(26-01-10) Our tireless reporter in the Ría de Arousa, in his particular marathon of underwater photography, this time leads us to a corner near O'Grove, in front of Porto Meloxo, under the lighthouse of Laxe.

    Hello my friends. I think that this week I will introduce you one of the most difficult articles I’ve ever written, not because of bad weather, or because the depth or anything estrange…

    Do you remember that the last time I dived in O’Grove I promised you I would come back? So, here I am again, diving with my friend Santy and his dive center Bahía-Sub. I love the way he has organised his center and I want to talk a bit about it, just in case you’d like to come, and I hope so, you won’t regret.

    Apart from being owners of the center Bahía-Sub, Santy and his family also own the Hotel Bahía, in O’Grove, where many people stay at the weekend when they come to dive. Facilities of the dive center and the hotel do not have anything to envy to others in Spain, and they have the advantage that, as they are of the same company, everything revolves around your weekend diving.

    The family knows that scuba divers pay for our hobby, we spend the few euros we have left at the end of the month in our enjoyment and relaxation to start well the hard week of work ahead.

    I have dated Santy at 9:15 am in the hotel to have a coffee befor going to the sea. To arrive on time, I had to leave my home at 8:00 am, it was still night, and just a few 800 m. far from my house, on reaching the roundabout access to the fast lane, I saw a row of stopped cars.

TO START WITH, ALCOHOL CONTROL

    "An accident", I think, but the police’s blue stopeed marker lamps over the car tell me that it isn’t, it is a breathalyser test that everybody has to pass. When my turn comes, I lower the window to receive the policeman while I hear a familiar voice from behind saying to me: "Where are you going so early, mate?"

    He was a friend that knows what I do on Sunday morning and that reads these articles. For the moment, he doesn’t dive, but something tells me he will soon. After small talk he let me leave without having to blow and I go on my way to O'Grove.

    When I arrive, during the coffee, Santy introduces me the group of people I am going to share boat and dive. We are two small groups: two Portuguese, four from Madrid and I. Five of the Portuguese are volunteer firemen in the town Cete, and the other two are their instructor and their General. They come to get the OWD, and the two couples from Madrid, who know this magazine and my section, come to know the rich waters of Galician Rías.

    Today the sky is completely clear, the ambient temperature is 13ºC and the sea is calm. The wind blows from the North, but not very heavy and it does not lift the sea.

    When all the equipments have been checked and put in the semi-rigid boat of 8.5 meters, we leave the port of Meloxo to go to the point of dive. Today, Santy has chosen a quiet and shallow area where the future Portuguese divers can practice safely.

    The site chosen is the “Sinal do Laxe”, a lighthouse. With the lighthouse in the centre, this place is horseshoe-shaped. It is longer and has small caves in the north and it is sandier and has flat rocks in the south.

THIRTY MINUTES TO TAKE PICTURES

    Despite de fact that it is Santy who gives the briefing, today is Victor, the Portuguese instructor, who rules in the boat, and the most difficult thing is that I only have forty minutes for the dive, so I only have thirty minutes to take pictures.

    As you already know, and answering an email from a reader of the last week, the pictures of the articles are the ones I take in every dive. I use zoom lens, which gives me more versatility. Now I am using the Sigma 17-70 macro; until Christmas I used the 18-55 one. Although it depends on the depth, my dives usually last 60 minutes, and I know the places. Today… new place, half the time and new mate… how stressful!  Everything new!! Because of it, I cannot say that these are my best pictures…

    As I was saying, the maximum depth is about 12 m. and today my mate is Rui Gomes, the Portuguese General of the volunteers, who has extensive experience in diving and is an expertise in recovering bodies.

    Once down, although there are about 6 meters of visibility, the lack of gorgonians or any other living organism that could be pictured, makes me realize that the area is not the best one for ambience photography.

    Furthermore, as I told you in the previous article, I miss a model… But it is ok, I do what I can and try to take a picture of Rui in any interesting place, I also try it with an urchin… but definitely today it is not my best day. I do not focus well and I do not realised until reaching home, so this is the best picture with model I have taken today.

    I promise this won’t happen again. I have realized my mistakes and I will correct them.

    The area with caves is full of small fishes, ballan wrasse, small walleys, spider crabs and crabs that, as me, enjoy their day off.

    Today we are well into the water, without current, the temperature is 14 º C, the visibility 6 meters ... what else could we want?

    The answer is easy: more time, because we have been here for 20 minutes and I haven’t done anything worthy of you. I pretend no to have heard, so that Rui does not look at his watch, but he approaches me and makes me the sign that it's time to turn back.

TWENTY MINUTES HAVE GONE AND WE HAVE TO COME BACK

    Resigned ... I pay attention to him and we come back to the starting point. Now I am trying to extend a bit behind the dive, looking at each rock, each sponge to see if I see something interesting, looking for some nudibranch... something that I haven’t shown before, while I take some pictures to fish, making sure that at least I get the modest face of a wrasse like this.

    Just before reaching the end, when the anchor of the boat is seen, some nudibranches hypselodoris cantabrica appear. Although I had shown them to you before, not in this way: they are mating.

    I don’t know if you know how these animals reproduce, but for those who are unaware, these are Hypselodorus Cantabrica, the nudibranch living in our waters, and I only know this name. Some people call them the “blue nudi”, but that depends since there are three or more. They are very often seen these days and, both in the shallow as 40m deep, I have had the opportunity to see them.

    To mate they meet each other inversely, it is, they join reproductive organs before spawning. In breeding seasons, they can be seen everywhere, in pairs or groups of seven or eight. I also show you a closer picture so that you can learn to recognize them.

    It is easy to mistake them for their relatives the hyps. Villafranca or the hyps. Tricolor as their colours and habitats are very similar.

    The Cantabrica is bigger, up to 6.7 cm. long. Its body is blue with a yellow edge along the whole body that ends in another purple. In the back, its yellow lines are discontinuous, of various sizes and thicknesses, and can be even yellow dots.

    Their relatives are more monotonous, but I will explain that with a photo.

    With the macro picture of this urchin the last moment, I say goodbye for today. This is the best of the 40 minutes I have dived enjoying with Santy in O'Grove. As always, I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed doing it.

    And you know that you can contact the magazine or me if you are interested in a particular dive. jacoboalonso@horminor.com Also, I would like to ask you a favour, I would like to know your opinion about the articles… so getting your 10 mark is my aim. Seriously, thank you.

Text and pictures: Jacobo Alonso
http://fotosub-jacoboalonso.blogspot.com
We have dived with www.bahiasub.com