Cooper Island BVIs

Leaving Deadman Bay.  Dead Chest is the rocky island just left of centre

The following day, Thursday 7 January, having waved goodbye to the rest of the dive team who were heading off to the US Virgin Islands, we moved from Deadman Bay to Road Town to shop and top up one of the propane bottles.

Entering Road Town harbour

It was a busy 2-hour stop in Road Town (engine off to engine on), but we managed to achieve all we needed to.  Having let go the (free, thank you Road Town harbour officials) mooring buoy we then motored across to Haulover Bay on Cooper Island.  We had hoped that this would be an interesting anchorage with good diving close by and good protection to shelter from the imminent blow.  But overnight it proved to be too rolly for an extended stay so in the morning we moved a little further north up the coast of Cooper Island to anchor in the corner at the south end of Machioneel Bay on the edge of the mooring field.  There was much better shelter here with our anemometer recording just 15kts of wind.  We knew that there was much more in the exposed areas as we could clearly see white caps in the Francis Drake Channel.  The only downside to the anchorage area is that it has a circular current running through, it so we span around all over the place.

Once secure and happy with our position at anchor we decided to go for a dive in the vicinity of Cistern Point. We were expecting to sit out a period of several days of strong winds here and so it seemed sensible to dive whilst we could, before the big blow.

Tarpon

Cistern Point is marked as a good snorkelling site but also a dive area too.  We took our dinghy and left it on the mooring buoy and then set off to see what we could see.  Above us we had tarpon circling which was unusual.  They are big fish and these ones were over 6 feet long.

At the other extreme of size, I spotted some small but beautifully decorated Flamingo tongue snails; a first for us.

Top left: Spanish Grunt.  Bottom left: Smooth trunkfish.  Right: French angelfish

We saw spotted fine examples of the fish that we were now used to seeing…

… Nicky, however, spotted something much larger and more interesting; a huge green moray eel.  We have not seen one out in the open before as they normall hide in crevices in the rocks.  This this one was about 6 feet long, so it was quite a highlight of the dive.  The green colour, apparently, is the result of a yellow mucus overlaying the dark blue skin.

It was fabulous that it didn’t seem to feel too threatened by us so I could snap away and get these pictures of it.

Around the corner we found the current to be quite strong, more than we were comfortable with, so we turned back towards the dinghy and retraced our steps.  During the 5-metre safety stop we had the added bonus of watched stingrays swim about below us on the seabed.

8 January is Nicky’s birthday so after the dive we go ashore to see what was available in the restaurant at the resort.  Sadly, it rapidly became pretty grey and overcast with squally showers and I think that coloured our judgment somewhat.  We checked out the craft brewery and sampled the homemade ice-cream; both getting a seal of approval.

Despite the heavens opening and our eating ice-cream under a sun umbrella to shelter from the rain, it was good trip ashore but the day’s menu just didn’t spark our interest.

So when the rain stopped and the sun started to come out again we retired back to BV to put together a feast there.  We popped the cork on some chilled Crémant to get sundowners going and then we fired up the barbeque to do justice to some really big steaks that we had found during our Road Town shopping trip.  Not exactly what we had originally planned, but with all of the trimmings and a nice bottle of red wine it made for a very successful birthday dinner.

We had a lazy day the next day.  Chris Parker’s forecast continued to predict sustained uncomfortable sailing conditions and, despite the excellent shelter in our anchorage, the white caps in the Francis Drake Channel suggested that staying put was the best plan.  So, we lazed in the cockpit and read our books whilst BV span like a top in the anchorage.  Various yachts came and went.  Those that went seemed to be charter yacht holidaymakers needing to return their charges to the base in Road Town whilst those that joined us were again predominantly charter yachts but wanting, like us, to seek shelter.

The sheltered anchorage meant that going ashore was not an issue so we took full advantage of the sunnier conditions to explore ashore again….

.… and to double-check the quality of the craft beer and cocktails at Happy Hour.

We found one of the downsides of the current in the anchorage to be that it was very difficult for newly arriving yacht crews to work out where our anchor was and where BV would move to as the wind and current worked their effects.  [Ed: to be fair, we found it difficult too!]  A Moorings yacht arrived at last light and anchored at what we thought to be too close a position, but it was difficult to be sure, so we thought it wrong to make a scene and insist that they move.  But, as the gusts and current span us both it was clear that we might get close so at 11pm I put the kettle on for a coffee and sat on anchor watch.  We did get close several times but at 3 am when we were barely 6ft apart we launched our dinghy and Nicky rowed over and proposed that perhaps the right thing was for them to move position in the anchorage.  Fortunately, when they came on deck the boats were still very close together and they were only too happy to agree with our request, so we benefitted from a lot more sleep in the final part of the night!

Cooper Island, British Virgin Islands

Diving on Dead Chest near Peter Islands (2) BVIs

Bright red and orange corals like those we had seen
on the Painted Walls dive the previous day

On Thursday 6 January, with everyone anchored in Deadman Bay, we were able to start diving earlier and so planned to do 2 dives but try to achieve them with just one air tank.  The first was Dead Chest Wall.  As the name suggests, there is a wall here, but we also scouted around the rocks at the floor of the wall as there was a lot to see there too.

In a deep crack in the rock we saw a long spined sea urchin and beside it a shrimp with long claws; perhaps a cleaner shrimp.  Whilst down on the seabed we also saw another porcupinefish.

Right: An unhappy lobster shooting off and (left) continuing to swim away backwards to escape

Hiding under a shelf there were a couple of lobsters but I’m sad to say that 2 of our group disturbed them resulting in one of the lobsters shooting of backwards rather dramatically to get away.  Dead Chest is in a marine park and a No Take Zone so, tempting as it might have been to have a lobster for dinner, these ones were for photographing only.

A happier lobster watching us swim past

Gossiping at the 6 metre safety stop?

We spent just 42 mins on that first dive and only went down to 13m so when we surfaced we all agreed we had sufficient air for a second dive.  But, rather than going straight into it, we returned to the yachts for a lunch break which allowed us to warm up a bit and gave some time for our nitrogen levels to drop.

Our plan to use one tank split between 2 dives relied upon our having a shallow second dive and so we had picked one out at the top end of Dead Chest.  It’s known by 2 names: Coral Gardens or Dead Chest North and it looked to be only about 9 metres deep; perfect for what we needed.

There was a lot to see.  Interesting corals and lots of fish.  Also, because of the dive being shallow, we benefitted from seeing the colours which are washed out to greys and blues when diving deeper.

Diving in a big group does have the disadvantage of not necessarily progressing at speed you want to. However, with so many eyes looking out, you do have the advantage of perhaps seeing some extra things that you might otherwise have missed.

Even though we were still using the same air tank as the morning, the shallow 9 metre depth meant that we were actually submerged for 48 mins, by which point I was starting to feel the cold and so was quite pleased to be going back up.

It had been a final good day of diving in a week of great dives.  But all good things must come to an end and we had agreed to go our separate ways the next day, with some poor weather forecast to arrive a day or so later.  Innamorata II, Wild Iris and Endless Summer were all close to the end of their visa time in the BVIs, whereas we had decided that we would stay in the BVIs rather than go through the faff of checking in to the USVIs.  So we had a final evening together, this time on board Wild Iris, and said our goodbyes.

Peter Island and Dead Chest, British Virgin Islands

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