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Booby and its offspring
Credit : Max Guérout |
With their shovel in their hands, the diggers team settled on the northern probing area whereas a twin engine-jet aircraft was flying over our heads. After it turned around the island, it flew at low altitude. It was our first physical contact with the outside world since we arrived there. It was a plane of the Fleet Air Arm that we contacted by radio. The pilot seemed to be surprised to be called by a naval officer, even if he was retired. He didn’t know we were there so I explained him the reason for our presence on the island as well as the
Utile’s story.
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Red-footed booby
Credit : Max Guérout |
After that brief contact, he went on patrolling the economic area surrounding Tromelin because some fishermen of the region tended to take advantage of the local resources without authorisation. Meanwhile, the whole divers team were attending Sudel Fuma’s first diving session. He was delighted when he came back up to the surface because he had observed the fish that he usually caught.
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Honeycomb grouper
Credit : Arnauld Lafuma |
In that morning, we received a message from Polynesia, where Robert Veccella is our intermediary with the experts. We had asked if the potter whose name appeared at the back of the plate we discovered on 26 October was known. We thought the name was J. Pratino but in order to avoid confusion, we sent a photograph of the trademark because despite the Italian-sounding name, we thought it was rather an English potter.
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Titan triggerfish
Credit : Arnauld Lafuma |
A French expert, Bernard Dragesco, brought us the solution. In fact, the name was J. Pratt & Co, an English potter from Fenton in the Staffordshire, who worked between 1851 and 1878. Since we discovered the fragments near two plates found in the 60’s which potter -also from the Staffordshire- gave a similar dating range, we linked those plates to the wrecking of the Atiet Rohoman, which occurred in 1867.
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Squid
Credit : Jean-François Rebeyrotte |
In the afternoon, the divers went diving for fun and marvelled at the number of fish they met and how tame they were.
On dry land, we went on going all over the centre of the island, searching for the well that the castaways dug and to which they owed their survival.
