Wreck of the Rhone - Part 2 Location: Wreck of the Rhone - Salt Island, BVI Day 3 - Dive 2 by Wayne & Karen Brown

Cori moved the dive boat closer to Black Rock and after an hour break we are ready to explore the stern of the R.M.S. Rhone. We enter the water and zoom down the mooring line to see what remains of the Rhone's stern. 35 feet underwater, the bottom is a lot shallower than where the bow is resting. Being in shallower water everything looks brighter and more colorful, because the rays of the sun are not filtered out by lots of water.

As we cruise up to the stern we can see that it is broken open. Cori had told us that some Canadian soldiers had blasted it open back in the 1960's. Just like in the Rhone's bow, we see fish swimming in the maze of the stern's steel beams.

We cruise toward the Rhone's stern post. Under the hull, below the stern post, is the ship's gigantic propeller. We stretch out next to it. It is bigger than we are, even with our arms stretched out in front of us! We cruise under the stern on our DVs to see what we can find. Back under the hull we can see a large fish. Wait! As we get closer we can see it is not just any fish, it is a shark, about 4 feet long! We're not scared, though. This is only a harmless nurse shark taking a nap. Nurse sharks usually feed at night and rest during the day. Nurse sharks eat animals such as crabs, lobsters, and octopus.

We set our DVs down and squeeze under the hull, next to the shark. So not to disturb the shark we very slowly reach out and gently stroke the shark's pectoral fin. Its skin feels like sandpaper. It feels rough because its skin is covered with tiny teeth, called dermal denticles.

Leaving the shark to its nap we pick up our DVs and cruise out from under the hull. Searching through wreckage of the stern we find one of the ship's portholes still attached to the hull. Further along the wreck we find black and white floor tiles still attached to part of a floor. (Corri told us this is part of the floor from one of the ship's bathrooms.)

We cruise away from the broken stern, into deeper water. Ahead we see a large, dark shape. We have found one of the ship huge water boilers that made steam for the engine. The boiler is laying on its side and is spilt open from the explosion that caused the ship to sink. We can see that fish use this open boiler as a home.

We can see we are getting low on air so we cruise back over the stern on our way back to the dive boat. Looking over the Rhone's wreckage one more time we notice something glinting. We stop to investigate. It is something shiney. Looking closely we discover it is a silver teaspoon. After over 130 years this teaspoon has been almost completely covered with marine growth, cementing the spoon to the hull. Enough of the spoon is showing so we can tell it really is a spoon. We think about spoon owner. Did it belong to one of the few survivors or did he or she die in the sinking?

Even though the sinking of the R.M.S. Rhone was tragedy and many people lost their lives, today the Rhone serves a new purpose. It has become part of the living reef. The ship is no longer a tomb for the dead, but a home for the living as fish and many other marine creatures use the Rhone was their home.

Best Fishes
Wayne & Karen

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35 feet underwater - Karen cruises up to the huge propeller of the Rhone under the stern.

Under the Rhone's hull we found this sleeping 4-foot long nurse shark.

Fish have found a home, in one of the Rhone's huge boilers, .

Sticking out from the Rhone's wreckage is a silver teaspoon.