Marcella

The dive

The Marcella was a large French ocean-going trawler, built in 1932 at the Saint-Nazaire yards. The Kriegsmarine requisitioned her in 1942 and converted her into a submarine hunter, UJ 2210, of the 22nd flotilla; in that role she is credited with sinking the British submarine HMS Tigris north-west of Stromboli in February 1943. She was herself torpedoed while escorting a small convoy between La Spezia and Genoa, off the coast between Deiva Marina and Framura, and broke in two.

That break is what makes the dive. The bow section, roughly 25 m of it, stands almost vertical with its point rising to about 42 m, which is both the shallowest steel on the site and the reason it photographs the way it does. The stern lies on a muddy bottom at around 68 m, leaning slightly to port, heavily silted, with three decks reachable through open hatches. At the break itself there is a gun and an ammunition rack; a spare propeller has lain on the bottom nearby since 2010, and the funnel still carries the housing of a machine-gun position. Anchor chain, torn plating and the shapes of a warship's fittings fill the ground between the two halves.

Sources disagree on the details, so take the conservative reading. The sinking is given as 28 May 1944, at around 03:40, by a torpedo from MTB 419 in two accounts, while the Ligurian wreck register dates it 28 May 1943; the same register puts the convoy running La Spezia to Genoa and one dive report has it the other way. Depths are quoted as 42 m at the bow and 68 m at the stern by two sources, and 45 m and 65 m by a third. Plan for 68 m. On the wreck the life is what a deep Ligurian hull carries: conger eels in the twisted metal, lobsters in the wreckage, nudibranchs for the macro divers, and Leptogorgia and Eunicella soft corals on the structure, which is also how divers read the current here, by watching them.

• About 25 m of bow standing almost vertical, rising to 42 m
• Gun and ammunition rack at the break between the sections
• Stern on mud at around 68 m with three decks open through hatches
• Funnel still carrying a machine-gun position housing
• A spare propeller lying on the bottom since 2010
• Leptogorgia and Eunicella soft corals, congers, lobsters and nudibranchs

Conditions

A deep offshore wreck on the eastern Ligurian coast between Deiva Marina and Framura. Expect low light at 42 m and less at 68 m, poor visibility near the silted stern, and some current on the structure. Nobody publishes a visibility number for the site, which is itself the answer: it varies and it is often bad at the bottom.

On current: Current is present and is normally judged from the way the Leptogorgia and Eunicella on the structure are lying; no source gives a strength. The bigger variable is visibility, which is poor near the bottom because the stern sits in silt that is easily stirred. Sources also disagree on the depths, 42 m and 68 m in two accounts against 45 m and 65 m in a third, and on the sinking date, 1944 in two accounts against 1943 in the Ligurian wreck register; we have taken the deeper and later readings.