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SPRING 2016
I
have fond memories of snorkeling
crystalline shallows beneath the lush
hillsides of the British Virgin Islands
(BVI) as a youth in the early 1970s. Back
then, our friend’s sailboat navigated many
a zigzag course across the Sir Francis
Drake Channel to the islands’ various
anchorages, each steeped in pirate folklore.
Some 300 years ago the golden age of
piracy was alive and well in these waters.
That history of piracy, both real and fabricated, is still
vividly prominent throughout these islands in bars,
restaurants and location names. But as a kid I didn’t know
I was frolicking amid the inspiration for the enchanting
pages of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Treasure Island
— it
was the islands’ underwater world that enchanted me.
Now, after more than 30 years of diving around the
globe, I am again suspended over that radiant blue water,
geared up on the stern deck of a dive boat moored off of
Salt Island. We are floating above one of the BVI’s most
famous dive sites: the wreck of the
RMS
Rhone
. I pierce
the placid surface and waste no time heading down toward
the swirls of color that glide and surge around the wreck.
As I swim past the mast and the sponge-encrusted crow’s
nest I find it hard to imagine the last hours aboard the
310-foot Royal Mail Ship. A hurricane in 1867 shoved the
Rhone
unrelentingly into Black Rock Point and sealed her
fate. As I fin past shadowy recesses I see shimmers and
flashes — a huge school of baitfish has taken up residence
and darts about to avoid my strobe flashes. A pair of
coney groupers lies on a rusty section of hull, awaiting
the right moment to lunge and snatch a single silverside
from the mercurial mass. It is little wonder that these
vibrant remains are such a captivating and sought-after
underwater backdrop for photographers and filmmakers.
FIFTY ISLES IN EASY REACH
The BVI comprise a double strand of 50-plus rocks,
cays, islets and islands spread along the northeastern
perimeter of the Caribbean, just east of Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands. Affectionately referred to as
“Nature’s Little Secrets,” the islands are gilded in tropical
greens and range in size from Tortola at 21 square miles
to tiny Sandy Cay, just big enough for a picnic with a few
friends. Sixteen of these islands are inhabited, and most
of the islands’ 28,000 residents live on Tortola, Virgin
Gorda, Anegada or Jost Van Dyke.
My home for the first few days of the trip was on Peter
Island, which boasts five white-sand beaches and many
remarkable vistas of the rest of the BVI. My bungalow
featured a stunning view of Deadman’s Beach and, a
mile out to sea, the distinct shape of Dead Chest Island.
I soon learned that the island was alleged to be the place
Blackbeard marooned 15 of his men, each equipped with
a cutlass and a bottle of rum. They take their pirate lore
seriously in these parts, so I felt it was best to embrace it
all as fact and hope to uncover a doubloon somewhere
along the way.
WHERE THE TREASURE REALLY LIES
At least 40 moored sites dot the waters of the BVI,
marking an array of pinnacles, walls, tunnels, caves and
shipwrecks. The shallows in the BVI are also some of the
Caribbean’s finest, and many sites are ideally suited to
multilevel profiles. The aforementioned wreck of the RMS
Rhone
, for instance, can be explored at several levels, and it
takes at least two dives to experience it. Almost every dive
on this unique site brings new discoveries; many artifacts
remain, and large sections of the structure are remarkably
intact, including a “lucky porthole” (rub it for good luck).
Nearly every solid surface we swam past was
splashed in gold, orange, crimson and indigo from
decades of rampant coral, sponge and tunicate growth.
The bow rests on its starboard side at 90 feet at its
deepest point. My favorite area is the midsection; it
features upright columnar framing at 60 feet, which
allows huge “windows” for life to meander through
against a blue background. The stern sits in less than
30 feet and offers an enormous bronze propeller that
can be admired while offgassing at the end of a dive.
Finding Treasure in the BVI
T E X T A ND P HO T O S B Y T A N Y A G . BURN E T T
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