Le Polynesien is in fact a wreck from world war one which is rather unique in the waters around Malta. Although there were lots of action also at sea, WW1 was more land based than WW2. It was also the first war where submarines played a major role and the worlds navies were not well prepared to deal with this threat. At first the submarine war was carried out in a rather civilised way with submarines approaching ships while being fully visible and allowing the crews of the vessels to abandon the ship before sinking it with torpedoes. This was common in the Baltic Sea and some ships which were sunk like this are Direktor Reppenhagen, Nicomedia and Walter Leonhards who were all sunk in one day by the British submarine E19.

Even if the U-boats of the Imperial Navy are not well remembered by the historians today they nearly managed to win WW1 for Germany. A full account of the can be read at uboat.net, a site which has copious amounts of information about German submarines.

Le Polynesien was torpedoed outside Malta on the 10th of August 1918 supposedly by UC22 with a loss of 10 lives. The sources are very unclear about this and some rumours are that it was UB68 under the command of Karl Dönitz which was responsible for the sinking. It is also extremely hard to find much information at all about the sinking so I leave this question open. Up to the sinking Le Polynesien had sailed since 1890 and had she had been used as a troop ship during WW1 and was armed with guns at the bow and the stern.

She is an enormous ship – 152 metres long and has a design similar to that of the Titanic – a sleek hull with a very sharp bow.

Diving the Le Polynesien is hard to describe. The marine life is incredible and there are schools of groupers as well as a cloud of smaller fish. She is completely covered in corals and sponges and this makes it feel more like a tropical dive than one in the Mediterranean. And then there is of course the wreck. She is still in good condition with the bow and stern still standing and you can easily swim through the decks. The guns are standing and there are lots of plates and wine bottles around although many of them are unfortunately stolen by less considerate divers.

This is not an easy dive. First of all we have the depth – about 67 metres to the bottom. The top of the wreck is about 45 metres which is not too bad. Then we have the sheer size of her – she is simply too big to see in one dive and many divers have been carried away while diving her, seriously overstaying the planned bottom time. Finally, there are often very strong currents on her and getting swept away is very dangerous. Thus, I regard this as a technical dive and one that should be done with trimix rather than air although many locals here may have a different opinion.

Le Polynesien is one of these dives which can not be compared to any normal dive so I have given her Platinum status in my books. She is such a good dive so she is well worth a dive trip herself and to organise a technical dive week on only this wreck would not be a bad idea. If you get the chance to dive her – go for it. Few dives in the world will be as rewarding as this one!

Diver at the propeller