Wreck Week held on land and sea

On the morning of June 16, five scuba divers rolled off a boat near Jost Van Dyke and disappeared into the ocean.

It was the first day of Wreck Week, and Hart Roth of JVD Scuba Scuba was leading the way to an undersea site known as Twin Towers. The group — which included this reporter, co-guide Emily Mingaye, and two professional dive photographers hired to generate publicity for the seven days of activities organised by the BVI Scuba Organisation — sank slowly into the blue and swam southeast until two massive boulders appeared out of the haze. Then they slipped between the boulders and out into open ocean.

All told, the divers spent nearly an hour exploring coral, watching colourful fish, and following a large eagle ray that swam by. What they didn’t find was another diver. Such isolation is part of what makes the Virgin Islands such a high-quality dive destination, according to Wreck Week organiser and BVI Scuba Organisation President Kim Huish.