag.  We convinced ourselves that the Marine Park fees we’d paid earlier in the day allowed us to pick up moorings without additional payment so we upped our anchor and took the last available buoy just in front of Endless Summer.  It subsequently turned out that our Park Fees just covered using the buoys at the dive sites and a warden came around and lightened our wallet by $30 for an overnight stay on the buoy we were on.  Ouch!  Not a mistake to make again!

When they returned from diving Steve and Carol anchored on the other side of the bight and reported to an even later arriving Balou that they had good holding in sand.  We made a note and determined to join them on that side the next day.  We all joined on Innamorata that evening to discuss the plan for the next day’s diving and then headed off for an early night in preparation.

Anchored next to Innamorata II

Heading through the cleft towards the deeper water
on the west side of The Indians

But diving on Thursday 2 January was delayed as rain shower after rain shower went through, the delay being less about the rain and more about the lack of bright sunlight to help illuminate the sea.  We took advantage of the delay in moving BV to join Innamorata and Balou.  It’s a slightly uncomfortable side of the bight to be on, since you are on the lee side and quite close to the shore, but the forecast was for relatively light winds and we saw the anchor to be well dug in on good sand, which is about as secure as it’s going to get.

And then the sun came out, so we saddled up the dinghies, left the mother ships and headed on over to The Indians for our first dive in about 8 months.  It was a great little site for refreshing our dive skills.  The dinghy string is in the perfect location for snorkellers and divers alike.  Snorkellers head to the very shallow east side of the rocks, with divers better off heading, through a narrow cleft in the rocks to the deeper west side.

As soon as we entered the water there was plenty to see and once we were on the western side the profusion of corals and fish life increased tremendously.

And the location of the dive makes for easy navigation – through the cleft, turn left, keep the deep stuff to your right and the hard stuff to you left.  Follow the hard stuff around until you think you’ve gone far enough/don’t want to mix it with snorkellers, turn around and retrace your bubbles, turn right through the cleft and look for the dinghy.  And no current either.  A perfect refresher dive…..

…..with lots to see.

Left: Trumpetfish.  Right: Banded butterflyfish

Sea urchin hiding amongst the corals and rocks

Keeping the hard stuff on our right as we retraced our bubbles

I had my new dive camera with me, so as well as refreshing my diving skills I was also using the dive to learn how the camera works.

Sea rod

I ended up with plenty of blurred photos and pictures of the inside of the lens cover, but I also managed to take enough good ones to make me happy that it was a good buy.

Left: fire sponge.  Right: Fairy basslet

The best bit about the camera setup though is the light.  My previous camera didn’t have a flash or light so I could never capture some of the fabulous colours that you see when you have additional light, even in water as shallow as 5m.  The addition of a light means that all the oranges and reds, which get bleached out under natural light, due to the absorption of red light by seawater, can be seen in the picture.  It makes for some far more colourful and also more detailed pictures.

Redband parrotfish

Norman Island Bight, British Virgin Islands

Great Harbour (2) Jost Van Dyke Island BVIs

At about 2100 we took the dinghies in to Foxy’s dock to see in the New Year.  Unsurprisingly, given the number of yachts in the anchorage, the dock was filled beyond capacity but we all managed to find space and eventually reconvened.

The big stage at the back of Foxy’s bar.
This year’s New Year party theme was Arabian Nights – who’d have guessed?

At the back of Foxy’s bar was a big stage and, when we arrived, what we assumed was the main band for the evening was just setting up.  We settled in expecting the band to be playing pretty soon, but it seemed that they were having difficulties getting some of their kit to speak to the sound system.  There was a long, and frustrating, delay whilst the compere tried to work some magic to keep the crowd onside and Foxy himself looked increasingly displeased.

Eventually, some and then all of the band members were up and running but they weren’t perhaps as good enforced build-up had made out, so we took a stroll along the seafront.

The small settlement was buzzing with people, with numerous small bars and food stalls open for business.  We stopped at one bar to avoid a rain shower and then ensconced ourselves at a temporary bar set up by the local dive shop, which was a lot of fun.

We headed back to Foxy’s to see in the New Year, where we discovered that the next band on stage was a lot better than then first one we had seen – some actually pretty good reggae.  And with shades of Bob Marley ringing in our ears, we returned to the boat, where finding the dinghy (one amongst many) and then finding BV (one white anchor light in even more) made a somewhat challenging start to 2020!  Happy New Year everyone.

Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke Island, British Virgin Islands