Destiny


Sailing and Diving the BVI with The Moorings

Last time the crew of the Destiny was together, Ron asked me to copy him on the trip report I'd sent to Ed Doughtey. Ed was the guy who had done the identical trip a couple of weeks before and sent me all the mail describing sites and sights. Here are the five notes I sent him after my first day back in the office on 06/07/94.

The Destiny is a 51' sloop we chartered with a skipper from The Moorings in Road Town, Tortola. We boarded the Destiny at noon, Sunday, May 29, 1994, and sadly returned her on Sunday, June 5. The crew of the Destiny for our voyage was:

06/13/94 

 >   OK, I gave you a chance to rest  up;  where did you dive; how was it?

I'm getting pretty rested, but my boss has this bizarre idea that I ought to try and catch up on everything that got dropped while I was gone.... :-)

We got nine dives in through the seven days, which isn't to bad when you're mixing sailing, sightseeing, diving and the most important thing in a vacation, pure relaxation. Plus there's that entire day lost to getting underway and getting back into port.

Our basic strategy was to go counter clockwise around Tortola to Cane Garden Bay on the first half day. Do some diving on the north side of Tortola and go south of the Caminoes to Marina Cay on the second day. Get a dive in at the Dogs and sail up to Anegada on the third day. Get a dive in at Anegada and sail to Virgin Gorda on the forth day. Dive the HMS Rhone on the fifth day. Then just mess around the southern islands and pick dive sites as we wished and harbor in secluded bays for the remainder of our time. All of this taking into account that we had a PADI instructor with us that was teaching two open water and two advanced for his room and board and his need for "confined water" and sailing time for the "classroom".

The plan pretty much worked out.

We really wanted to get a dive in the first morning, so we just shuttled north around the point from Cane Garden Bay into Brewers Bay and dove the southern lip barely inside the bay. The was a 1 knot surface current and our first entry of the trip was a little ragtag. The current dropped off immediately and we got a good dive in a large fan forest in 25-35 ft of water. The we motored on into the bay to let the OW students do their confined on the sand. While they were doing that we snorkled a truely excellent bit of reef that picked up where the sandy beach ended on the south side.

[I have since heard that there is a great formation in Brewer's Bay called the Turtle Cave which offers a spiral arch divers can swim through beginning at a depth of 45 ft and winding up to 15 ft.]

After lunch we hoisted sail and headed on a longish tack up to Monkey Point on the south tip of Guana Island and hit the water again. This was a little disappointing. It was almost 6pm so the sun wasn't directly overhead, some clouds were coming in, there were particulates in the water diminishing visability, there was some chop and surge, and the coral looked like it was dying (and we saw quite a few of those little black starfish that choke coral). Even though the fish were plentiful, it wasn't a great dive.

It was getting late so we motored over to Marina Cay, but everything was closed (no one knows why). So we motored across the channel to Trellis Bay and spent the night there.

[Ooops! The boss man cometh! More later.....]

[note: Trellis Bay was where we dinghied into the Conch Shell and had continental cuisine without Ron's shoes.]

06/13/94

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, Trellis Bay.

So we we stayed the night at Trellis Bay on the North side of Beef Island.

In the morning, we headed up to Marina Cay for tank fills and to pick up some more tanks. We weren't paying attention and in the tank swap, wound up with 6 tanks from Underwater Safari that were out of visual inspection. This gave us some problem later. Once underway we headed up to Great Dog and dived the Chimney. Your map was superb! We tied onto the NW mooring in the western bay, and I popped out snorkling to survey the spot. I swam right to the Chimney and got coordinates for the canyon that led up to the arch going into it. It was very impressive to be skimming the bottom in a 30 canyon and find yourself under that arch with the sunlight coming down that shaft on the other side. Both of my companions said that was their best dive to date, and one of them has been diving since '78.

The OW students did some more confined training in the little pool in the bay, then we set sail for Anegada. I'd had the wheel so far in the sail and our skipper let me keep it. Dead reckoning out at 30deg just looking at the open sea. Since the the "peak" on Anegada is only at 28ft it takes some time to see it. It was a great sail and the dinner experience at the Anegada Reef Hotel ranks was one of the best dining experiences I've ever had. From a diving point of view, we got denied. The bloke they referred us to there told us that the a diving moratorium had been enacted at the really good sites while they reassessed how to protect them, and that there wasn't anywhere that diving was allowed that he cared to dive. We figured that was a bit extreme, but between that and our skipper insisting that if we wanted to get to the good reefs on the north side of the island that we'd have to take a cab and do shore dives, we decided to punt and get our long sail back into Virgin Gorda in the morning. Some of the crew's hangovers kept us from getting too early a start (and one of the crew spent the entire long sail in her hot, breezeless cabin, being tossed around like a rag doll with "the Mother of all Hangovers", but we won't mention Janie's name :-). We spent the afternoon prowling and snorkling around the Baths and then put into the yacht club harbor at Spanish Town so we could fill with water, get some hot showers, fill our tanks and replace Shelly's "sucky mask".

