Romagna

The dive

The Romagna was a steam tanker built in 1899, about 70 m long and 10 m in the beam, requisitioned and armed in wartime. On the morning of 2 August 1943, carrying fuel from Arbatax to Cagliari, she struck a mine from a recently laid barrier that had been badly marked to her captain. The fuel in her tanks turned the detonation into something far larger: the bow was torn clean off and went down at once, while the rest of the hull drifted on without steering and sank separately. The two pieces now lie apart on the same sand — accounts put the gap at anything from half a mile to 1.5 km — and it is the stern and midships section, roughly 50 to 60 m of ship, that people mean when they say they are diving the Romagna.

That section sits perfectly upright in sailing trim. The sand is at 42 m; the deck and the superstructures rise to just under 30 m, so most of the dive is worked in the 30-40 m band and boats usually drop the shot on the bridge at about 34 m. On a good day the wreck resolves a few metres into the descent and the whole shape of it is visible at once. The propeller and rudder are still in place, oversized and intact, and the deck carries guns, machine-gun mounts, cargo derricks and the funnel. The engine room, the holds and the wheelhouse can all be entered, and the personal traces of the crew are still inside — suitcases, shoes, bottles, cooking pots.

Biologically the hull has done what Mediterranean wrecks do. Explorers Team, which runs the site from Quartu Sant'Elena, describes it as wrapped in so much anthias, damselfish, picarel and sea bream that the structure is sometimes hard to make out, with large groupers, scorpionfish, moray and conger sheltering in the twisted plate, and heavy settlement of fan worms, sponges and sea squirts across the hull. Dentex and amberjack pass through; dolphins turn up occasionally.

This is not an easy dive. Beyond the depth, currents driven by maestrale or scirocco are common, the water is cold on the bottom — one Italian account records a possible freshwater seep dropping it to around 14 °C even in August — and visibility is good only when the current is off. Stay in no-decompression limits and you have roughly fifteen minutes on the wreck if you are careful with depth, which is why most people dive it twice: once outside, once for the detail.

• Propeller and rudder, oversized and still in place
• Bridge and superstructures standing up to about 30 m, hull upright in sailing trim
• Guns, machine-gun mounts, cargo derricks and funnel still on deck
• Crew belongings still inside — suitcases, shoes, bottles, pots
• Clouds of anthias over the hull, with groupers, conger and moray in the plating
• The detached bow, deeper at around 45 m, is dived separately as its own site

Conditions

Open water in the Gulf of Cagliari with no shelter. Sand at 42 m, the wreck standing 12 m proud of it. Boats normally anchor on the vertical of the bridge at about 34 m. Visibility is reported as good when the water is still and poor when the current runs, and the bottom is noticeably colder than the surface — one account describes it as almost lake-like and around 14 °C in August, and attributes both to a probable freshwater source nearby.

On current: Sources disagree and the conservative reading is the safer one. An Italian dive account of the site reports currents from maestrale (NW) or scirocco (SE) as frequent, cold water on the bottom, and visibility that is good only when there is no current; a spot database lists the current here as light. Plan for moving water and a shot line you may have to pull yourself down, and treat the wreck structure as both your route and your reference for the ascent.

Best months: Aug, Sep