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We start our dive at 18/20 mt depht swimming towards west, to check out a very nice slope that starts from 10 to 35 mt depht. If we have a look in the rocks holes we notice that there' s loads of red coral, but if we look at the walls we can see the big coral fans, brushed by the eventual corrents, and behind them many gropers and other big size fish are hiding.
As we come back at 15 mt, we notice a cave that has a big rock in front of its way in,but we still can easilly get in it, admireing all the light games that the sunlight creates. We swim through the cave and we get to see big cray fish and good size fish, till we can exit our face the water as we have reached a siphon. We decide then to get out the cave and once we're out we can have our safety stop. |
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We descend along the reference line to get to the bottom, at 25 mt, where we see many many red sea fans. We go a bit deeper keeping the wall on our left hand side, where we can see a few moray eels, red coral brunches in the holes, and a huge grouper resting between the rocks. At some stage we get to a canyon at 35 mt depht, and we realize we are surrounded by amazing size coral fans, creating nice light games in good visibility days. In our assent we will not forget to look at the open sea side, as huge snappers swim pass hunting scared little fish. We also get to swim through a little cave at 15 mt depht, wich houses cray fish like lobsters and also a moray eel.. |
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We are discending along the mooring line and once on the bottom we cruise South, on the top of a pitch of aquatic plants called Poseidonia, we still are around 22 mt deep. We can see the ship bow where sits the huge anchor and a bollard with its rope around. We follow the shape of the ship with the starboard on our right hand side, where we sneack in the holds every down there.
If we go to the stern we get to 40 mt deep, where lives a really big eel, and moving over the port side we start our ascend as well. At the bow again, this time we can quitely have a look through the window to see the loads of breams absolutely standing still. At this stage cruise on the top of the broken metal parts here and there, on a plateau at 12 mt depth and we notice how those have been colonized by moray eels and octopus.
In summer time, if we are lucky, in this area we can find many sunfish, sometimes attracted by the divers.. |
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This dive site offers a really big bio-diversity as we can find so many different species. We discend along the mooring line till we reach the bottom, then we head West to visit the nice wall that goes down to 30 mt. Swimming with the wall on our right side we can see beautiful coral fans and in the holes loads and loads of red coral with the polyps all out their branches to reach the plancton carried by the corrent as well as lobsters, nudibrancs and amazing size sea daisies that somewhere make the holes in the wall completely yellow! We carry on and after 100 mt swim we get to a slide down that we follow towards the surface for a few meters, till we find a kind of "plateau" that we use as a reference for our return. After only a few meters, at 10 mt depht, on our way back we find a huge crack in the wall on our left shoulder that looks like a vault, which inside has a spectacular show offered by millions of sea daises and red coral, a big moray eel and a timid grouper only a meter away from us. We crowl till the end of the cave and we can find out the particular phenomenon created by fresh water mixing with sea water, an horizontal "line" in the water formed by their two different densities. We exit the cave and we turn left so we get to see big groupers all around us, blue snappers and breams all over the place. Another 20 mt Est and we easilly find the boat that's waiting for us.. |
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The journey will be around a sea shoal that has the mooring line ending at 10 mt depht. We descend on the bottom in between the shoal and the wall because here are moray eels and groupers, at 20 mt deep. We keep the shoal on the right and we arrived by many big coral fans that go till 30 mt depht. We get to the open side that faces South, so in the holes our torchesl ight up red corals and lobsters while tunas and snappers are hunting small fish offering us a spectacular show!
We running short of time so we gotta swim on the top of the shoal while we admire huge size brown groupers, octopus, moray eels and thousands of small fish litterally surrounding us.
You won't forget this dive.. |
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This dive has an easy journey, but the mooring line ends on the sea bed at 30 mt, so that we can also choose to discend along the wall in the little bay. From there we can choose to visit the wall full of red coral, yellow daises and lobsters or to get to the bottom to check out the huge sea fans that, at 40 mt depht, have colonized that area.
