Scuba Diving
Rewind two hours to around 9.00am and we were leaving the tiny port of Boulouris, with its intimate little sandy beach, and dive centre full of colourful, friendly, borderline eccentric characters. One of the great things about diving it that it is a great leveller. Once you step onto a dive boat there is little room for modesty, and even less for airs and graces. But everyone is welcoming, and today is just smiles all round.
Another great thing is that as an added, often overlooked bonus, you get a fantastic view of the beautiful coastline of The Var and Alpes-Maritimes. From the imposing cliffs and grand villas of Villefranche Bay to the rugged and wild beauty of Port Cros and Porquerolles Islands and the rugged green forest and red rock of the Esterel to the gleaming super-yachts sitting at anchor off the Cap d‘Antibes. There are many contrasting wonders to observe and appreciate from a different perspective. Wonders that usually only those that own a boat or pay for a rapid transit on one of the private ferry lines are lucky enough to enjoy.
Boulouris is a quiet extension of St Raphael on the coastal road in the direction of Cannes. The atmosphere this morning is even better than usual because of aforementioned conditions and the fact that we are off to dive Les Peniches D’Antheor, or in English, The Antheor Barges. This shipwreck (two large river barges in fact) dates back to near the end of the Second World War. The vessels had been commandeered by the Germans and were carrying a cargo of shells from Genoa to Marseille under armed escort. Due to their nature they were obliged to hug the coast and were spotted by what was later identified as the HMS Untiring, a British submarine. Three torpedoes were fired, and the two that hit caused such a violent explosion that parts of the two barges actually fused together. They now lie in two separate zones between 25 and 35 metres of water.
We pass the Balise de la Chretienne, a known archeological site where the remains of number of Roman Galleys were discovered. This is a sign to all the divers aboard that we are approaching the dive site, and as Stephane (the boat captain and boss) lines up the visual references and the depth sounder we all start preparing to dive into “le monde du silence”.
One of the centre’s instructors has the privilege of being first down on the wreck to tie us on. This is a wonderful moment to experience as a diver as, for a few seconds, you have the entire seabed to appreciate alone as the only human down there. After five or ten metres of the descent you see the barges appear below you with a bird’s eye or pilot’s view. First as just a dark silhouette and then as a distinct shape with identifiable features and form. As you approach the bottom you slow down your descent, and gently position yourself on the sand next to a suitably solid portion of the wreckage. You wrap the anchor line around this sturdy old lump of metal and invariably, with a quick “chink chink” of new chain on old steel a number of rather large morays eels will pop their heads out of various nooks and crannies to see who has come to rudely disturb their slumber (nocturnal hunters are our morays). After a few moments contemplation of the events that led these vast lumps of metal to finish in the depths, and the lives lost as a result, you head back up to twelve metres depth and send up a surface marker buoy. Upon seeing the marker arrive at the surface the skipper has confirmation that we are safely moored.
You float in mid water for a few moments waiting for your divers to make their way down the line to join you, and then re-descend down on to the wreck. Hovering a metre or two above what used to be the deck we slowly conduct a figure of eight tour. There is no rush and the calmer we are, the slower our air consumption, and the longer we can stay. Zen Diving! A dense school of at least 500 Sar or white bream are cruising a little distance off the wreckage, seemingly unperturbed by a smaller number of Barracuda gently weaving through their ranks. As we glide over the mangled metal we get a closer glimpse at some of these moray eels with their razor sharp teeth, open mouths and constantly undulating gills. They look menacing but are in fact more scared of us than we are of them. Never intentionally aggressive, if they approach it is out of curiosity or because they think you have food. And if a diver is lucky enough to see one swimming freely in open water he or she will rarely witness a more graceful movement.
Having completed the tour of the first portion of the wreck, we get our bearings, and head out across a small plain of sand and sea grass. Soon enough we see other sets of divers’ bubbles, a sure sign we haven’t “taken a wrong turn”. These guys and gals have elected to come straight here, and seem to be playing hide and seek with the resident family of Merou/Mediterranean Grouper. It is a joy to see the Grouper here in such numbers, as only a few years ago they came within a whisker of being hunted to extinction along the entire coast. Once again electing for “panoramic view” we hover four or five metres above the top of the wreck. This vista allows us to observe the divers and fish playing an elaborate dance as one seeks to find the other, with the other using all his/her fishy cunning to avoid detection. However, the Merou is nothing if not a curious fish, so if left alone or studiously ignored they will soon re-emerge to study these frequent, fortunately brief, and very definitely clumsy intruders into their world.
We enjoy the spectacle for a while, just holding station in the very mild current, and then with a quick check of dive computers and air gauges we must reluctantly head back to our start point, leaving the Grouper in peace as we go. More Barracuda are cruising the dead-zone between the two chunks of wreckage, this time without the Sar, who have clearly decided not to tempt fate. They pass us by in formation, impassive and clinical observers. We relocate the anchor line and make our way slowly up to conduct our safety stops at six metres. These allow us to eliminate the excess of Nitrogen our bodies have absorbed at depth, before we can rejoin the noisy world above the waves. Before we get there however, an almost perfect dive is nicely topped off with the mesmerisingly beautiful sight of a Ray playing in our bubbles above us, it’s graceful circles silhouetted by a strong late morning sun.
As the first group down we are the first back up on the boat. The skipper is happy to learn we experienced a good dive, he can easily discern just how good it was by the infectious, almost euphoric wide grins on our faces. It is for moments like these a diver practices his art. Moments to savour that become very special memories, indelibly marked in the memory banks forever.
Slowly the boat fills up as we are rejoined by our other comrades. A buzz of laughter and questioning ripples around the deck as delighted faces ask, “Est ce que tu as vu le congre/murene/merou/barracuda/homard/langouste/ray?!”. And then Stephane, as is his wont, puts the music on “Step from the road to the sea to the sky and I do believe what we rely on”. A great sign off to a great morning’s diving.
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Alex Diamond, the writer of this article runs Diamond Diving, a dive travel and training company specialising in the South of France. If you want to learn to dive, experience the sport for the first time, or just join Alex and his other clients for some diving in Nice, Antibes, St Raphael, Ste Maxime or La Londe, he can be contacted at:
e-mail :
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telephone : 0615305223
For more information, please consult their website at www.diamonddiving.net
