The mission was getting close to its end, time went by very quickly. As for the previous probing areas, the northern one covering an area of 20 m square meters had to be filled in again.

On Monday we would have to pack our two-ton equipment for airplane transport. But before that, we had to finish taking photographs of the objects, making the inventory of the archaeological furniture and updating our database.

Container
Credit : Max Guérout

We also had to coordinate the reports because the team would break up once we were back on the Reunion Island. Thomas Romon listed the samplings which needed to be analysed by experts, e.g. the left-overs and the lime used to seal the oven base.
We tried to classify the several thousands of photographs we took during the mission according to the date and theme. We also tried to synthesize our results.

Other container
Credit : Max Guérout

We decided to mark the success of our mission by taking a photograph of the six containers we had found over the last few days. They awarded the whole team’s efforts. The most repaired ones showed how patient and skilful people were at that time. We were so stunned at their suggestive power that we decided to use that photograph on the cover of our reports.

We spent the afternoon discussing and the team ended the day by diving on the Utile’s wrecking site, then they went beyond close to the submarine wall, where deep blue starts.

It started to get dark on the coral reefs where the turtles were frisking about. When we emerged, the sun was setting and offered us a marvellous sky.