Conero Logbook 2016
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Italiano (Italian)
January: touch and go.
Water temperature above the average (8 °C), visibility very poor and Janolus cristatus already busy to eat the “Bugula”.
April: the season begins with the “Nicole” wreck and its nudibranchs.
The upper side of the wreck is literally covered by Cuthona caerulea, and above all by Eubranchus tricolor, I’ve never seen such a massive presence of this species of nudibranch. To Eubranchus tricolor goes definitely the “Nudibloom of the year”, the award that I assign every year to the sea slug species that appears in greater amount than usual on our reefs. Finally I also get Doto coronata, I didn’t see it for a couple of seasons.
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May: even more nudibranchs on the Nicole and old and new guests at Hotel Gorgonia.
Flabellina pedata, Flabellina lineata e Janolus cristatus are everyware on the wreck. At the Due sorelle dive spot “the meeting” with Felimare villafranca and among the red branches of Leptogorgia sarmentosa, with Balssia gasti, in addition to the usual guests.
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June: other species of sea slugs appear.
The genus Felimida takes over, even if F. krohni decreases significantly in compare to 2015. The “familiar faces” of the Trave begin to come out. At the Secca dell’Ospedale for the first time at Conero I see Stenopus spinosus.
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July, August e September: diving around the Trave become the rule, but it is at the Due sorelle that the big surprise arrives!
Sometimes the visibility becomes really bad, but the sea of Conero always offers subjacts. The transparent commensal shrimps are everywhere and the Murices lay their eggs in every crevice or crack. The Trave becames the favourite dive spot and the “hydroids eaters” cover the walls. For taking pictures to Spurilla neapolitana it is always necessary to go to the south. A pair of raids at the Due sorelle are enough to observe it. Right there at Due sorelle the great surprise of the year: Tritoniopsis cincta, that my good friend Federico Betti found between the rests of the “Potho” wreck. This is the first sighting of this nudibranch in the Conero area. The pictures that each season you hope to shoot, are the one of the “never seen” organism.
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Dicember: the last bubbles before the winter stop.
Those subjects ignored in spring and summer, become the protagonists. Patience always pays off and among hundreds of Galatheas appears the one, that you would never expect to see. 2016 is the year of surprises and likewise it ends, with the Ctenophores that still pulse all around after months of invasion and Cratena peregrina that despite the period, pops up here and there on the reef.
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Ready for 2017, batteries charged and memory cards to charge!
Questo articolo è disponibile anche in:
Italiano (Italian)
