The Virgin Rocks

The Virgin Rocks tells the gripping story of H. D. Lilly, the ambitious scientist and restless explorer, who led the first scuba expedition to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in June 1964.

The Virgin Rocks (the shoals from which the book takes its title) rise from the turbulent North Atlantic, two hundred kilometres from the Newfoundland coast. Their stony peaks and ridges promise many square kilometres of exploration at depths accessible by SCUBA divers. In the mid-twentieth century these formations remained a mystery to science.

In the early 1960s, Hugh Lilly, a seasoned geologist and instructor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, pioneered submarine geological survey techniques in the island’s coastal waters. In 1964 he devised a plan to explore the high shoals of the Grand Banks. Shocked by the opposition he encountered and astonished by the allies he discovered on dry land, ultimately Hugh’s greatest challenge came from the ocean itself.

Based on real people and events, The Virgin Rocks draws from the journals, dive logs and professional publications of H. D. Lilly. The author, who witnessed some events first hand and interviewed expedition members, adds depth and detail to the account. In the spirit of Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, the story contains memoir, biography, and historical interpretation with dramatic fictionalization, offering a tale of imagination, determination and perseverance – a window into a little known episode in Canadian history.