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West of Salt
Island 18:22.2N 64:32.3 W
School on Sunday wasn't great, but a famous
dive today paid off.
The Rhone is a 315 ft wreck off Salt Island. This
was a steamer/sailboat
that sank on October 29th, 1867. She was escaping from
what she thought was
a northerly storm. A lot of bad luck and seamanship.
After cutting the
anchor tangled with another boat, the crew realised this
was more than a bad
storm: a hurricane... Having no anchor she tried to make
her way out to sea
and out of the hurricane center. Instead she ended up
washing onto some
sharp rocks on Salt Island and sank in about 80 feet. Since
none of the crew
could swim, only five crew and one passenger survived. The
passenger held
onto the mast (sticking out of the water) for twenty
hours of the whole
hurricane.
Now this is an awesome wreck with several
swim throughs including one that
is on the film 'Deep Water'. I swam inside
her for 40 meters. Dad and I saw
a turtle that had been tagged, a spotted
moray eel, an eagle ray and several
huge lobsters... The Rhone's propeller
and rudder were so big we could swim
in between. There was also a silver
spoon (some say this was Captain Wooly's
spoon, but who knows) and a lucky
hatch which everyone rubs so it's shiny.
Dad says it was one of his best
dives including the Red Sea... hard to
explain the feeling, you have got to
see it yourself!
Elin
Espen's comment: Elin is already a better diver
than me. Also this time she
gets flowers from the dive instructor (with 1050
dives on the Rhone): 'I
will dive with your daughter anytime: she is a great
diver!'
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