Diving the British Virgin Islands,
Cooper Island September 2004
by Alex Gooderham

The last few years my wife and I have organised our own holidays, so with that in mind, off I went to LIDS ‘04, where among many others I met Mike Rowe of Sail Caribbean Divers who described not only his dive operation (more of which later), but also the close working relationship that they have with the Cooper Island Beach Club, Cooper Island, BVI. Looking at the photos and hearing the idyllic description I was hooked immediately.

Getting to Cooper Island is reasonably straight forward if a little tiring, I booked the flights from Gatwick to Antigua on First Choice Airways through SunSail holidays, who also arranged the connecting flights from Antigua to Tortola (£400pp return). The final part of the journey involved a taxi from the airport to Sail Caribbean Divers base at Hodges Creek Marina, from where one of their smaller dive boats took us to Cooper Island. The only hitch was that our luggage/diving kit didn’t arrive till midday the next day (no problems on the return trip though).

I booked the accommodation and diving directly with Cooper Island Beach club, who in turn notified Sail Caribbean divers that they had “diving guests” staying. Cooper Island Beach Club is located on the sheltered Manchioneel Bay area of Cooper Island, with a westerly view towards Tortola and the American Virgin Islands in the distance (fantastic sunsets). The centre of the resort is a restaurant/bar which serves lunch, dinner and in the high season, breakfast. The accommodation consists of twelve s/c semi-detached studio apartments each with a sea view (no TV but a radio cassette). We had booked the SCUBA special which cost $875pppw, this consisted of boarding, lunch, dinner (water was free, but all other drinks were extra, but not as expensive as I’d expected), free Sea Kayaks, unlimited beach diving and 5 days “two tank boat dives”. The restaurant food was good with specials most days, which was appreciated as the standard menu could be repeated easily over a two week stay as it is also the only restaurant on the island, upon our arrival we found a welcome drink package of 6 buds, 6 cokes and a bottle of wine waiting in the fridge. The staff at CIBC were superb, friendly, very helpful and no request was too much trouble.

Booking a holiday in the hurricane season is a bit risky, hurricane Francis passed to the north, but fortunately, hardly caused the trees to sway, hurricane Ivan passed to the South bringing a slight swell and a bit of rain, but not a lot else. We only really lost two days of our holiday to hurricane Jeanne, which formed up south of the BVI. On the plus side, as it is the low season for tourism it is cheaper to travel and stay in the BVI, and the lack of other tourists meant that during our two week stay, there were never more than two other apartments occupied at the beach club, and we literally had the (fantastic) beach to ourselves. This applied to the dive boats too. We carried out 9 days boat diving each (hurricane Jeanne spoilt the tenth) and on 6 of those days we had the undivided attention of the crew and dive guides, and as such were given the choice of dive sites! Even when other people were on the boat the number of divers never exceeded 6. I would image that it is another story during the high season (Nov-Apr).

Diving in the BVI
The visibility at this time of year is around the 20m region, which as Christmas approaches increases to 30m+, so it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but still a lot better than Brighton on the 25/26 Sept 04! As for the water temperature, my computer had trouble deciding if it was 29 or 30°C, absolutely lovely. Be careful, the sun was blisteringly hot, regularly reaching 30°C, so use lots of factor 30, and then “pace” yourself when tanning.

The diving is easy and suitable for all levels of ability with the maximum depth anyone is likely to find being 30m, this is good for long dive times, although deco diving is not permitted. We had an even mix of wreck and reef dives, conveniently the wrecks are mostly situated near reefs so that the end of the dive is spent somewhat shallower than the wreck. All of our diving was on the southern and Eastern sides of Tortola, the only exception was the trip to the Chikuzen. Unlike some places I’ve dived, fish behaviour here in the BVI does not seem to have changed with regard to divers, as the fish are not subjected to “fish feeding” dive guides and groups.

