The Rhone: a hurricane, a teaspoon and the best swim-through in the Caribbean
The Rhone is the wreck people mean when they say Caribbean wreck diving. She lies off Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands, inside a national park, in water that tops out at about 26 metres.
What makes her worth the trip is how open she is. Almost nothing is enclosed. The bow is a long swim-through with the light coming in at both ends, the iron is crusted with coral, and every crack has something living in it. Lobsters, eels, octopuses.
And she has stories. A captain lost overboard. A teaspoon in the coral. A porthole divers rub for luck.
A modern ship for 1865
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ordered her in 1863 from the Millwall Iron Works in London for the run to Rio de Janeiro. She was iron-hulled, 310 feet long, rigged as a two-masted brig and good for 14 knots under steam.
She was also clever. Her propeller was bronze, only the second one ever made. She recycled her boiler water through a surface condenser, and when she called in Brazil in 1865 the Emperor, Pedro II, came aboard just to see the engine room.
After five more Brazil voyages she was moved to the Caribbean route in 1867. It paid better.
October 29, 1867
She was coaling alongside another mail ship, the Conway, in Great Harbour on Peter Island. The barometer was falling, but it was late October and hurricane season was supposed to be over. Both captains stayed put.
The storm that arrived is now called the San Narciso Hurricane, a Category 3. The first half passed. Both ships dragged their anchors, and the captains feared the second half would drive them onto Peter Island. So they moved Conway's passengers onto the Rhone, the ship everyone called unsinkable, tied them into their beds as was the custom, and made a plan. Conway would run for Road Harbour. Rhone would run for open sea.
Conway foundered off Tortola. Rhone could not lift her anchor; it was jammed on a coral head, so they cut it loose. It is still there in Great Harbour, chain wrapped around the same coral.
Captain Frederick Woolley steered between Salt Island and Dead Chest, keeping well clear of Blonde Rock, a reef normally 25 feet down. He was less than 250 yards from open water when the second half of the hurricane came round from the south. The wind swung, threw the ship onto Black Rock Point, and she broke in two. Cold seawater hit boilers running at full steam, and they exploded.
Of roughly 145 people aboard, 25 survived. The story goes that the first impact threw Woolley overboard and he was never seen again. Local legend says the teaspoon lodged in the coral is his.
What you will see
The bow lies in about 80 feet of water, the stern in about 30. For years people believed the Royal Navy blew up the stern in the 1950s as a hazard to shipping. The author Michael D. Kent found otherwise: a hardhat salvage diver named Jeremiah Murphy did the blasting, and the bow probably rolled over in a hurricane in 1924.
On the deeper section, look for the wrenches, each about 4 feet long and over 100 pounds. A collector stole the biggest ones; the rest lie under 55 feet of water. Nearby are a few brass portholes and the silver teaspoon.
In the stern is the lucky porthole. Its glass survived the wreck, and generations of divers have kept it shiny by rubbing it.
You may recognise the place. The 1977 film The Deep shot here, including the scene of Jacqueline Bisset diving in a T-shirt. For years the wreck's most famous resident was a 500-pound Goliath grouper, until two expatriate fishermen killed it with spear guns, which are illegal for non-nationals inside the park.
Planning it
The waters around the wreck have been a national park since 1980, and hundreds of people see her every day. She closed briefly in 2011 when a container ship ran aground on rocks near Salt Island, almost on top of her. One wreck watching another.
The Rhone is really two dives, the bow and the stern, and they deserve separate entries. Log both in Scubaspot, note whether you found the spoon, and rub the porthole before you go.