| - A nice diving session before a little break - |
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The island is like a ship, wherever we look, all we see is the sea.
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A turtle regaining its strength
Credit: Cyril d'Andrea
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The trade wind strengthened a bit and took its usual south-east direction. So the Utile site was sheltered, since it is located at the north-west of the island.
We took advantage of the still sea to make Thomas Romon, our land archaeologist, dive. He came back delighted with his diving session. He was accompanying a team in charge of drawing up the topographical plan of the site. They approached the place where the reef slope starts, at a depth of about 20 metres, before it goes down abruptly until 4,000 metres.
This was also the place where sealife was most exuberant. The fish were used to the human presence, so our divers could approach without frightening them.
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The whitetip shark
Credit: Cyril d'Andrea |
A turtle was sleeping next to a rock, exhausted by its night laying. We had to tap on its carapace to make it move and go away slowly. The bar jacks, appreciated by the fishermen for their vitality, were swimming in the middle of the other reef fish.
A shark called « whitetip reef shark » after its white-edged fins, was patrolling the reef, its territory. It is well-known for tolerating the divers. These generally don’t work on the shark’s territory, near the slope.
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A bar jack
Credit: Jean-François Rebeyrotte |
Everybody agreed not to dive in that afternoon, because of the heat and the accumulated tiredness over the various difficult diving sessions.
One group devoted this free time to tidying up the various observations made for one week, another to making photographs of the objects that had been brought back up and completing the database.
We were a third of our stay on the island. |
