The Wreck of the Rhone

RMS Rhone is a 310 foot long steel Royal Mail Steam Packet Ship. The link to saildivebvi.com has some great information on the ship.  In 1867 during a hurricane she hit Black Rock, the boilers exploded and she sunk.  Now the ship provides a habitat for reef fish and destination for BVI divers. The national parks system in BVI has installed short term day moorings in several locations to protect the treasures that lay beneath the surface from anchors and chain.  We’ve made this dive twice this week by picking up a mooring very near the wreck and descending the mooring line to about 40 feet to explore the stern.  From the diagram below you can see the propeller, this area is the shallowest at about 25 feet, and the other end gets down to 60 feet.

The Rhone is a great place for Roy and Genny to get some dive experience.  The moorings allow us to drop down over the wreck with out strenuous surface swims or beach entries. Over the last 150 years some beautiful coral and sponges have grown on the debris left behind.  Below Roy is checking out the oldest brass propeller still in existence.

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I found that at this depth, the light is not good enough to bring out the colors in photos.  I tried a few underwater photo enhancements, with limited results.

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There are plenty of hiding holes to explore, and the fish that live here seem to be much larger that the ones we’ve seen on the surface reefs.

Currently we only have two sets of dive gear, so we took turns.  Eric and Roy roamed around first while Genny kept warm on Makai, and Marie and I snorkeled with Topaz over the diver’s bubbles.

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Next was the girl’s turn.  Genny and I had a great time taking pictures and exploring this artificial reef.

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There were corals and sponges of different color blues, purples, greens and reds.  Unfortunately, without a flash the camera didn’t do it justice.  Next time I’ll try to bring a flashlight to shed a little light on the subject.

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Genny peaked on one hole and found the biggest sea monster lobster I’ve ever seen.  He was enjoying his long healthy life in this BVI National Park.

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Around every corner was a different school of fish.

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Roy and Genny just finished up IEW’s dvd writing class.  This week’s assignment was to write about their dive.  This is what they came up with:

The Awesome Dive   by Roy

Today I set out to dive the Rhone a mail carrier that sunk in a hurricane on black rocks in 1867.  My Dad and I donned our dive gear with a giant stride we were in the Caribbean Sea.  We quickly proceeded to the bow where we descended along the mooring line to the sea floor.  We saw many species of colorful reef fish as we swam through the bones of the Rhone.  Dad caught lots of images of the underwater graveyard in his Gopro camera. When we rode the current back to the boat my energy level was deteriorated to almost nothing.  As I dragged myself onto the boat I thought wreck diving was the best thing since instant messaging.

 

Genny hasn’t completed her assignment yet, but here is her journal entry from the last day with Becky and David:

We dove the Rhone wreck with our guests.  The wreck was really wrecked but teaming with life. Coral and reef fish had taken over the wreck.  In every nook and cranny fish or coral had taken over.  The fish were bigger and the coral was quite colorful.  On our way to the surface dad swam down and mom and him buddy breathed.  Then Roy went diving and saw the beautiful sight of the wreck.  I hope I can dive again at the Rhone wreck.

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