Next morning, after the charter sailboats left, we had another show. A pretty sailboat was approaching the anchorage, and we could hear yelling of a man from a far. When they sailed closer, we saw there was also a woman on the boat, steering the boat and not saying much. The man was standing near the mast, loudly talking and yelling all the time. The cause of his tantrum was his dissatisfaction with the woman at the steering wheel, nothing she did was right. She was not turning the wheel right, she didn't manage the engine right, she couldn't reverse the boat right, she didn't put the boat into right position for anchoring. And he used very strong words, and also cursed her in the worst way. We haven't seen or heard anything like this yet. And you would not expect that kind of behaviour from people in their 60-ies. It went on for almost an hour, they changed the anchoring spot several times in the meanwhile, and everybody was already tired of them. I couldn't understand, why the woman just took everything, without defending herself much. In her place I would put my credit card between my teeth, jump into the water and swim for the shore and never come back.
We didn't wait to see how long it went on. We sailed to the West side of Olib, I wanted to do as much snorkelling there as possible. This time we anchored near the small sandy island with lots of loud birds. Shortly after we anchored, I was in the water. This time there were mostly the red things that caught my eyes.
Like this Encrusting orange sponge (Rdeča žilavka). And in the middle of it was the worm (Tulčasti cevkar), and this time not only his yellow tentacles were visible, but also his body, encased in sand.
This pretty thing is one of the Triplefin Blennies, direct translation from Slovene would be Red wandering blenny (Rdeči sprehajalček). It is small and difficult to spot, but it is at least as beautiful as any tropical fish.
Update: after consulting my books and Internet again I think this might be different sort of Triplefin Blenny (Pritlikavi sprehajalček). I love the Italian name - Peperoncino minore.
I actually wanted to take a photo of a Blue sponge (Modra spužva), only later on computer I noticed the Rock Goby (Mrki glavač), blinking surprised into the lens.
And a close up of Trumpet anemone (Marmornata morska vetrnica).
This is the same kind Triplefin Belnny (Rdeči sprehajalček) as above, just without it's mating colours
Couldn't find out the name of this sponge, but I found it pretty
This was a very sad sight - somebody obviously caught the Stingray (Navadni morski bič), and then threw it away. I was really upset by this, especially when I found another one not far away. What a pity for such a unique animal. I am not a vegetarian, but I believe it is not moral to kill unless the whole animal is used for food.
It looks like the Sepia (Sipa) was trying to hypnotise me
This round red thing is actually a Sponge (Morska žogica), that is protecting a Hermit crab (Raka samotarca). But at a first glance it looks like the small red ball is moving across the sea floor without any help. Only if you get close very fast, you can see small crab legs under it, which quickly disappear under the sponge. I didn't want to lift the whole thing up and take a look, and scare the poor Hermit crab even more.
Next morning we moved to a small island to the West to do some more snorkelling.
We anchored in the turquoise water. I jumped into the water and was a bit disappointed. There was not much to see, but there were couple of Red mullets and Two banded Sea Bream (Progasti bradači in Fratrc).
This was the first time I saw Sargassum algae (Sargaška alga).
And there was finally a new tunicate - a type of Social tunicate (Koničasti plaščar).
After snorkelling we sailed on to island Rab to meet my brother and his family. We had a lovely evening together and next day we sailed alog the island of Rab towards mainland and then around the corner to bay Mag. Last year when we were there I really liked it, but unlike this time we were alone in whole bay then. This time there were many many motorboats there, so many one could hardly see the beach from the boat. We anchored in deeper water to have at least a little bit of space around us.
I went snorkelling and chose to swim along the rocky coast out of the bay, there were no motorboats or swimmers in the deeper water. Despite the totally barren above-water landscape in the bay, the under water landscape is rich and colourful.
I was again drawn to red things - like this Red algae (Škrlatna sluzavka), that swayed with the waves.
I think this is another Red algae called Jania (Janija).
I know I posted many photos of Hermit crabs (Obročkasti samotarec), but this one was so very pretty.
And another Red Seasquirt (Rdeči kozolnak ali Morska breskev)
It was just impossible to ignore this beautiful Red tubeworm (Pisani pokrovčar).
The Mediterranean Feather Star (Morska lilija)
Update #2: this is actually a totally different kind of animal, it is a Cylinder anemone, in Slovene Peščena roža
This was one of the few Octopusses (Hobotnica) that I saw; but what I did see were plenty of men in dark neoprene suits with long spearguns, shooting at anything that moved. I tried to keep the distance, they looked scary and I wasn't sure they wouldn't mistaken me for a fish. I was also careful when taking photos of Octopuss, made sure before that none of the "navy seals" was watching me.
And this is a Weever (Navadni morski zmaj)
This is how the bay Mag on islad Rab looked like - and this was only part of the motorboats there, I tried counting them and stopped when I came to number 30. Poor people had to raft the boats together only to find some space, and then they were sitting or laying on their small boats the whole day. What a vacation! And here you can see how the bay looks outside the main season.
Late in the afternoon we returned to the South-West side of Rab. My nephew showed a lot of talent with steering the boat. And looks like he enjoyed it too.
Čudovit blog, bravo!
ReplyDeleteSkoraj prepričan sem, da je na drugi sliki črnoglava babica (Lipophrys nigriceps) in ne rdeči sprehajalček.
Hvala za lepe besede o blogu in za vaš komentar!
ReplyDeletePri določanju tistega, kar slikam, imam pogosto težave, kot verjetno vsak amater, kljub vrhunskim knjigam, s katerimi si pomagam - Pod gladino Mediterana dr. Toma Turka in Naše morje Marjana Richterja. V tem primeru sem se odločila za sprehajalčka, ker ima ribica na sliki koničast nos, majhno "kronico" (plavut) na vratu, majhne nadočesne izrastke in očitno deljeno hrbtno plavut, česar Črnoglava babica nima. Seveda se lahko motim. Se mi pa zdaj, na drugi in tretji pogled, vedno bolj zdi, da bi bil na sliki lahko tudi Pritlikavi sprehajalček (Tripterygion melanurus).
Najbrž res pritlikavi sprehajalček, ima koničast gobček. Rdeči nima takega vzorca.
ReplyDeleteI laughed at the vision of you with a credit card in your teeth, diving overboard to escape a terrible captain. It's a great escape plan! Luckily your captain is kind.
ReplyDeleteYour "underwater series in red" was fantastic and I am amazed, as always, by what you see and capture underwater. The red tube worm is my favorite, but the feather star is a close second!
Hi Madeline, so nice to hear from you! The first time I had this escape idea was on one very rolly night in Sardinia, after 2-day passage from Sicily and in desperate need for sleep. And there were nice hotels on the beach, so the conclusion was logical. And yes, I don't need to escape from my kind captain.
ReplyDeleteThanks for liking my photos, I'm really happy I can find so many interesting things here in Adriatic. And I hope to see some more of your amazing photos soon.