I had seen the wreck of the RMS Rhone before, in the 1977 movie “The Deep”. A movie more memorable for Jacqueline Bissett in a wet T-shirt and a young Nick Nolte looking macho, busy fighting off man eating moray eels, escaping from collapsing wrecks and dodging harpoons and knives.
The wreck of the Rhone was used as the open water set for the fictional WW2 freighter Goliath sunk somewhere off Bermuda. A bit of highly creative location fixing as the Rhone sank in the British Virgin Islands in 1867. Bissett and Nolte play a couple who discover gold and, more significantly, ampoules of morphine from medical supplies in the cargo, leading them into conflict with a drug lord who wants to sell the morphine through his own evil empire.
At the time it was the biggest and most expensive undersea film ever made, filled with underwater action and all the usual diving clichés, though both expense and clichés have no doubt been surpassed by more recent movies.
The 2,738 ton Royal Mail Ship Rhone was only two years old when it sank, having been built in 1865. The 95-metre iron hull was constructed along traditional clipper lines with masts and sails to supplement a steam engine driving a single propeller; the Rhone was one of the first screw-driven mail ships.
On the morning of Sunday 29 October 1867 the Rhone was anchored in Great Harbour, a sheltered bay on the north side of Peter island. Nearby was anchored an older Royal Mail Ship, the paddle steamer Conway.
With bad weather anticipated from the south, the two captains were concerned for the safety of their passengers. They conspired to transfer the paddle steamer's passengers to the larger and safer Rhone without raising alarm by inviting the passengers of the Conway to join those of the Rhone for breakfast on deck.
As the barometer had indicated, the storm swiftly arrived, but not from the expected direction. The hurricane force winds came across Tortola from the north and blew both ships tight on their anchor chains towards the shore of Peter island. Boilers were stoked and engines run to ease the strain on the anchor chains. Both boats rode through the first round with only minor damage.
With the wind abating, the Conway raised anchor and headed across Sir Francis Drake Passage to the apparent safety of Road Town on Tortola, the Conway's passengers still sheltering aboard the Rhone. The Rhone tried to follow suit, but the anchor first fouled then the chain broke. The Rhone was now under way, but with no options left except to make for open sea and attempt to ride out the hurricane.
The Rhone first steered east along Sir Francis Drake Passage, then south through the channel separating Peter island from Salt island. As the eye of the hurricane moved over, the wind picked up again, rising rapidly from the south-east.
Struggling head on against punishing conditions, the Rhone's engine was just not powerful enough to make progress and the ship was pushed back and broken against Black Rock at the western tip of Salt island. Out of 145 on board, just one passenger and 21 crew survived, rescued with assistance from the residents of salt island.
If a state of the art steamship such as the Rhone came to an unfortunate end, what of the much less sophisticated paddle steamer, the Conway? She was blown ashore on Tortola, all the crew surviving. Nearly every building on the islands was blown down.
Out of all the tragedy of the hurricane there is a partly happy ending. The residents of salt island were essentially right at the bottom of the social pile, subsistence fishing and working the salt pans while living barely out of slavery. In gratitude for their efforts to rescue crew and passengers from the Rhone, Queen Victoria granted them and their descendants rights to the land as long as they continued to live there, in return for 5 pounds of salt annually for the royal table.
Over the next few years the Rhone's cargo of bullion was salvaged by the Murphy brothers, together with many bottles of champagne and souvenirs. Well-to-do Victorian tourists would have champagne parties while anchored above the wreck.
The wreck site is now essentially two dives. The stern lies down the slope, with the propeller immediately below Black Rock and the engine in 15 metres. From the engine a trail of debris including both broken boilers and condensers leads to the deeper bow section lying along the barely sloping sand in 23 metres.
As with most dive centres, you can dive without a guide if you ask, an option I would follow for most reef dives. On the Rhone, diving with Burton Robson from Baskin in the Sun really made the dive for me.
I think I could have found all the major bits of wreckage for myself. The boilers, the engine and other machinery, the forward mast and crow's nest, and the hatch through which Jacqueline Bissett and Nick Nolte entered the bow of the wreck. But without Burton's help I could easily have missed the signal cannon sticking out from under some plates near the bow, the enormous tool kit just forward of the engine, and the well polished porthole partly hidden near the stern.