Beginner British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
A mail steamer sunk in 1867, split in two and spread between six and twenty-five meters
A British mail steamer broke apart against the rocks during a hurricane in 1867. Its two halves are still there, one at twenty-five meters and the other at six, and for a century and a half they've been turning into reef.
In this profile you'll find out why that wreck is considered one of the best in the Caribbean, how an archipelago that's dived both from sailboats and from dive-center boats works, what else there is, when to go and what level you need.
It's the archipelago where diving and sailing go together, and where a nineteenth-century shipwreck shows just how far a structure's colonization can go when it's given a hundred and fifty years.
Geography and access
The archipelago is made up of dozens of islands and islets at the northeastern tip of the Antillean arc, next to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A wide, sheltered channel separates the main island from the chain of islands to the south, and that channel is the backbone of all the destination's boating activity.
The platform is shallow and shared: most dive sites sit between five and thirty meters.
The southern islands and outer islets face more open water, with somewhat more current and passing pelagic life.
The most famous wreck lies next to a southern islet, split into two sections at very different depths.
Access combines a connecting flight from neighboring islands with a ferry option, and a significant portion of the diving is done from sailing vessels.
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