Wreck discovered outside St Peter Port pier heads
THERE was a special Christmas present for diver Robin Everest when he came across a wreck in the waters near St Peter Port Harbour.
Mr Everest was one of dozens who took the opportunity to dive in the harbour on Christmas Day – the one day a year this is allowed – but he said that he found the wrecks just outside the pier heads after being in the water for about half an hour: ‘I was amazed,’ he said.
He has taken part in the dive about six times and had always looked for wrecks which he believed were close to where the remains of Gallo-Roman vessel Asterix were found.
When he saw the first timbers he started recording video footage. After recording for a few minutes he stopped, since he thought he had seen all of the wreck, but a couple of metres away he came across more timbers and so started shooting again.
‘The boats were lying end to end about a metre and a half apart,’ he said. All of the timbers appeared to have been burnt.
‘I was over the moon about finding them,’ said Mr Everest, who posted his video clips onto the Blue Dolphins Sub-Aqua Club Facebook page.
The wrecks were most likely the remains of medieval vessels, said Richard Keen, who was the diver who discovered the Asterix in 1982.
They were probably the wrecks of two boats that appeared to have been attached to each other when they were sunk: ‘They were an interesting construction in that the ribs were all notched to fit clinker-built overlapping planks,’ he said. ‘This is more of a northern European tradition.’
He thought it likely that the vessels were sunk in an attack on Guernsey.
Four wrecks in addition to the Asterix have been found in the pier heads area: ‘We found them when we were finishing off the Asterix dives and they’ve been quietly rotting away every since,’ said Mr Keen. ‘They should be excavated, but there’s not the money or the inclination or anybody to do anything about it.’
After the wrecks were discovered Mr Keen said many fragments of French medieval pottery were recovered from in and around them.
Mr Keen did not dive in the harbour itself this year but he did spend some time in the waters outside it: ‘I found a nice amphora base, all by itself,’ he said. He intends to pass this on to Guernsey Museum.
You can view Mr Everest’s video of one of the wrecks he came across here: bit.ly/2EXNcFk
