Dive #189 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

Diver Dad over one of the wrecks
Videograph by John Torkington in BVI 2004

Dive Journal: This morning’s dive is off Cooper Island at a site called Wreck Alley. In contrast to the Rhone, this site is a planned wreck site, with the ships intentionally sunk for various reasons.

We explore the Beata first, which is completely intact and filled with fish. John McIntyre enters the wreck and bathes the swarming masses of bronze-colored glassy sweepers in his video lights.

On the sand around the Beata is a beautiful old southern stingray. We swim about 50 yards to the other two wrecks, the Marie L and the Pat, located side by side. During the swim we pass over a nice span of garden eels.

These two wrecks are also in about 80 feet of water, and we spend little time here before pushing our no-deco limits. Peering down into their cargo holds, it is fun to watch the clouds of silversides swirling about, and a variety of groupers also perched on various ledges, waiting for an easy meal.

We finish the dive in shallower waters, and come across three Caribbean reef squid – nice!

Addendum information about this dive:

Copied from http://www.divebvi.com/cooper_island.htm

Linda and Janel check out the Beata.
Videograph by Rich Torkington in BVI 2004

This triple wreck site consists of the Marie L, a cargo boat intentionally sunk in the early 1990s, the Pat, a tugboat sunk a few years later that now lies up against the Marie L, and the Beata, sunk in 2001. Whilst the wrecks themselves provide an interesting feature to explore, be sure to look for the large colony of garden eels slightly around the wrecks and the stingrays that frequent the area - these are much braver than at other sites and will happily swim through the middle of the dive group. Time on the wrecks is limited due to the depth so the dive is completed on the shallower reef (about 50 ft) around the dive boat mooring.