We swim with the wall on our left side but we ascended to a plain 15 mt deep, to see the big ammount of blu snappers, Samsung fish and groupers not disturbed by our presence.. although we better get our way back, and we have the safety stop we enjoy thousands of little fish creating light reflections with Sun-rayses all around our bubbles. |
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This is one the best dives around this area, and it's located just below a little tower built many years ago to foreworn invasions from other countries by the sea.
The mooring line takes us on a 20 mt sea bed but right wawy we head South-West to find a short but deep wall that start at 22 mt and goes down till 40 mt. In the meanwhile we notice at the start of the wall some moray eels standing with half body out their nest.
Swimming with the wall on the right shoulder we admire as the sea fans have reached a huge size and they all have their polyps out to feed of plancton carried by the corrent. Attached on them we can see a few shark eggs, which we light up with the torches so that we can see the shark embryos.
We arrived at the end of the wall, so we slowly ascend till 15 mt depht, on the top of a plateau covered by Poseidonia where 3 big rocks hide thousands of yellow sea daisies.
After a little while we realize are surrounded by huge size blue snappers, groupers and hundreds of yellow and silver breams. some are slowly swimmig near us, some are standing still creating awesome light-games with the sun-rays!
We running short of time so we better have our safety stop in the little bay next to the mooring line, still checking out small holes with octopus and moray eels inside them, but also a few big groupers chilling out in the warmer water. |
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This dive site is a mix of plains and walls and it's located by the Eastern cape of Portofino peninsula called Punta della Chiappa.
Our journey starts from the base of the mooring line, which is 18 mt deep. Right away we head South on top of a slope made of big rocks where many amazing size snappers come to check us out together with brown groupers, till we reach a steep wall that goes down till 37 mt. This wall is particularly rich of red coral, lobsters, other kind of cray fish and sometimes some dogfish too.
We get close to the bottom, around 30 mt deep, where we find a big cave which hides a huge colony of rare red crabs about 15 cm size with really long antennas and if we take care of swimming very slow we'll see the snappers while they hunt them..
It is time for us to get out the cave to visit the big sea fans that are populating the wall and we notice their polyps all out to catch the plancton carried by the strong current. From then on we can start our ascend towards the plateau located from 20 mt till 15 mt deep, and it's there where we'll see big trevallys swimming pass as well as tunas, snappers, groupers chasing scared octopus here and there..
After this spectacular show we really have to get back at 5 mt to have our safety stop where we still can play with small curious fish all around us.. |
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This is one of the most beautiful dives in this area for its big coral fans, and it's visited likely by a bit more expirienced divers, because of its depht. We head South, around 30 mt depht swimming beside a big wall we'll find many passing fish and really big sea fans almost covering the whole place, that have dog fish eggs on them. From then on, the experienced divers can keep the dissent till 50 mt, where, they will find the really rare Gerardia savaglia, or communly called fake black coral. Our no-deco time won't be too long so we gotta come back towards the shore, so that we will end up in a bright sand canyon, in much swallower waters, and with the left shoulder at the wall, while we ll have the safety stop, we can still have a look at groupers and octopus in their holes. |
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The dive starts by a 15 mt sea bed, then we head South towards the wall that faces leads us direction West at a 35 mt depth. It is rich of red coral, coral fans and Spirografo. We are still swimming West when we find other two walls with coral, moray eels, lobsters and scorpion fish. It' s time to get our way back North, so we follow a plain that starts from 20 mt and arrives at 5 mt depth, where we find two big pinnacles, which are going to be our perfect playground to have the safety stop. |
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We discend to the concrete block on the bottom, so we start laying up for a small wall, formed by two really big rocks which are part of a slope coming from West. Her we meet up with lobsters and red coral, in the holes. We are 25 mt deep, heading West, and we can choose to go deeper at the bottom of this slope at 35 mt, either to go back up at 15 mt. Either ways we can see many many red crabs, octopus, groupers, moray eels and other type of smaller crays.. if we carefully look at the open sea side, in the blue, we can catch sight of the blue-snappers shapes swimming back and foward hunting bait fish. We got to get back Est, holding on the 10-15 mt sea level, while we observe the thousands of different breams easilly grazeing around us..it's time for a safety stop.. |
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Spectacular dive that's ricognizable out the water for a round shaped rock, like a raviolo..
