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THE TANTINE

WRECK COURSE

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Its history...

The Auntie known as the Congress Barge remains an enigma even today. Almost nothing is known of this wreck, neither the date of its sinking, nor the exact reason for it. It is assumed that this was a tug with a crane at the rear . When towing a barge in heavy weather, the displacement of the bricks (for which the reason for their presence on board is unknown) would have destabilized the vessel and resulted in its loss. The barge could have been saved when the trailer was broken.

Diving...

It is a difficult dive on the one hand because it is deep and on the other hand because there is often a strong current on the site. Its small size makes locating difficult.
The wreck has absolutely no interest and one does not feel any particular fascination when seeing it for the first time. It
measures approximately 20 m long by 6 m wide and 3 m high . It lies flat on the sand. Ten minutes is quite sufficient to go around it. Most of the tug is flat. The rear, where the crane is located which is folded over the deck, is slightly raised by 2 m. The rail has partly disappeared.
Some remains of the nets are on the starboard side of the Barge without great danger to the divers.

The main interest of the Barge are the congresses which have elected domicile there. Some will say that henceforth it deserves to be renamed "La Barge aux Mostelles" . It is true that these are very present and that the number of congresses has fallen sharply in recent years.
What these divers forget to specify is that if there are less congers than before, it
is that today few or more bubblers practice feeding. Indeed it was not uncommon to see entire teams descend the stab pockets containing hard-boiled eggs to feed these predators and see them evolve around them in open water. Many congers thus died of indigestion. The day we stopped this deplorable practice, the congers finding themselves without home delivery people deserted the wreck.
Nevertheless despite this there are still
more than ten magnificent specimens exceeding 2 m in length . There are also some pretty moray eels. The lighthouses sometimes make it possible to illuminate a curious trio: a conger eel, a moray eel and a mostelle one beside the other.

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