We woke up today at 6:30 and ate breakfast at 7:15 at one of the cabins as usual. We then took the taxi to the marina and headed out to dive the famous RMS Rhone that sunk in 1867. It is famous because it was one of the first ships to be declared “unsinkable” just like the Titanic… Anyone else find that funny, or is it just me? During one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the BVI’s, Captain Willy and his 100-300 passengers had to maneuver their way through the islands out to open ocean while avoiding small islands and rocks. The visibility was near 20 feet, so Captain Willy could not even see the sides of his boat, he had his 23 crew members stand on the side of the boat to be his eyes and ears. The storm was stronger than Willy thought because when he thought that he had made it to the open ocean, and heard one of his crew-members yell “land to port”, he was very surprised, so he ran outside to see for himself and got washed away by a 40ft wave and was never seen again. We started the dive by swimming through and around the front of the boat while looking at the mast and the crows nest. We also saw the engine and the boilers at the last part of the dive, it had boilers because it was a new steam powered passenger/cargo ship. We ran into a 4ft barracuda while swimming through the boat, and it was hungry so it started to feed on some of the small fish right in front of us. On the second part of the dive, we saw all of the little gizmos and gadgets that the boat had. But before we got to all of those during the dive, we found a long nose seahorse clinging onto a piece of sponge coral. Then we made our way to see Captain Willy’s legendary spoon that supposedly has his name engraved on it, but we couldn’t see that part because coral has been growing over it for over 100 years. Next, we went to the lucky porthole where the only passenger to survive the wreck was shot out of because of the boiler explosion. After we rubbed the porthole three times for good luck, we swam over to the massive bronze propellor. This propellor was one of the first of its kinds because the Rhone was one of the first ships to have a propellor powering the boat instead of giant paddles. After we finished the Rhone dive, we went to lunch on Cooper island, where I had a Mahi wrap and some frys. I also took a siesta after eating some tasty watermelon gelato. We were told to wake up and get on the boat for a snorkel around the sea grass near around the bay. As soon as I jumped in the water, we saw a sea turtle swimming by. We then went to mess with some barracuda that were feeding, but once they turned towards me, I swam for my life because I thought it was coming to kill me. We then went back to the marina and made our way to the cabins to get ready of mass. We took the taxi to the church up on the top of the hill, had mass, then took pictures with some amazing views of the harbor and of the entire island. After our photo shoot was over, we went back to the cabins to prepare for the night snorkel, and dinner. Jeff made some amazing food on the grill, which included some massive hot dogs and burgers. To top it all off, Beth made cupcakes for the entire group, and these were some of the best cupcakes that I have ever had. We went on the night snorkel with some very full stomachs and saw tons of lobsters, a tarpon, a lion fish, and an octopus. We also saw a squid, which some people made ink itself, and someone even got inked on. Day 5 was a long one, but now it is still not time to relax, we have our presentations tomorrow which is closely related to a trial in court.
