wreck

Log This Dive

CHATEAU YQEM

The Chateau Yquem. Now this one, we love. It’s a proper dive, sitting deep at 44 metres, so it’s one for the experienced tech divers among us. Dropping down, you’ll feel the chill hit you long before you see the wreck materialise out of the green, a real testament to its 85-metre length. She went down in 1917, torpedoed by a U-boat, and what’s left is a fascinating skeletal structure. We’ve spent hours here, meticulously tracing the deck lines, poking our lights into what would have been cargo holds. The boilers are still impressively intact, huge cylindrical guardians of the wreck’s heart. Our favourite part has to be the stern, where you can often find conger eels peering out from gaps, thick as a diver's thigh. She’s become a home for so much life down there; often we’ll spot schools of pouting darting through the superstructure, and the odd spider crab scuttling across the plates. Visibility can be a challenge, so we’d always suggest timing your dive for slack water on a neap tide. It makes all the difference when you’re trying to appreciate the sheer scale of her. This isn't a quick dip; it’s an exploration, a step back into history shrouded in a vibrant, living ecosystem.