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

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