September snorkelling - part 1

I was thinking of naming this post September sailing, but honestly, it is much more about snorkelling than sailing. I drove to Skradin on September the 1st and already in the afternoon we sailed to bay Mirina some 3 hours away from marina. It was just the two of us on board.

First night was calm and we woke to a sunny morning. Weather forecast was not good, the South wind jugo has already started to blow and as always it was bringing some rain with it. Mirina is well protected for such a weather, so we decided to stay one more night and I made good use of nice weather while it lasted and went snorkelling.

Snorkelling was surprisingly good. This beauty could be a Five-spotted wrasse  (kosirica or Symphodus roissali).

I had to take a photo of this Mediterranean fanworm (spalancanijev cevkar or Sabella spallanzani), as I am reading The book of Eels (Evangelij po jeguljah) that mentions the biologist Spallanzani several times.

I'm still not sure which clam this is, maybe I need some more books about underwater creatures.

Here the red Bryozoan (rdeči skorjevec or Schizobrachiella sanguinea) has encrusted some algae.

On another such bryozoan encrusted algae I noticed some branches at the top, like a funny hair, that at the closer look...

...turned out to be Hydroid (trdoživnjaki) with tiny polyps on branches. I don't think I've seen this kind before.

The highlight of this day was a Common cuttlefish (navadna sipa or Sepia officinalis), that changed its colours from almost white through several grey patterns...

...to almost black. How can such a master of disgiuse be called common?

 I saw plenty of Hope's elysias (pisančkov or Thuridilla hopei) in the area.

 This is Bucchich's goby (pikasti glavač or Gobius bucchichii).

 And this might be a Grey wrasse (gnezdivka or Symphodus cinereus).

I'm not sure which algae this is, but it looked funny floating around with waves and current.

In the afternoon it got cloudy and we even got some rain, but it all looked rather harmless. Until 1 in the night. Then the strong wind from West started and the boat started to dance around the anchor. Of course we were up instantly and saw that other boats also had lights on and people on decks. Two boats were dragging anchors and I got very nervous when they motored by our boat way too close for 50 knots of wind. I don't understand why people don't stay away from other boats, especially when there is so much space as in Mirina. After an hour heavy rain started and wind started to slow down, and after seeing that both problematic boats have moved deep into the bay, a good distance away from us, we went back to bed.

Next morning wind already turned to NW and we sailed off to South. There was enough wind for good sailing and in the afternoon we anchored in bay Solinska on island Veli Drvenik. After the day-trip boats left it was just us and one other sailboat in the bay, which made me very happy. Unfortunately the night was not very calm, after the NW wind died, the rest of the waves of SE wind from the day before somehow found the way into the bay and it was quite rolly. Oh, well...

Next morning was sunny and as we were drinking coffee the local fisherman in his boat motored by and offered some squids and small fish and we bought a bit of both.

As soon as the sun was high enough I went snorkelling. And it was again better than expected. Under a rock I found these two gorgeous Red tube worms (pisana pokrovčarja or Serpula vermicularis).

And not far away was also this Red-black triplefin (rdeči sprehajalček or Tripterygion tripteronotus or pjevčić oštronosić (HR) or peperonccino (I)), with all his poetic names. This is a male in his bright mating colours.

I liked this white and red composition - the Red-spotted horseshoe (apnenčasti cevkar or Protula tubularia) and Red starfish (ognjenordeča zvezda or Echinaster sepositus).

Already on my second snorkelling I found a second type of Hydroids (zadružni trdoživnjaki or Sertularella sp.)

Here is more detailed photo where the tiny polyps are visible. They branch straight from stems, but in very geometric manner, while the ones from day before were attached to small branches attached to the stems, but also very geometrically.

I saw the Purplestriped jelly (mesečinka or Pelagis noctiluca) on my way back to the boat and I wasn't very happy. It is most annoying jellyfish in Mediterranean and it stings quite badly, as I already experienced a few years ago in Ibiza. And as you can see it has quite long tentacles, luckily I noticed it early enough to stay well away. But as it later turned out, this was luckily the only one we saw. 

In the middle of the day we sailed on to NE side of island Šolta to bay Kasjun, we were hoping that on that side we would be protected from waves from both SE and NW that we were having past days. But surprise surprise - here the waves were coming from NE directly into the bay. They were not big and I was really hoping that they will calm down at night, so we will not have a third bad night in a row.

In the evening we ate fried small fish we bought from the fisherman that morning and they were really good. Luckily the wind and the sea calmed down in the night and we finally slept well.

Next morning I went snorkelling again. I snorkelled here before and it was rather good so I had high expectations. But this time it was not so great, maybe because the waves started to roll into the bay again and made taking photos difficult or because of all the anchored boats in the bay that I had to swim around and annoyed me too much. But I saw this pretty Pink segmented algae (janija or Jania spp.)...

 ...and lots of sponges (roženjača or Cacospongia sp.) like this one.

The highlight of this photo is the Blue sponge (modra spužva or Terpios fugax) on the right and the nice contrast it makes to red Bryozoan (rdeči skorjevec or Schizobrachiella sanguinea) in the middle.

But I was quite happy to se the Great tooth hydroids (Zadružni trdoživnjaki or Sertularella), again a different kind than the days before.

Here you can see the tiny polyps, but not so organised as with previous kinds, here the polyp tentacles are just growing from the ends of the tiny branches.

I also saw this Red-black triplefin (rdeči sprehajalček or Tripterygion tripteronotus), probably a male in non-mating colours.

A very pretty underwater scenery - at  the bottom is a Kidney sponge (ledvičasta spužva or Chondrosia reniformis) and above a mixture of algae - on the right in the middle is the shining brown algae Forked ribbons (ploščata razcepljenka or Dictyota dichotoma), above it is red algae (topovejnata lavrencija or Laurencia obtusa) and the bright green "grass" is green algae (pedobezija or Pedobesia lamourouxii).

I liked these fluffy looking small white bushes, but I couldn't find the name of the algae, it might be the Rdeča viličasta alga (Scinaia furcellata) - but the orange branches belong again to red algae (topovejnata lavrencija or Laurencia obtusa).