The next day, we sailed to the HMS Rhone. But Jane is waiting for me to take her to a movie right now, so I'd better motor. More later.

06/14/93

Ok, I've got a moment while I let Oracle crank to tell me what the error was that it lied about before...

It must have been Thursday that we dove the HMS Rhone. These were a couple of truly wonderful dives.

We came sailing in a little after eleven, sailing downwind, jib only from Spanish Town. That got us almost 6 knots with a 12 knot wind and we arrived at Salt Island a little after 11am. There were 6-8 boats there, including about 4 dive boats and several sloops. We tied onto the southeast mooring which was about 50 yds from the swimming bouys on the submerged rudder and about 90 yds from the bow section. By the time we were geared up, most of the divers down from the other boats were starting to come up.

Since the bow at 80 ft is the deeper dive, we decided to do it first. We snorkeled over due west, threading a path between boats. The view down was spectacular! The bottom is sandy, and the first thing we saw were a few anchors scattered like a child's toys across the bottom. Then we found ourselves swimming directly along the mast with the crows nest to the deck of the ship lying on its side. Or really, it was a reef shaped like a ship lying on its starboard side.

The sensation was like flying, clear blue water looking down on a sandy blue bottom with a toy boat 6 stories down. We gave the thumbs down and started gliding down to the boat in a free descent. I wanted to stick my arms out and soar. The images were stunning as the we varied our descents with our equalization rate, divers above, divers below, bubbles all around and an infinity of clear blue. At about 40 ft we encountered a light current sweeping above the hull that swept us north past the bow, and we finished our descent kicking lightly back to into the lee at the bow's spar.

From a distance, this was obviously a work of man, but when it within touch, only the work of the sea was discernable. Life was everywhere and from a few feet, looked no different from the other reefs we'd been diving. The hull of this section was surprisingly intact, but the deck was in shambles, huge holes forming caverns with many large fish glaring back at our lights. Just behind the mast with the crow's nest was quite a large hole in the deck, maybe 20 ft in diameter. Joel entered and looked down the hull. He gestured for us all to follow and as soon as we got 5 ft in we could see that there was a clear path along the inside of the hull that clearly had 12 ft of clearance leading to bright light where the ship had broken in two almost 60 ft away.

The traverse was magical, divers in a dark tunnel framed by the light at the end. Our lights showed brightly colored sponges above us and pools of mercurial air trapped inside the hull. We emerged somewhat into the sunlight to be puzzled over by angelfish and grunts.

We prowled the break, some of the scattered artifacts, and read the plaque that warned us not to disturb anything. Then we reluctantly began our ascent to our safety stop and our swim back to the boat.

After lunch, we decided that we wanted to dive the bow again with Joel's Nikonos this time. Not liking the swim we moved the boat over to the western most bouy and geared up again. It was a lot more difficult since the swells were much larger outside the protection of Black Rock Point. It was a relief to get in the water.

When we descended, it turned out that this mooring was not over the break at the bow section, but over various pieces of the mid section including the boiler. While this didn't have the penetration, there were a lot more visible details of the framework and othe artifacts. So we wound up staying in the midsection and taking a lot of photos including an almost Japanese vacation like group photo with the boiler forming a frame around us. More prowling and then we returned to the boat.

The seas had increase to about 4 ft swells. That's nothing under sail, but with mooring holding it in place, the boat was really rolling. This made our boarding difficult, and once we were aboard, we were sure that the green tinge of the crew members that had stayed aboard was not from envy. We geared down as quickly as possible, cleaned up the broken dishes that had come out of lockers when a latch failed, and motored for the calm serenity of Little Harbor on Peter Island.

These were dives that none of us will ever forget.

Myself, I think I could spend an entire vacation diving nothing but the HMS Rhone every day.

I feel a bit like a heel, raving like this after you've said you couldn't dive there because of the current. I was wondering if a propulsion unit could help handicapped divers access a wreck like this and if such units could be rented....?

Oh well, back to work. Hmmmn, Oracle is still lying to me. I know that row-cache enqueue error is always a lie....

06/15/94 

 >   Your dive at the Rhone sounds fantastic, but from your description
 >   of the current and seas, you can see why it's out for me on most days.
 >
 >   Sukie thinks I'm capable of the dive; she said she's comfortable with
 >   taking me there; we just have to pich the right day.  I'm definately
 >   going to try to work it in when I go back this Thanksgiving.
 >
 >   BTW, did you see Sukie?

No. We dealt solely with people in the shop and were never there when boats were fitting out.

Underwater Safari's were a little interesting to deal with. We rented two full sets of equipment for the two OW students which was about $160 a set, and 6 more tanks for a week at $58 a tank (!!). This was at Road Harbor. Our plan was to see if most of the confined water could be done on partial tanks left from our better breathers (my breathing got atrocious over the winter), then pick up 4 more tanks later at Marina Cay.

