The shellfish divers and its treasures.

Inclination to draft: For restaurants Richard Keen appeared before Guernsey after scallops. But what he hochholt, is not only delicious? 5000 historical artifacts he has brought to the surface. Museums no longer know where to put all its treasures.

 

The visibility was poor, five, six meters, perhaps, now and then came a cold flow, and it was for a short time ten. The water was full of streaks, sand and silt, which is in regular clashes from seabed to resolve seemed.

Richard Keen was falling deeper and deeper, and then, as he already believed that the sonar had been mistaken, he saw it. Only a few seconds, the long-algae plants views, but he could ship the screw clearly recognize broad as two men in the sea bed rest as the rest of the ship, in whose skeleton covered with mussels Richard Keen now surfaced.

That his heart beat faster, was hardly at the narrowness of the hull. It was June, and Keen, the day before after Guernsey scallops dipped in order to feed his family, the Fund had just made his life. The skeleton, which he saw in front of you, undoubtedly belonged to the "Stella".

FOUND IN ...

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The Journal of the seas

Issue No.. 72
Cover Story: Faces of the seas
Feb. 2009

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The ship was 1899 before Alderney gone on a reef, with its fuselage aufschlitzte. Only eight minutes later drove to the sea surface just a few more lifeboats. The "Stella" was continued and 105 people with her life. Now it was before Keen skeletons in the sand.

And suddenly he was all the pain that the accident to the Channel Islands had so aware that he swam 20 years and nobody told by his fund. Only occasionally, he came back in order to immerse the ashes collected in scallops, which he at the restaurant "La Frégate" sold, one of the best in the islands.

"The scallops," says Keen, "Gracious is a breadwinner. If just there in the sand. One has only to cancel, such as fallen fruit." He pushes with a fork on his plate down, three fleshy mussels like ships in the sauce, steaming Knoblauchsud rises. He schubs a piece on the tines, verspeist the mussels and shows with a fork into the open sea off Guernsey beyond. Almost every day he appears, summer and winter, always in the wetsuit. He was, he says, undoubtedly the man with the most dives in Europe, maybe even the world.

From shellfish to marine archaeologists divers

"I am now 58th with 16, I started to dive for restaurants, for 20 pounds a day. More than a year of my life I have spent under water, always in search of scallops." Keen holds one of his paws, which are tanned by the salt water, such as gloves. It would take only large animals, not the small, so that the replenishment secured. And never more than 20 or 30 pieces a day, which he then sold approximately 150 pounds.

Keen, shellfish divers, is far to Keen, the marine archaeologist, has become. The nearby Museum sigh, the capacity limits have long been exceeded, but it helps nothing. "If I get long, then I think that's something," says Keen. "It's almost as if the artifacts are waiting for me to be found."

Centuries was in the Port of Guernsey, the wreck of a Roman galleon trade, undetected, until the shellfish diving Keen on a strange piece of wood came. The cargo hold was full of amphorae with fish sauce. Another ship, by 290 AD fallen, had loaded wheat and bad luck. They found four wrecks Keen medieval ships, amphorae, cannons. 5000 artifacts are there till today. "For me are not important gold and silver, but the little things, those stories about the people tell. People always ask me whether I've found a treasure in all the years. Then I answer always: Ask no questions, I will tell no lies. "

Anyway, it is nothing more than shells. He now sells them only to "Frégate" and the restaurant of a friend. "I work only for people who appreciate the highest quality. Everything else seems pointless." Here, in "Frégate" overlooking the harbor, the cook the roasted clams still in butter, now as then. They are delicious.

La Frégate Hotel & Restaurant