WW II wrecks in Normandy France

[Extreme-Dive-Justin]

Just returned from intel trip to Cherbourg France to meet with some friends about diving some WW II wrecks of the coast. Permission to dive some of these sites is a somewhat complicated venture. Met with some great people at the Cherbourg National Plongee (CNP). The CNP is one of 3 dive clubs in the area, and dive shops as we know them do really not exist. Most all the diving is through these private clubs and in so many words, somewhat off limits to foreigners. However, due to my friends past with archaeological work on the CSS Alabama, we were greeted with open arms, and offered the prospect of being able to bring divers to dive out of there organization.
One of the most interesting offers is to dive the Leopoldville, which the club has special permision from the French authorities to dive. Sunk by U-486 on xmas eve 1944, 700+ perished. Laying on her port side, hull is at 130+ and descends to 180. Supposed to be an incredible dive.
Other wrecks in the area include the Komet (not WWII), but German vessel laid to rest by a torpedo. We will also be diving tanks, landing craft etc and have been offered availabilty to dive recently found u-boat and a Schnellboat which of 5 were lost in and around Normandy. Most in the know, would agree that these Scnellboats were the superior equivalent of our PT boats and had quite an impressive record. These latter dives may be too deep for our divers, but we will see. Its high time some good contacts paid off, cant wait! If anyone has dived these sites, I wolud be interested to hear about it.
Thnaks,
rebreathe

 

[Air One]

I dived 2 times on the Leo...with air.
The viz was quite bad, the bottom time too short ( of course !), and I'm going to dive it back with trimix.
I guess that I'll discover it like if it was the first time.


I've never dived the Komet, you've been pretty lucky to jump on that one, you met and dived with the right people.

The only dive club wich is really going on mix diving is this one, but you probably don't need them if you went on the Alabama.

Did you go diving on the "général Detemple "?

 

[Extreme-Dive-Justin]

Hello, no we did not dive the GD.
We are planning these dives for the end of august, which gives us the best tide coefficient.
And yes, we will be diving air, however, we have got a contact for some EAN for shallower dives, but no trimix. The French, as great divers as they are, do not do mixes, only air with deco as standard practice.
The Komet should be sweet, but as you say on most dives, the tide/current give us a short window. Our other dives are in around 30m and offer at least two full dives of tide window.
This is a real benefit to dive with the French instead of coming over from the UK, because it allows us to dive so many more sites not regularly visited.

Keep it good,
Justin

 

[Air One]

I didn't really understood if you dive with a rebreather ( 60 m with air and a rebreather ?).
If you do, you could send a PM to Feige ( pseudo) on UFP : http://www.ufp-plongee.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=username&order=ASC&start=250
He often dives the Channel sea and organizes some dive journeys.
His experience is the same as yours I guess and he dives with an inspi.
On this forum, you could also meet "papatron" , he is the chairman of the dive club I talked about in my last post.
I'm sure that Feige speaks a very good english, I don't know about papatron.

During the end of August we go west : there are plenty of very nice wrecks there, around the Ouessant island, or in the chenal du four.