Tortola Dive #2 - The Wreck Of The RMS Rhone

Dive 2 of the day promised to be even better than the first. We were about to dive what has been ranked as one of the best dives in the Caribbean - the wreck of the RMS Rhone.

The RMS Rhone was an iron-hulled mail and passenger sail-steamer that sank off of Salt Island in a hurricane on 29 October 1867, killing 123 people. 310 feet long with both sails and a steam engine with an 18 foot diameter propeller, she was an impressive ship in her day. Carrying passengers across the Atlantic, to South America and the Caribbean. She's now broken into sections after striking the rock and cold sea water causing her boilers to explode, and was further broken up in 1950 as a hazard to navigation, leaving lots of wreck to explore and many artifacts.

Here's a shot of Black Rock Point, the rock upon which the Rhone was wrecked in the storm:

We descended down the line and met the Rhone.

The wreck is quite broken up, and the rivets of her hull construction are quite visible.

The wreck teems with fish and marine life.

The stern mast, after being taken down in the 1950s.

The gear box and gears that connected the propeller to the engines.

The ship's dance floor:

The Captain's silver spoon now lies embedded in the coral.

The lucky porthole, where legend has it a passenger escaped by slipping out its narrow opening which is most likely a myth. The lucky name is because the glass is mostly intact and divers rub it for luck, keeping it nice and shiny.

The huge propeller and rudder.

It's so big you can easily swim through that opening you see there, and we did.

The wreck of the Rhone is huge, after 45 minutes we had not fully explored all of it, only the stern section. It's a magnificent wreck to dive and explore.

After extensively touring the stern of the wreck of the RMS Rhone, I hung out for a safety stop and then ascended back to the surface.

We then headed back to the pier where the Disney Wonder was waiting.

It was a great dive.

Tortola

We arrived in Tortola nice and early in the morning of what was to be a beautiful day - sunny, warm and and with calm winds and waves.

After a quick breakfast before the rest of the family was even awake, I had packed my gear and headed to the meeting point on the ship for my port adventure.

It was dive time. The kids and Tash were heading out later to snorkel and explore Treasure Island by catamaran.

At the meeting area, there was a diver waiting and a few more came in as the time to depart grew nearer. I chatted with him and he was a very nice guy named Roberto from Panama and we talked about diving as we waited for more people to arrive.

Another diver arrived, his name was Ron and it turned out that not only was he from Toronto but he was also a private pilot (I was wearing my AOPA hat which got that conversation going. Very nice guys indeed and it promised to be quite a good group of divers going on the trip.

Disney had booked the port adventure with Sail Caribbean Divers and it was a most excellent choice. Sail Caribbean is probably the most professional and organized dive operation I've seen yet in the Caribbean. In no time we, along with a group that was doing a discover scuba diving adventure were checked in, issued gear and on our way. The DSD group was dropped of for instruction and we certified divers headed out to Dive 1.

Dive 1 was to be Thumb Rock, a reef that promised lots of fish.

While the water wasn't crystal clear, it offered a nice easy dive in t-shirt and swim trunks, which beats a wetsuit any day.

While the surface was a bit choppy and had a light current, making for a bit of work to swim from the back of the boat to the down line at the front, we then easily descended down to the reef.

There were fish there, including this big one that swam by that was as large as a person's head:

What's that over there hidding under a rock by the coral?

That's a lobster.

Actually there was a whole bunch of lobster hiding there. We counted ten all together and our divemasters noted that was the most they've seen together in one spot so that was a neat find. The divemasters were very good at pointing out marine life that we otherwise would have missed.

Here's Rob pointing out an item of interest on the reef.

It was a lionfish. These interlopers from the Pacific are aggressively expanding their presence in the Caribbean.

There were some interesting coral formations like this perfect bowl-shaped one.

There were also many very blue-colored fish swimming around.

There was also a small green eel that was popping vertically out of its hole and flashing its jaws and baring its teeth at us. Sadly the photo of it didn't turn out.

It was a very nice dive indeed with a lot of interesting fish to see.

Max depth 55 feet, 32 minutes and 79 degree water.

During our surface interval, after being carefully checked back in on board the dive boat and our dive profiles recorded, we headed off to pickup the DSD divers for their scuba diving experience and for Dive 2 for us. Dive 2 promised to be even better than the first.