Main structure midships on the Rhone
At the Rhone ’ s stern
something beneath a rock , and sensing my bewilderment , Rupert showed me his board which read GOLIATH GROUPER . After more scribbling he passed it to me again : ( A SHY ONE ).
The Captain ’ s Spoon !
Most of the wrecks offered to recreational divers are of the artificial reef variety , which is fine if that ’ s your thing ; they act as a magnet for the marine life , if nothing else . However , there ’ s one wreck which is described as the ‘ must do ’ site – even Jeff appears to have a sparkle in his eye , as he excitedly tells me he has dived it over 900 times and never gets tired of doing so . This is the wreck of the RMS Rhone , a 95m-long Royal Mail Steamer that sank in a hurricane in 1867 . Rhone was an iron-hulled sailsteamship and carried passengers and mail between Britain and Brazil , before switching to the West Indies route . She was
considered sturdy and reliable – so much so that passengers were transferred to her for their safety when the storm hit – little realising that the Category 3 hurricane would eventually overwhelm the ship .
After attempting to make for the open sea , the winds pushed her back on Black Rock Point near Salt Island , sending her to the bottom in about 25 metres of water .
Today , this popular tourist attraction forms part of a marine park . Rhone lies broken in
Remembering the Rhone
RMS Rhone made a guest appearance in a 1970s movie based on a Peter Benchley novel with actor Robert Shaw . Not the sharky one , but the nearly-classic The Deep starring Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset in a tense search for undersea treasure .
As a postscript and despite the wreck not being well known in the UK , there ’ s a remnant of the sinking close to home . On a suitably rainy day I visited Southampton old cemetery , where in a quietly overgrown corner stands the substantive Rhone memorial . This monument gives an indication of how acutely the loss of lives and the ship was felt at the time .
61