Alcione C Wreck Diving: WWII Tanker in Haute-Corse

Corsica's east coast does not have the postcard citadel of Calvi, and that is why many wreck divers like it. Off Cervione and the harbour at Taverna, an Italian tanker from 1915 sits upright on sand, holed by a wartime torpedo, still wearing the nets that keep fishing her.

The Alcione C is 53.5 metres long and 521 tonnes. She was built in 1915, torpedoed in 1943, and now rests around 33 to 35 metres. That is a French N2 / PADI Advanced Open Water profile: deep enough to feel like a proper wreck, shallow enough that a well-planned recreational dive still has time to look.

This is a boat dive from Taverna / Campoloro, not a shore stroll. Pair it with the B-17 off Calvi if you want two different wars, two different hulls, and one island. For the wider map, she belongs on any honest list of wreck diving in Europe.

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Image by Martin Str

The Story of the Alcione C

The ship began as a small oil tanker from the Gray & Co. yards, 53.5 metres long and 9.36 metres in the beam, with a diesel of a few hundred horsepower. She sailed for the Italian company Cisterne Italiane Soliani & Saltamerenda. Some listings still mention an earlier British name, Anam. Divers will hear both.

By late summer 1943 the war in the Mediterranean had turned. Sicily was in Allied hands. Corsica was about to change sides. A tiny coastal convoy was moving along the island's east shore, the sort of traffic that never makes a grand history and still ends on the seabed.

Accounts collected by local divers describe escorts and an aircraft that arrived fast enough that the tanker never got a long fight. A torpedo did the work. The date most often given is 14 April 1943, in front of Alistro / Taverna. She went down as a working tanker, not as a famous liner, which is why her name is known to divers and almost nobody else.

That anonymity is useful underwater. There was no postwar souvenir rush on the scale of a celebrity wreck. What you get is a hull that is still a hull: decks, winches, anchors, a starboard-aft hole you could park a van in, and two propeller shafts whose screws were later cut away and taken.

She is a war wreck. Treat her that way. Look. Do not take. If anything still looks like cargo or fitting, it stays.

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Depth and Dive Profile

The Alcione C sits upright on sand at about 33 to 35 metres. Superstructure and deck are shallower than the keel, but this is not a wreck with a 15-metre funnel you can treat as an Open Water site.

• Seabed / keel area: 33–35 metres
• Deck and rails: a few metres above that, still well past 18 metres
• Typical dive: shot-line descent, exterior circuit, blue ascent and safety stop

PADI Open Water stops at 18 metres. You will not dive this tanker on that card. PADI Advanced Open Water stops at 30 metres. The wreck straddles that line. Many centres will take AOW divers on a guided profile that stays on the upper structure. A Deep specialty (recreational limit 40 metres) matches the sand without argument.

French N2 is the local equivalent most centres actually check: guided to 40 metres, which covers the whole hull. If you hold N3 or a technical card, you still dive her as a recreational wreck unless you have a reason not to. The site does not require trimix. It requires a plan.

No-stop time at 34 metres is short. Nitrox helps if you are qualified. A square profile on a small tanker is exactly where people blow their computer by "just one more photo" at the hole.

For the training ladder behind those numbers, see how deep you can scuba dive.

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Accessibility and Conditions

Access is by boat from the port of Taverna, on Corsica's eastern Haute-Corse shore. The run is short, on the order of a few kilometres, often around a quarter of an hour in a small dive boat.

The wreck is usually marked with a submerged buoy so boats are not dropping anchors into the hull. If the buoy is missing, skippers who know the site will still find her. Visitors should not be the ones "searching."

Mediterranean conditions apply. Summer vis can be excellent. Plankton, wind, and runoff can cut it. Current is often mild on this sand patch, but "often" is not a promise. The east coast is a different sea from the west: less dramatic rock, more open fetch when the wind is wrong.

Water is typical northern Med: a 5 mm in high summer for many people, more rubber in June and September. A torch is worth bringing even when the sun is high, because the hole, the nets, and the machinery eat light.

This is not a marine park in the Porto Santo sense, but it is still a historic wreck. Dive it with a centre that already works the site, not as a private GPS trophy.

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Skills, Certification and Who Can Dive It

Minimum sensible card: French N2 or PADI Advanced Open Water, with recent 30-metre dives in the logbook. Deep specialty is the comfortable match for the sand.

You want:

• Reliable buoyancy at 30-plus metres
• Comfort on a shot line in blue water
• A habit of watching no-stop time without being told
• No interest in untrained penetration

The starboard-aft hole is wide. Wide is how people talk themselves into "it's not really penetration." It is an opening in a ship. Silt, snag points, and a ceiling still exist. If you do not hold wreck-penetration training, you look in from outside.

