November in Lošinj

Last week we spent a couple of days on Heron in Mali Lošinj. The weather forecast was not ideal, but with temperatures between 15 and 20 degree during both day and night we figured out that that's the warmest that we can expect for quite some time to come.

Monday was grey and cloudy. But that makes photos very dramatic!  Our first stop was Lubenice on island Cres. On our way there we stopped above the bay where the small town Valun is - somewhere down there in the left corner. On the horizon the Istria is visible.

The road to Lubenice is narrow and bad and driving was very sporty. The sun was trying to break through the clouds. The small beach down there is rated very high in all the Top 10 lists, but I think that's mostly due to that fact that it's so difficult to get there - either by boat or 1 hour hiking from the village. And then another hour hiking back uphill!

The village is very picturesque, even in cloudy weather.

I was surprised to see rosemary in bloom, and also sage growing on the roof.

We only saw two people there, the village seemed mostly deserted. Maybe that's why this grumpy cat was complaining so loudly, although he doesn't look like he is not fed.

The sun and the clouds created a great play between the shadows and the light, almost like in religious pictures. If you look closely you can see the ray of sun that is making a dot of light in the sea.

Captain was taking photos too.

The night was pretty rough as the South wind Jugo got stronger and brought waves into the bay where marina is. So the night was not very peaceful. 

We decided to stay in marina because of the weather. Next day we drove to town Mali Lošinj. This is Captain on the promenade.

Town is quite pretty, I bet the colours look even better and more vivid in the sunshine.

Then we drove to the hill above the town.

Our next stop was town of Veli (Big) Lošinj, which is smaller but even prettier than Mali (Small) Lošinj.

This was a big surprise for me, and joy as well. This pretty little Goldcrest or Rumenoglavi kraljiček (Regulus Regulus) was searching for a snack right next to the path and wasn't very shy, so I could make tons of photos. For this I was regretting not bringing my camera with me, all the photos were made with my phone.

I only saw this beauty once before, it was this autumn in the wood near Ljubljana while picking mushrooms, and that was from afar. So watching it for so long from so close was a real treat. This alone made coming to Lošinj worth wile.

After another windy and not very peaceful night we finally saw some sun. We did some chores on the boat and again went for a walk in Mali Lošinj.

The seagulls were strategically placed on this roof.

Promenade looked much nicer in the sunshine. And we treated ourselves to ice cream. Yum!

The wind turned and the third night was a bit better than the two before. While the Mali Lošinj marina is quite nice, it is not very protected from the both strongest winds, SE wind Jugo and NE wind Burja and both manage to produce waves in the long bay. But I think the most annoying thing is the wash produced by many boats sailing by, even in dead season in winter.

In the middle of the day we packed our things and prepared our boat for a bit longer absence and drove home. On the way we made a stop in town of Cres. It is very pretty and it was obviously a quite wealthy town in the past.

There is plenty of narrow streets...

... nice ornaments on the houses...

... and ornate windows.

While on the ferry from Cres to Krk the clouds were already gathering and next portion of rain, wind and bad weather was slowly coming from the South.

Even without sailing it was a nice trip, and besides seeing lots of pretty things and creatures we also manage to do some useful tasks on the boat. Maybe winter surprises us with some more mild and nice weather and we might drive to Lošinj again soon.

Some more bits and pieces

While I was browsing through my under water photos I decided there were some more that deserve posting. 

I've been seeing these odd small holes in the ground or in the rocks for years now, and have never figured out what they were. Now I dug a little deeper and again learnt a lot of new stuff. These are molluscs that bore theirselves into the rocks and only their intake and outtake openings are exposed. There are several species of them, quite different, but unfortunately the different part is buried and the holes look very similar. I still think this is Bryopa aperta, because of the limestone collar around its softer parts. I couldn't find neither English nor Slovene name for it.

And here I think are the Rocellaria dubia clams with straighter tubes and more clean figure of 8 shape. I could be wrong, of course. And also for these I couldn't find English or Slovene names. It's funny how a species that appears in such high numbers can stay under the radar for so long. By the way, the orange things belong to the boring sponge.

These snails are also often seen, but overlooked because they are maybe too plain. They belong to the family of Moon snails, their Slovene name is Marogasta popika (Natica hebraea).

Despite its colour this is a red algae called Twig algae or Bledi grmiček (Amphiroa rigida).

Another overlooked snail is the Turbinate monodont or Polž kotač ali Pegavka (Osilinus turbinatus), here the shell is inhabited by an hermit crab or rak samotarec.

This fall I was drawn to these fluffy beauties - the Pink bush algae or Kosmata alga (Wrangelia penicillata), maybe also because they are not easy to photograph. With so many little parts that are moving with the water my camera struggled to focus.

I already mentioned that I like Sea strawberries or Rožnate plaščarje (Sindyum elegans or Aplidium elegans), and that is also the reason why I took loads of photos of them. What surprised me was how different they were, I don't know why. But I'm sure that it is the same species on next three photos.

I was very frustrated with the big amount of not very sharp photos I made, to the degree where I already started to search for the new and better camera in net. But what I was seeing on many of my photos was the rainbow, which made me think that it could all be just because of the angle of the sun and poor light, even in the middle of the day. The angle of the sun at the end of September is the same as in middle of March. So I'm keeping my camera for now.

Since I read a lot about the limpets last year, I photograph them frequently. This is a Common limpet or Latvica (Patella spp.) and while photographing it I didn't even notice the  Common prawn or Žagasta kozica (Palaemon serratus) hovering above the limpet.

Few moments later I photographed another limpet only few centimeters away and what do you know - the same prawn wanted to be on this photo as well! Unfortunately I again didn't notice it...

This is just a pretty photo of Trumpet anemone or Marmornata morska vetrnica (Aiptasia mutabilis). Nex to it above right is probably a Mediterranean cone or Sredozemski stožec (Conus mediterraneus).

And I'm in dilemma about this one as well - I am sure it is a tunicate or sea squirt, but I think it could be Navadni kozolnjak (Ascidia virginea) based on its orange colour and whitish shoulders, rather than the Red squirt or Rdeči kozolnjak (Halocynthia papillosa) that I usually see and is darker red.

I don't think I have ever photographed this algae before. Even after some browsing through my books and internet I am not sure what it is.

There's still so much to learn.