On Cooper Island, Sail Caribbean divers maintain an air fill station and a small supply of snorkelling and SCUBA equipment. For boat diving, we were collected from the jetty each morning around 8am (tides and currents are not really a concern, with a tidal range of 1m on springs). On each boat there is a supply of chilled water and snacks even though most dive sites were within a journey time of 20 minutes, the exception being the wreck of the Chikuzen, which is a 45 min transit away (I was told that it is rarely dived, so we were lucky that we got to dive it).

A selection of my favourite dive sites

The bow half of the RMS Rhone, A classic dive, with masses of fish, turtles, Barracuda etc, easy penetration of hull. Can be subject to occasional currents.

The stern half of the RMS Rhone, well broken but propeller/stern in reasonable condition, masses to see, found a nurse shark sleeping in 6m.

The wrecks of the Pat and Marie L, loads of fish, very close to reef.

The Beate, not far from above site, inside engine room were large shoals of fish, good dive, finished off on reef.

The Chikuzen, vis not as good as hoped for, and no big pelagics, just a few juvenile Barraccuda, but shoals of other fish, plenty of life on the wreck, well worth the trip out to it.

The Fearless, wooden hulled fishing vessel, not normally dived by the local operators as its slowly rotting away, covered in fish, atmospheric dive.

The Indians, just like swimming in an aquarium!

The Coral Garden, every dive destination has a site of the same name! but not everyone has a sunken aircraft fuselage in addition to a superb coral reef

Blonde Rock, another aquarium type dive

A bit about Sail Caribbean divers
Its one thing being told by the owner that they are a good “set up” its something else proving it, well they did, without question the best dive operator I or my wife have ever dived with when on holiday abroad. We took all our own equipment, but having seen what they had and its condition, I’d use their's in future as most looked new! I believe that they have four dive boats, all equipped with radio, mobile phones, first aid kit and an Oxygen set, and before every dive a spare cylinder is hung over the side of the boat at 6m, in case anyone has an out of air/low air situation arise.Two boats carry 6 guests a dive guide or two, and a boat handler, one boat carries up to 20 divers and the biggest carries a maximum of 24 divers, although I was told they had never had that number on board ever. The staff are multinational (American, Dutch, English, New Zealand) and are all PADI MSDIs, or higher and not only very competent and professional but encouragingly, very very enthusiastic about diving. We were able to average dive times of 60 minutes being led by our “personal” dive guide. On one dive we had our guide in front of us, and four others behind us, who “just came along for the dive”. We were told that in the high season, experienced divers can “do their own thing” as opposed to being led on a “happy diver” group, going in before the main group (and usually coming out some time after the rest). As yet NITROX is not available, and all the cylinders, are as you would expect Aluminium, with A-clamp first stage fittings.

Conclusion
A superb holiday, ideal for a people or groups who like to get away from it with fantastic scenery, excellent diving, great beaches and few other tourists, but maybe not the place if you want to go clubbing in the evening. I reckon that the total cost for the two weeks was about $2600pp (about £1500), which represents a good saving on any similar package holiday.

The only word of warning, is that the mosquitos on Cooper Island are vicious, so take a strong repellent (the beach club also has complimentary supplies of repellent available too). A couple of other things worth mentioning, the island seems more alive at night than during the day! This is because of the wild goats roaming around, as well as the Hermit crabs scrabbling over leaves etc (the island is literally covered in these crabs, so be careful not to stand on them).

Oh and don’t forget, the pace of life runs on “Caribbean time”…….

Contacts
Cooper Island Beach Club, http://www.cooper-island.com
Sail Caribbean Divers, http://www.sailcaribbeandivers.com
Caribbean star, http://www.flycaribbeanstar.com
BVI tourist organisation, http://www.bviwelcome.com
Sunsail holidays, http://www.sunsailflights.co.uk
First choice airways, http://www.firstchoice.co.uk

My details:- Alex Gooderham AD/AI 500+ dives, Andrea Gooderham DL 350+ dives.


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