Nets are still on the wreck and they still catch fish. They will also catch you. A wreck diving briefing that does not mention the nets is an incomplete briefing.

If Corsica is your first European wreck after warm-water holidays, consider a guided orientation dive before the tanker. Narcosis at 34 metres is ordinary, not dramatic, and it is exactly when nets look like interesting texture.

A wreck specialty is the right course if you want more than a swim-around. Start with the wreck diving certification guide, then ask the centre how they actually run Alcione C.

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What You Will See

The wreck is almost intact and sitting "well à plat," as French guides like to say: flat, upright, readable. You do not need a site map to know bow from stern after two minutes.

The signature feature is the huge hole on the starboard aft side, the wound from the torpedo. It is the photo, the briefing landmark, and the place where buoyancy gets tested because everyone wants to hover in the same window.

Other landmarks:

• Winches and deck gear still in place
• Anchors still at their stations
• Superstructure that looks a little odd, with machinery that crowds the spaces
• Twin propeller shafts — a rarity on a small merchant tanker — with the screws themselves cut off and gone
• Nets and trawls draped over the hull, still fishing

Life on a Corsican sand wreck is Mediterranean rather than tropical. Expect grouper that have decided the tanker is their hill, corb in the darker gaps, spirograph worms, and the usual bream and anthias-like noise of a Med reef. Fan mussels (Pinna nobilis) are sometimes reported around the site; they are protected. Look, do not pocket a souvenir shell.

Photographers treat Alcione C as an ambient wreck with one big interior-looking hole. Wide-angle for the hull and the breach. A torch for the nets and the grouper. Do not count on a second dive the same day unless the centre plans it; the depth eats the clock.

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How to Dive the Alcione C

Kit up in Taverna, listen to the model of the hull, and get the hole, the bow, and the shafts into your head before you splash.

Descent is down the shot or the buoy line. Do not free-fall in the blue and "find the tanker." You will find nitrogen and a mid-water search.

On the wreck, a clean circuit is bow to stern along one side, across the hole, back the other side, then a decision about the shafts if gas and time remain. The sand at 35 metres is the turn point, not the hang-out.

Stay outside. Use the hole as a frame, not a door. If a guide goes into a wide space, that is not a group invitation unless the briefing said it was, and even then it is only for divers with the training.

Watch the nets. Swim with purpose. Keep gauges in the loop every minute, not every five. At this depth the computer is not a suggestion.

Ascent is back up the line. Safety stop in the blue. SMB if the boat wants one. Do not end the dive with a long swim on the surface in a shipping approach to a small harbour.

If conditions are poor, the centre will call it. East-coast Corsica has other dives. A cancelled tanker is better than a 35-metre silt-out.

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Logistics: East-Coast Corsica and a Calvi Pairing

Fly into Bastia for the east coast, or into Calvi / Figari / Ajaccio if the rest of the holiday is elsewhere. Taverna / Campoloro is the practical harbour for Alcione C. You want a centre that runs this wreck as a normal product, not as a maybe.

Season is the Mediterranean wreck season: roughly May to October, with July and August the warmest and the busiest. Early and late season can be clearer and less crowded. Winter is for people who already live here.

Do not ask the internet for a secret "best shop." Ask whether they boat to Alcione C regularly, how they mark the wreck, what card they require, and whether they treat nets and penetration as real hazards.

The natural pairing on the same island is the B-17 Flying Fortress off Calvi, a ditched bomber on sand at about 28 metres under the citadel. It is a different war story, a different shape, and a west-coast day. Read the B-17 Flying Fortress in Corsica guide if you are building a two-wreck week.

Further along the French wreck trail, the Donator off Hyères is another Mediterranean cargo with a serious following. Alcione C is smaller and less famous. That is not a weakness.

Bring certification cards, insurance that covers 40 metres, and a torch. If you have not dived 30 metres this year, say so.

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Safety and Respect on a War Wreck

Alcione C is not advertised as a munitions dump, but she is a wartime tanker. Do not recover "bits." Do not disturb nets in a way that creates new snags for the next pair.

Penetration without wreck training is how simple dives become case studies. The hole is photogenic because it is a hole. Leave it that way.

If you feel narcosis, end the close-up work and get back to the line. The tanker will still be here. Your judgement is the thing that leaves.

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Final Thoughts

The Alcione C is a complete little tanker on sand: upright, holed, netted, and deep enough to make Advanced certification feel like it was for something. She is a short boat ride from Taverna, a clean circuit if you stay outside, and a poor choice for a first 30-metre dive after a long layoff.

Dive her with N2 or AOW and a centre that already knows the buoy. Pair her with the Calvi B-17 if you want Corsica to show you both a ship and a bomber. Then put her on your Europe wreck list where she belongs: not as a celebrity, but as a hull that still looks like the ship that went down in 1943.