We start on a 14 mt depht bottom and we swim on top of sea weed to get to a siphon in a wall. The entrance is 23 mt deep and inside there are pretty corals and sponges, that at the end of the siphon let room to an unbelivable amount of prawns and red coral that sometimes we can confuse with the lobster's antennas.
We exit the siphon and turn left, so that we notice straight away the beautiful sea fans on the wall. We're 33 mt deep and we see big schools of breams that are creating nice light games with the sun rays.
We are about to get our way back but there is still time to check out two beautiful small caves before we return.
When we got back at 15 mt almost at the end of the wall we find two big moray eels in between the rocks and farther, on a small plain with a little cave, we find a beautiful cave inside which there is fresh water from a spring in the mount.
It' stime to get back by the boat but still on our way we see groupers, snappers and Sanbo's hunting little fish around like silver bullets in the blue.. |
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Just Est of S. Fruttuoso bay there is the Colombara dive site, that's got the mooring line on a 10 mt sea bottom. We head direction South-Est to find a big wall that gets till 36 mt deep, where there is a huge cave, in which we can see a magnificent yellow rainbow of sea daises, red coral and lobsters. We get out the cave with the wall on our left side and we can't miss out the beautiful coral fans that hide many lobsters.
We ascend at 22 mt where we notice a nice tunnel that inside hides hundreds of little prawns and corals, but when we exit it we can admire 5 or 6 big groupers, snappers barracudas and loads of breams easilly grazing around us..
We decide then to start our return, but on the way back at 12 mt depht we still can have a look in the holes in rocks where hide octopus and moray eels, but also we find a crack in the wall that turns in two canals: the left side one has no way out, the right one ends in a siphon where we can breathe air coming from the surface and admire stalagmites and stalactites..
After this spectacular dive we must come back to 5 mt and have our safety stop and end our dive... |
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We start the dive on a 18 mt bottom, which is a slope that goes down till 40 mt where there is the bottom of a deep wall, direction South-West.
We can travel with the wall on the right side lighting up in the holes where we see the tipical mediterranean fauna like red scorpion fish, moray eels, nudibrancs and lobsters; we also notice that the wall is completely covered by the sea fans.
We are 25 mt deep now on a Poseidonia field that goes up to 20 mt where it turns into a big green algae patch. We must not to forget to look at the open sea side as eventually some Samsung fish or blue snappers are swimming pass. We either cannot miss out to meet the usual breams that are grazing around.
We can ascend to 10 mt and have a look around, playing with little curious fish and then have our safety stop.. |
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This dive site takes its name from a big cave just above the surface where they tell a hermit has lived many many years ago..
The dive is mainly developed on a big slope, which hides a lot of fish between its big rocks. In particular around, in the first 18 mt depht, we can find many territorial octopus in the reproductive season as well as a few moray eels, big blue snappers and brown groupers.
As we keep our discend we'll find really colourful corals like Leptosammia pruvoti and fake red coral, beautiful sponges, crabs and big nudribrancs.
While we are heading Est we swim on top of Poseidonia fields where here and there we find huge oysters which inside have small crabs and prawns..
Our way back will be with the wall on the right side around 10 mt deep where we meet thousands of smaller fish that will come to visit us while we check out small cracks and holes in the rocks where live different type of fish and corals.. |
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Dive grade: select the map to know the dive' s grade and click on it to enlarge its map:
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