On the south side of the Sir Francis Drake Channel and just to the east of Peter Island is the cay named Dead Chest. As long ago as the late 1700s, the cay's moniker was Dead Chest, clearly marked on Jeffrey's 18th century chart of the Virgin Islands. Folklore has it that the infamous pirate Blackbeard marooned 15 men on the cay with nothing more than a bottle of rum. Some apparently tried to swim the half mile to Peter's Island's eastern cove but didn't make it, giving this beautiful palm lined bay the ominous name Dead Man's Bay.
Our next island to visit in the Channel Islands was Salt Island and the wreck of RMS Rhone. We picked up a National Park mooring in Lee Bay, about 2 NM east of Peter Island, which is a day anchorage only. It was quite bouncy but as it was only for the purpose of visiting the wreck, we stayed a couple of hours.
This is an account of the catastrophe that lead to the wreck: on 29 October 1867, RMS Rhone was at anchor in Great Harbour, Peter Island, taking on stores for a return crossing to Southampton. Alongside was the RMS Conway. About 11:00 the barometer suddenly fell to 27.95 degrees. The sky darkened and a hurricane arrived from the north/northwest. With engines going at full speed, the ship's rode the storm. By 12:00 there was a lull in the storm and RMS Conway weighed anchor and headed for Road Harbour, across Sir Francis Drake Channel. During the short passage, a second blast of the hurricane hit, causing the Conway to lose her funnel and masts and the ship was driven onto Tortola Island. The Rhone also tried to weigh anchor during the lull but the 3000 pound anchor and 300 feet of chain were lost to the bottom. With engines running full speed, she attempted to steam to open water and was rounding the last rocky point of Salt Island when the hurricane hit from the south/southwest. The Rhone heeled over on the rocks, broke in two and sank instantly, taking most of the ship's company with her.
The Wreck of the Rhone is a dive site for those who are experienced divers, as the second part of the wreck is lying in about 50 metres of water. For snorkellers, the fore part is in 10-15 metres. There was quite a strong current running and with the wind and choppy water, it was not one of our top ranked snorkels!
All on board safely, we motored around the north east corner of Salt Island, to the relative calm of Salt Island Bay. We devoured our late lunch and then rested a while before taking the tender ashore to the dinghy jetty for a walk to a salt pond, just behind the sandy beach. There has been a commercial venture in the past mining the salt but it looked abandoned. We came across several graves, the most recent of which was October 2015. Many hard hats were on top of the mound, which lead us to believe that this had perhaps been a long term worker, maybe even boss, of this enterprise. Apart from a lonesome chicken who kept coming up to us for company, there was nothing left except a few abandoned sheds and simple housing. We wandered in behind the settlement and skirted the first of two ponds, to get to the second pond and arrive at the beach on the bay where we had snorkelled the Rhone. What a tragedy this must have been! We then headed to the far side of the first pond and came to a wild and unspoilt beach with waves breaking on the large round stones, which growled as the waves crashed and receded. Coral remnants lay above the stones and their exquisite skeletons made great photographic material. What a great place we had explored...remote, unspoilt and wild.
A cooling swim finished the day. We dined on a home made beef curry, spiced with Caribbean curry, green chilli peppers, super hot local chilli sauce and cinnamon bark that was purchased way down south in the Leeward Islands. The flavour was v e r y
g o o d !
The days are merging and our memories are quite fuzzy about all the wonderful and varied experiences we've had. No two days are the same and every day is Saturday, except Sunday!