In this series of articles I will try that all divers and sea lovers that still have not seen the power of the area where I was born, discover the beauty round me.
I am going to need readers to collaborate, so any reader can ask for what he or she wants, instead of writing about what I like and bore all of you with my stories. Why don’t we do something? What about organising my weekend and telling me what area of the Galician sea you want to know? This way, it will be much funnier for all of us, and you won’t find articles about dives that you already know.
To do so, you can contact me through the web site or through my email: jacoboalonso@horminor.com, though the best would be contact me for both ways.
Galician coastline, and specially the one in Ria of Arousa, has one of the richest in nutrients waters in the world, and, with no doubt, in Spain. Hence, our seafood is the best and biodiversity of our waters is so wide that you can find a lot of life in just one dive.
For divers, on the contrary, due to that amount of plankton, our sea is green and the visibility is from 10 to 20 feet, although sometimes Neptune helps us and visibility is 50 or 65 feet. Water temperature here is from 13ºC to 16ºC 59 feet deep. So, if you have thought about coming and you have a dry suit, don not doubt it: bring it.
DIVE IN “A FANEQUEIRA”
Last Sunday morning, as every weekend, we meet in “Club Náutico de Santa Eugenia” in Ribeira to enjoy one dive. This time we have decided to dive in “A Fanequeira”, as the center Hydronauta, our usual dive center, has called this place because of the large amount of pouts (“faneca” in Spanish) that live here.
But this is not the only animal we will see, as in the bottom we will find the biggest land of gorgonian in Galicia and one of the biggest in Spain, although this is something to confirm.
This site is in the middle of the ria, 2,3 miles far from the coast. When we go down, we use to do it with EAN 32 as at the beginning the deep is 59 feet, and in the SE area it reaches 105 feet. The place is of granitic rock covered with jewel anemone, and has small caves where we can find pouts, octopuses, Lesser spotted dogfish, red hogfish… but today we are interested in seeing the land of gorgonians.
The gorgonian, Eunicella verrucosa, is a species from the North Atlantic, and in the British Islands it is a protected species. In England, it is yellowish, but in our waters it is white usually.
Today, we have been lucky and the visibility is 33 feet. We are used to see distances of only 10 to 16 feet, so the visibility today is excellent. Gorgonian are cnidarians, it is, sea nettles, and they grow from 0.032 to 0.1 feet per year. Thus, in this dive, controlling the buoyancy is basic not to damage our beloved land of little filtering animals.
What call me more attention in this dive weren’t the gorgonian, but a pair of fish called Lesser spotted dogfish mating (what, almost was the picture of the year in the “National G”). Some of my movements, breathing or just my presence, made this beautiful fishes separate. During the mating, the female stays straight while the male literally puts itself round the female to fertilize her.
I hope you have enjoyed this reading. See you in a next dive in Galicia.
Text and pictures: Jacobo Alonso.
(http://fotosub-jacoboalonso.blogspot.com/)
