Impressive scallop haul for regular festive diver
DIVERS took the opportunity to work the St Peter Port harbour sea bed on Christmas Day – the one day of the year that they are allowed to do it.
More than 20 people were issued with permits to dive by the harbour master, including building site manager Matt Le Maitre.
Mr Le Maitre has been diving since 1996 with his friend Richard Keen.
He currently dives about 200 times per year and has worked the harbour on Christmas Day on probably 10 to 12 occasions, he said.
Visibility on Sunday was about three metres, which, he said, was workable, and his maximum depth was 15m.
Mr Le Maitre began his dive on the reef on which the Castle lighthouse was built.
‘Normally you find angling gear such as rods, reels and weights around there but this year there was very little,’ he said.
‘But there were some broken crab pots, shrimp nets, and three or four crabbing wheels.’
He would normally expect to get three or four dozen scallops from the dive, but this year’s tally was 86, which was probably his best for a couple of years.
‘Divers from other boats were in the water before me and you could see the holes where scallops had been,’ said Mr Le Maitre.
Four decades since the Asterix wreck was found
IT was 40 years to the day, while diving in the harbour, that Richard Keen discovered Britain’s largest Roman wreck.
It was the remains of a Romano-Celtic trading vessel, later named Asterix, which caught fire and sank in St Peter Port harbour in about AD 280.
The original ship was about 22-25 metres long, of which some 17 metres of its lower part remain.
It is the only sea-going Roman ship to survive outside the Mediterranean, other than fragments. Its discovery led to the formation of the Guernsey Maritime Trust.
It was raised between 1984 and 1986 and the Mary Rose Trust carried out preservation work between 1999 and 2014.
The main timbers are currently on display next to Guernsey Pearl at Rocquaine and can be seen through a viewing window.
