(15-12-09) In the heart of the Ría de Arousa (Pontevedra, Spain), a rocky islet defines the navigation channel of large vessels. It is the Illa de Rúa, ideal for scuba diving with or without bottle. It is the fourth article of our tour of dives in the Galician Rías.

    Hello everybody. This week we have still bad weather and the truth is that I thought I had to go to dive on earth again. In fact, this week we hadn’t planned the dive, but on Thrusday Jacinto, owner of the dive center Hydronauta in Ribeira, called a small group of known divers to go out on Monday and Tuesday.

    We met as usually at 10 a.m., and we intended to go to Rúa, the island where we dive many times and which allows us to dive when it is impossible to do in other areas of the ría.

    Rúa Island is exactly in the middle of the Ría de Arousa and, besides being a natural signal to indicate the channel for the passage of vessels of large tonnage, it is also a great area for diving, whether in apnoea or with autonomous equipment, since we can choose between deeper or less deep areas.

The island consists of big granite rocks, which makes the bottom be exactly like the surface. Here we can find big caves from which we can go without problems and see the small European locust lobster in the cave roofs. In smaller caves we can find small fishes, pouts, octopuses, congers or everything we can think of.

TWO HUNDREDS DIVES, ANYONE EQUAL TO THE PREVIOUS ONE

    Many people have told me that Rúa is boring, that it is not a dive for them… Nonsense! I have dived about 200 times in this island and any of them has been equal to the previous one. All of them have been interesting, and many of my best moments under the water have been here.

    In this island we have several “first sightings” on the Galician coasts of species as the Berthellina edwardisi or Prostheceraeus, among others. So, for me, the island is as charming as the first time I wore the autonomous equipment on its shore.

    The dive in this island is around it, as if we move 100 feet there is sand that lead us directly to the bottom of the channel (220 feet deep) or to other rocky areas less deep from where we could not came back because of lack of air.

    As I was saying, we met at 10 a.m. in the dive center, Luis, Aldrey, Nacho, Jacinto and I. All of them are experienced divers and I appreciate them as, for example Aldrey, hyperbaric medical specialist, has been one of my mentors in underwater photography. He helps me to identify species and bit by bit he teaches me in underwater biology during our way to dive points.

    Jacinto, a true sea lover, has one of the longest lists of animal identification I know (about one thousand), all photografied by him in the Ría de Arousa. Such is his passion for sea that in his free time as dive master and manager of his dive center, he goes to dive. For him and his dive center Hydronauta I would need a whole article. And Luis, a good friend for years. His job is 370 miles far from us and he cannot come as much as he would like.

    Today it is rainy and the outside temperature is 12 º C; the wind blows SW direction of at about 12 knots and the sea has waves of 1 to 6.50 ft., but we have faced worse conditions.

ABOARD THE “HYDRONAUTA”, A REFURBISHED SHIP

    Once we have reviewed all the equipments and made the shipment in the dock, we boarded the Hydronauta, a boat “bateeiro” 40 ft in long that Jacinto has refurbished for the practice of recreational diving, and whose main virtue is the large tub it has in order to allow us to equip comfortably.

    After Jacinto has remember us safety instructions we decide the maximum time diving in 80 minutes and not to go further than 50 ft. deep, as if we approach 65 ft. we would be leaving the barrier of the island and we would be exposed to stronger currents.

    Today Aldrey and I are mates. As we know each other and we fell worse outside thatn in water, we decide to wait in the bottom, near the anchor, 26 ft. deep. When I go down, Aldrey is waiting impaciently pointing a Chromodoris purpurea that de swell prevents me from photograph better.

    We are 40 ft. deep. The visibility, because of the lack of sun and the great amount of fresh water on the surface (due to heavy rains that have been this week), is only of 6.5 ft. Water temperature is 14º C, so we feel better in the water than outside.

    Aldrey goes to the deep area while I go behind him unknowing where we are going, but I start to feel the strength of the current, stronger each time, and the presence of yellow and white anemones that live near areas with currents. I ask him where we are going, and he answers me with a strange sign, and I say yes as to crazy people imaging that he knows where he is leading me. In the end, he is leading me to find an anemone that likes the current and that is so common that I didn’t have photographed. Now I only have to know its name.

CRABS AND SPIDER CRABS IN THE AREAS WITH CURRENT

    On the contrary, in the areas with currents, although anemones bites are a constant danger, there is more life, and we soon start to see a great amount of crustaceans very appreciated these days: the crab and the spider crab.

 

 

    For a while, we overfly the rocks without seeing anything interesting we haven’t seen before thousand of times, animals that make the dive nice but which do not draw our attention. Meanwhile, Aldrey lighters with his focus the rocks. He is looking for nudibranches and finds them: a Limacea clavigera and other Doriopsilla pelseneeri. But the swell moves my legs as if they were dancing and I cannot focus well, so the picture of the pelseneeri is not good to show. Although the picture of the limacea is not very good, I can show to you.

    They have passed 55 minutes, and I wonder what Jacinto is doing. He, I don’t know how, always surprises us with new things. Unless to me. So I sign Aldrey to go to look for the rest of the mates and go to the meeting point.

    By the way, for doing less monotonous the dive, we seek the long run, where the rocks end and the sand starts, and there we found something I had never seen before: two big octopuses in the same cave.

    It is something I have heard, but I never believed knowing that octopus is a territorial animal. Aldrey, tired of having seen octopuses, follows the way towards the meeting point with other three mates not to stay alone, and I leave the couple without having taken a better picture.

    When we arrive to the meeting point 70 minutes have gone. The reels of the others are not there and Aldrey sing me to go up. So we go to the platform where we anchored, 18 ft. deep and which is a great place for the safety stop, and because apart from not to lose depth control while we look at the pictures, we can also look for other small fishes among the algae in the surface.

THE WISE PIECES OF ADVISES OF A FRIEND BIOLOGIST

    In this case I remembered the conversations with mi friend the biologist Ricardo Fernández, writer of “Invertebrados marinos del Cantábrico”, and decided to go to search the Elipsisa viridis, a nudibrach of 0.47 in. that lives camouflaged among the alga codium.

    Although the safety stop lasted 12 minutes, I found it, but it was a pity that I had the lens of 7 in. -22 in. and I couldn’t take better pictures. Also, we have to remember the movement caused by the current…

    When I had thought it was the end of the dive, and I have been 90 minutes diving, I raise my head and see a Sygnathus acus, which I haven’t seen for a long time, and decide to take the last picture before going to the surface.

   With this picture the dive ends and also does my biweekly attempt to show you the richness of Galicia. I hope you enjoy reading my articles as much as I like doing them. It is something that, besides relaxing me, makes me demand me more and so improve.

    As always, I remind you that you can contact the magazine or me if you are interested in any particular dive. jacoboalonso@horminor.com Also, I would like to ask you a favour: I would like to know your opinión about these articles, so getting your 10 mark is my aim.