A report issued by the Merchant Marine Headquarters, dated 27 November 1887, provides some interesting information about the bank:
“It’s not very large, as it is simply a large underwater bank measuring about two or three hundred meters in length and less than that in width. The fishermen say that it is shaped like a cone, whose top is about 146 meters from the surface of the sea. In the first few years they harvested a great deal of excellent live coral, although those who cleaned it had to work in shifts because of the restricted area. Since so many boats had come, the bottom was soon thoroughly raked by the ‘ingegni’, such that a few years later fishermen found only a very small quantity of dead and fragmented coral, and the bank having by now become unproductive was abandoned. In May of 1887 the Commander of the royal steamship Muran plumbed its depths 24 times, to a minimum depth of 163 and a maximum of 215 meters; the sea bed was also dredged using the device employed by the coral boats but all they found was grey sand, with no trace of coral; they did not even find the summit of the cone or the top of the bank mentioned by the fishermen.”
Food for thought: there had been a mountain of coral and now it no longer existed. The fishermen had torn from the sea from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 70 meters of coral!
In 1878 something new happened: around the beginning of August a new bank was discovered, not very far from the first. A description is provided in a Report issued by the Merchant Marine Headquarters: “as they were lamenting the scarce product of the first bank, a second one was discovered about 12 miles south-west of the previous one, almost 24 miles from Capo San Marco, at a bearing of 45°SW’.
“According to the fishermen this bank had a surface area of seven nautical miles in circumference and appeared to be an appendix to the adjacent Graham Shoal, which is significantly higher. Three coral zones were found in a NE, SE and WNW direction from the center of the bank, forming a channel over one mile long and three quarters of a mile wide. The zone to the northeast, which has provided good coral, lies at a depth of 80 to 85 meters, the eastern zone forms an inclined plane, from 90 to 95 meters deep while the western zone is less deep and is more favorable to the production of coral.
“Mindful of what had happened a few years prior, fishermen and boats from all over came, “numbering approximately 500, from Torre del Greco, Leghorn, Sciacca, and Trapani. There were even some boats from France and Malta and the product of the first year exceeded two and a half million lire”.
Highly significant in giving an idea of the conditions in which the fishermen worked in 1878, is the report that Commander G. La Via sends to the Minister:
“I am honored to provide Your Excellency with the following report on coral fishing in the waters of Sciacca.
“Around the end of the month of August 1878 several fishermen from Sciacca, who usually went fishing quite a distance from the coast, happened to find some pieces of coral in their nets, suggesting that there might be a coral bank in the vicinity, and this soon became a certainty. As soon as the news of this discovery became known, the site was inundated not only by all the boats of Sciacca, but also from nearby coasts and so the sardine fishermen soon became coral fishermen. Not last to arrive were the boats from Torre del Greco that usually went coral fishing along the coasts of Africa, but this time they preferred to go to the new bank that was soon invaded by numerous boats of different origins.
(text taken with license of the author from the book Sciacca Mistery -Giuseppe Rajola)
"To Be Continued..."
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