Getting into the water by starting from the beach Credit: Max Guérout

On that day, our weather stations confirmed that the wind was moderate, between ten and fifteen knots, but the swell was still there on the wrecking site.

The teams followed one another, some were measuring the guns or the anchors, others were doing a complete triangulation.

The divers’ eyes had become more precise and the first objects started to be put to light, after being positioned and photographed.

A fragment of a bell was brought back up to the surface. It was stuck to a ballast by a ferrous concretion which had developed around a cannonball. This was the upper part of the bell where we could see two horizontal mouldings.
A 5-pound scales weight was also brought back up (see photo diary 18 October), it had a conical trunk, and five notches on the lower part. Some plumb blunderbuss bullets and the ends of several flail roundshots were also found near the shore.
These roundshots were composed of four plumb quarters linked by an iron rod, which were in turn linked to a central ring (we only found the plumb parts). When they got out of the artillery tube, the four quarters parted, while remaining linked to the ring through iron rods. Since it whirled, the projectile swept over a vaster space (about 40cm) than a roundshot. They were used to tear the sails and cut the enemy’s riggings. The laying up inventory of the Adour, which was an identical ship to the Utile, built and armed at the same time, said the following:
« 72 boulets à fléau de 8 pesant 576 L )
25 boulets à fléau de 4 pesant 100 L )  676 L à 29# %  196 livres 9 deniers »

« 72 flail roundshots of 8 weighing 576 L)
25 flail roundshots of 4 weighing 100 L) 676 L at 29# % 196 pounds 9 denarius »

Visual prospection up the beach Credit: Max Guérout

On dry land, before talking with the meterologists who were present on the island during the weather station settlement, we started a visual prospection between the upper part of the beach and the pathway surrounding the island, above the wrecking site. This area contained a 20-metre strip widely used by the turtles, and we thought that if there had been burials in that area, we might find bones that the turtles would have dug up, as was the case with the oven bricks. But we didn’t find anything. The other strip of land seemed more favourable to burials, since it was not used by the turtles and the sandy soil was thick enough, unlike the more southern area on the other side of the pathway where the beach rock appeared under a thin sand layer.

Sudel Fuma cooked a delicious "andouille" (sausage), a very spicy culinary speciality.