We adopted a certain rhythm. The team started to work at 7.30 after they had received the instructions.
While scouring the area, we discovered a metal chainplate. It is a piece fixed on the external part of the hull used to tighten the shrouds. Thomas Romon started another probing over a length of 6 metres, perpendicularly to the previous day.
In the meantime, Sébastien Berthaut-Clarac and Arnauld Lafuma started to search the place thought to be the crew camp with the metal detector. The first circular search over a 15-metre diameter gave no result. So we decided to search near the pathway along the shore.
No metal object was discovered in that area. However we found two bottle fragments on the surface. These are two blown glass bottles, one is a light green glass bottle and the other is a so-called « black » glass bottle, i.e. made of dark green glass widely used in the 18th century.
This discovery reinforced the idea that we were close to the crew camp, but we had to confirm it through a thorough probing.
A third team walked along the beach in the west side of the island, from the oven site to the southern end of the runway. On a clump of coral fragments, the sea had pushed the keel of a supposed big pirogue. This piece was in a good state enough as to be able to distinguish two keel assemblings known as « Jupiter assemblings ». So our young divers had to have some shipbuilding lessons.
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The winch
Credit :
Jean-Marie de Bernardy de Sigoyer |
At the extreme southern end of the island, in an area where the sea is always violent, there are the remains of a winch, which was probably related to the keel of a ship that the meteorologists claimed to have seen in good weather, about 200m from the shore.
We also searched the supposed area of the well but we did not discover a place which could correspond.
The divers were very anxious to start their job and started to swim in the shipwreck area, although there were still breakers.
The anchor, with its emerging palm, was their way in but Jacques Morin was the only one to overcome that point and see the remains of the shipwreck for the first time.
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The divers approaching the emerging anchor palm
Credit : Jean-Marie de Bernardy de Sigoyer |
Communication was not easy during the first two days, but then it was secured thanks to the Inmarsat Fleet 77 link. Sébastien Eon, who deals with our diary, confirmed that the two first days of the diary were published on line. Indeed, we do not have access to our research group’s website.
We also received another good news. After the Tampon and Saint-Leu schools on the Reunion Island, seven other classes from the Orléans Academy, under the leadership of Hervé Régnier, asked to take part in our project.
