BVI Wreck Week – Celebrating BVI Wreck Diving
By Claudia Colli
If you are a diver, you probably know about the Rhone, the BVI’s most famous shipwreck. The vessel, a Royal Mail ship, sank in a hurricane off Salt Island in 1867. Rated Top Ten in the World, the Rhone is the BVI’s most famous dive site. But do you know the Chikuzen, the Kodiak Queen, or the Island Seal? These are just a few of the sunken ships (and planes) that have made the BVI one of the world’s top ten places to wreck dive.
What we offer,” says Kim Huish President of the BVI Scuba Association, “is the perfect mix of good visibility, warm and relatively shallow water with plenty of marine life as well as the wrecks.”
Wreck week, which was held in June, celebrates the BVI’s many underwater treasures. During this special week divers can enjoy the area’s underwater wrecks and art reefs, as well as the many above and below water pleasures of BVI life.
While the Rhone is a wreck cloaked in tragedy, others have been purposefully sunk; their legacies continuing as artificial reefs. Among these are the Kodiak Queen. The WWII era fuel supply ship, which survived Pearl Harbor, is a decorated naval vessel (a YO-44). The vessel was sunk off the shore of Virgin Gorda in 2017 with the financial assistance of British businessman Richard Branson and dozens of volunteers. In addition to being a popular BVI dive site, the wreck is now an important marine habitat.
Another, dive site with an interesting back story is the Chikuzen, a derelict Korean refrigerator boat. Originally anchored in St. Maarten, the ship was set on fire outside the harbor in the hopes it would sink. Instead, it drifted into BVI waters where, divers helped to sink it before it could damage other vessels. It is located around 7-1/2 miles north of Tortola.
An easier dive that offers a multitude of diving pleasures can be found at Wreck Alley. Located off the coast of Cooper Island, Wreck Alley consists of four wrecks: Pat, Beata, Mary L, and the Island Seal. Mary L which was sunk in the early 1990s, is a small wreck. Next to it lies the tugboat, Pat. Beata and the Island Seal are the largest and newest additions to the Alley.
The average depth in this area is 15 meters/50 feet and the maximum depth is 24 meters/80 feet making the site suitable for divers of all levels.
Overgrown with coral and sponges and inhabited by a variety of marine life, these wrecks are a delight for divers. Garden eel colonies are found around them, as well as moray eels, parrotfish, grunts, snappers, groupers and more. Stingrays can also be found here on occasion.
Art reefs offer a special twist to the area’s dive sites. Submerged planes are among the area’s wreck sites, and these have been given a Hollywood makeover. Decorated to look like sharks, while other wrecks are festooned with skeletons, they are a lighthearted addition to the BVI’s underwater world.
How did Wreck Week come to be? Kim Huish dates it back to Hurricane Irma when, like much of the BVI economy, the dive industry took a substantial hit. Wreck Week was an attempt to bring the sector back to life.
As Kim explained, “After persevering through Hurricane Irma in 2017 the BVI Scuba Organization wanted to find a way to remind the outside world that the BVI was still here and still offering an amazing underwater experience, but with a minimal marketing budget we had to get creative. Back in August 2009 Dive BVI, one of our founder members, hosted the first BVI Wreck Week, offering scuba packages to guests, highlighting our wrecks which have consistently been voted in the Caribbean top 10 for decades. We decided to expand on that and it soon became obvious that it was impossible to look at the underwater wrecks here without also thinking about the maritime history of the BVI.”
So, BVI Wreck Week was launched in December 2019. “We curated events and dives to tie in with that rich tradition and wanted to be sure that attendees had a chance to join the fun even if they were not on Tortola, and may not even be divers,” said Kim.
All the BVI Operators, the BVI Tourist Board and many local venues are bringing a large array of events and special offers to help participants get an inside look into our seafaring history, traditions and current restoration projects. In addition to diving excursions, there will be sailing trips, beach cleanup, brunches, and land-based activities.
So divers, look forward to participating in the 2026 Wreck Week and its many fun activities.