Well, Marina Cay was interesting. The operations there have been cut back to just a compressor and one day tank rental run by the guy who sells water and diesel to boats. I believe the shop has moved to Mencheneel (sp) Bay on Cooper Island at least there's one there now. The woman that worked the shop now works for the restaurant had to call and get permission from Road Town for them to let four of their tanks go out. They only had a dozen onsite, and only seven were full when we got there. So we waited for the fills. Curiously, the guy there only charged us for fills instead of rentals.

We got the tanks filled again at Dive BVI in Spanish Town, but when we tried to fill them again at Dive BVI at the Peter Island Resort, they pointed out that 4 of the tanks were out of visual inspection and refused to fill them.

Two others that didn't need fills were also out. We went for more fills and tank replacement at Underwater Safaris at Cooper Island, where they replaced the all 12 tanks with no charge even for the fills of the good tanks and told us to tell our story and settle up at Road Harbor. Which we did, and they gave us a refund of $75.

We had been shocked at the $58/wk as opposed to $35/wk that we were expecting. But by the end of the week, I think we rented 10 tanks for (6*58)+(4*7.5)-75 or $30.30/tank. Unless I'm still confused. But hey, you get used to island math after a little bit, mon. :-) 

 >
 >   Did you dive the Indians?
 >

Yes, the day after the Rhone, we dove Alice in Wonderland at the NW tip of Ginger Island. That was after rejecting Dead Chest West and whatever the rock between Dead Chest and the Rhone was because of surface conditions (open sea with swells were not welcome by the non-divers after the Rhone). Wonderland was great. The coral was as lush as I've seen with no dead spots. We found about a 6ft green moray and a 5+ lb lobster named Babar who was right under the boat. I would have left the lobster on the bottom, but our skipper would not be denied. I think Cpt. Kenroy views diving a lot like you and I would view a trip to the supermarket. Anyway, Babar was mighty tasty. The coral and life there was so good we did both dives there that day.

Our last full day we dove the Indians. We moored at the bouy just west of the cleft. We were suprised at the stiff current, it took quite a bit of kick to stay in place. Of course this slacked off as we went through the cleft and got the protection of the reef that extends to Pelican Island. We looked in the cave and herded the silversides around with our lights and played in the coral. We saw the tunnel but didn't go over to it because of the shallowness and the amount of surge that was going on. We'd already fought the current and there were plenty of things to see without fighting the surge. Just before we ascended, we saw about a 4ft spotted moray in a coral head right under the boat and fought the current a while to get photos of him. A pretty good dive but a tiring one.

From there we went to the caves and snorkled there. Everyone cheered when the ice cream dinghy came around. I got one more dive in as Kenroy took me out to the grassy flats out at about 35ft and a little south of the caves so I could help him carry in some conch. Once again, mighty tasty! :-)

Gotta run....

[note: We ate on the William Thorton that night, not the conch. But I did get some conch stew at C&F the next night in Roadtown.]

06/20/94 

 > How was the current at Alice In W?

This was a very calm mooring with absolutely no current. You couldn't see the sea fans move unless you stirred water near them. Very lush coral. 

 > I'm surprised you had a current at the Indians - I didn't have much of
 > one at all.  It was a tiring dive though due to the distance (I) covered.
 > I was down 50 minutes on this dive. (A photo taken by my bro shows my air
 > close to the peg as I was comming up).  (I knew I was near out of air, that's
 > why we'd come back.)
 >
 >   > We saw the tunnel but didn't go over to it because of the shallowness
 >   > and the amount of surge that was going on.
 >
 > I think you got the wrong tunnel - the one I went thru was down about 30
 > feet.  This tunnel was in a canyon (side) wall and led you thru to the
 > other side.  (outside).

I'd snorkled around the Indians counter-clockwise from our WNW mooring. That first deep side had a stiff current. The water got considerably murkier at the southern point and the current disappeared as I rounded it and saw the reef head that was very shallow a good distance out to Pelican Island from the second Indian. The tunnel I saw was in this wall and from snorkling looked to have a bottom in the 15-20ft range. It was about 12ft long and looked to be 6-8 ft in diameter and led mostly north (a little west) into a canyon. I had to thread a path in the coral that was 1-4ft in depth with some surge to get into the canyon, then the canyon got shallower to about 6 ft with surge until I got to the dead coral basin in front of the cave by the split.

I was pretty tuckered from kicking by the time I got to the boat and needed a breather before I went back to dive it. Ok, it didn't help that I missed the boat the first time and didn't realize I was on my second lap until I got to the tunnel again -- which, of course, was diametrically opposed to the boat... :-)

It was still a good dive and the pictures came out pretty good.

Jane and I rented "Captain Ron" Saturday night. I don't think I would have liked it if we hadn't been sailing....

-rje