Hello Charlie,

Today, let me tell you about the incredible story of the SAGA. In a shed in l’Estaque, there is a submarine called the SAGA. I t was designed in the 50’s by major Cousteau’s team that was in Marseille. They wanted to create a new generation submarine that was able to go further than any other to discover the ocean’s hugeness. They calle dit the ‘Agyronète’. Still, there was a problem : i twas too expensive and no-one wanted to pay for it anymore. The hull was the only thing that was built. In the 70’s, the American government wanted to buy this hull but the IFREMER – the French institute for the study and the using of the seas – and the COMEX - an industrie in Marseille that is working on the technologies for bad environments – decided to create a partnership to keep this technology. In the 80’s, the submarine’s name changes to SAGA. The technologies have evolved since Cousteau’s time and its utilization is too expensive compared to the small robots that had been developed so the SAGA got back in its shed in l’Estaque. In 2012, the government decides to clear the shed but the old team that built it decide to create ‘les compagnons du SAGA’. They fix it and turn the shed into a place for tourism about scuba diving in Marseille’s history. Now, these elderly gentlemen tell the tourists about their memories and make them visit this old machine made of steel.

(The SAGA in its shed).

And also, here is the email address of the ‘compagnons du SAGA’ if you want to visit it : lescompagnonsdusaga@orange.fr