Today we went diving. SCUBA diving is a relatively new recreational activity for Greece. There are lots of old wrecks in the water, and they didn’t want salvage divers taking off with historic national treasures, so diving was banned altogether. Diving has only been allowed in the last few years, and strict rules still apply. You can only go with a local dive company. You may not go on your own at all. The dive company can only take you to approved places.
We walked over to a small dive center located on the water just northeast of the commercial harbor. We got our stuff ready, then piled into a small speedboat and headed east to the site. The site was right off the shore, just a few miles out of town as the bird flies. Since the road along the bay is windy, it is probably a longer car ride than boat ride. We never got the name of the site. The water was warmer and clearer than we expected, with visibility at 25 meters. Yes, the water is clear and gorgeous looking from the shore, but we didn’t think it would be so good in the water. A pleasant surprise!
We have been told diving in the Med isn’t very good, so we had low expectations. But we had to see for ourselves. While we wouldn’t call the diving spectacular, we did find it to be enjoyable. There were actually quite a few fish in the water, both in variety and size of the schools.
We don’t have a fish book for this region, so we have to revert back to the old days when we just described the fish since we couldn’t look up names. The fish were mostly assorted silver fish, ranging in size from little guys that look like they could be some kind of damselfish to some fairly large ones. There were quite a few grouper, all in shades of brown. We have seen much larger grouper in other places, but some of the grouper here were big enough to give you bragging rights if you caught it fishing. There were also quite a few fish that we think might be turbo, white with racing stripes on their heads. The only colorful fish down there was a small wrasse of some sort. The vibrant little wrasse really stood out amongst the rest. We saw something that looked like it belonged in the blenny or lizardfish families.
The scenery was likewise somewhat monochromatic, but not boring. The reef we were on was a steep hill, looking much the same as the hills do on land in that region, with lots of rocks. The bottom is sandy. There is a white plant that looks like ribbon that grows in small clumps just about everywhere. There were a few small white plants of a different variety, as well, that looked more like a small tumbleweed. The entire area is covered by a grey moss looking substance, possibly dead ribbon plant. There were a few small spots of coral, which gave just the tiniest flicker of color down there.
There were a lot of sponges around. We are actually surprised there are any left in the ocean, since every tourist shop has big displays of sea sponges. There were a few varieties of sea urchins. We saw a crab. The most interesting thing we saw was a couple of odd centipede looking things. The very edges of their bodies, where the legs attach on, had small red and white dots all around it. It is high up on our unique creatures list.
The dive master really made an effort to make the dive interesting for us. He pointed out just about everything down there, including rusty pop cans and other odds and ends from land above. He led us to a 12 cylinder airplane engine with the propeller still attached. He pointed out some very large metal artillery sheels, maybe 3 ½ feet tall and 6 inches wide, that were stamped 1940. He also moved slowly, giving us plenty of time to appreciate the surroundings, which we like.
The verdict on diving in the Med is it is not bad. No, it is not anywhere close to the experience that diving in the tropics is, but it is definitely much better than San Diego!