The magnificent 7

Some songs stuck in your mind at such a point that you easily remember them even if your see a number that is at their title.
Scuba diving in shallow water is one of my favorite habits. There so much light there (guys we are still in Greece) that you don’t need to use strobes to make nice pictures. Also you can see all these schools of juveniles making their first walks around the sea grasses. Small sea breams, wrasses and goatfishes are everywhere and as you have a friend with long patience or the same tastes, you can enjoy a lot scuba diving at 4 or 5 meter. Also it is a good way to be more familiar with our equipment as it harder to control your buoyancy. These schools of young goatfishes make to us excellent company at a June dive as it drove us to all the young wrasses of the area.

Now you see me, now you don't! Lessons in camouflage

The sea is a unique ecosystem hiding many suprises. You may be passing over a 2 kilo octopus or a 1m fish and not see it unless your eye is trained to make out their unique shapes from the exact same color background.
Camouflage is employed by fish, cephalopods, shells and other animals, in an attempt to protect themselves from enemies or carnivores that want to eat them.
For example, at two meters of water in front of a busy swimming area, swimmers have no idea that below them lie hiding two masters of camouflage, a juvenile Sepia officinalis and one of the few species of Scorpionfish that live in the Mediterranean.



Did you spot the cuttlefish (soupia)?

check out a new small video of the same animal playing with another baby cuttlefish just before the middle of the clip
on our you tube channel


This scorpionfish, Scorpaena porcus as the name suggests, has a potent poison on its spines, causing the biggest and strongest men or women to cry like babies for approximately three days, if they are unlucky enough to accidentally tread on one.
It is in no way aggressive and relies purely on its camouflage to get its' food, by sitting as in meditation, completely still
waiting for an unlucky fish or crabs to swim by and then opening its gills slightly, creating suction.
The poison is used purely for protection, for bigger enemies. Scorpionfish are quite hard to identify, but we know this one is Scorpaena porcus because the tentacles over its eye are longer than it is wide, and it lacks the bottom chin appendages!

Red Soldierfish, the guardian of ancient amphoras

Sargocentron rubrum, has been established in the Mediterranean Sea since at least 2002, as recorded by the CIESM Atlas of Exotic Fishes in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Red Coat Soldierfish arrived via the Suez Canal, becoming a very common fish in the southeastern but also southwestern Mediterranean, and is the only species of the family Holocentridae that has moved to our seas until now.
This specimen was photographed off the South Coast of Cyprus, over a 4th century BC wreck, which was carrying the most precious wine of the time, from Chios.
The archaeological excavation of the wreck was conducted by the University of Cyprus, in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and the THETIS Foundation.
This photo was taken at a depth of 45 meters during the expedition in May 2010.
In Greece its distribution is in the most southeastern parts, like in Kastelorizo, where the population is very active.
A survey conducted on an artificial reef of the coast of Israel found its biomass to have increased from 64% in 1985 to 95% in 1995 (E Spanier, Changes in the Icthyofauna of an Artificial Reef in the southeastern Mediterranean in one Decade, Scientia marina, 64 (3) 279-284). The author speculates that this dramatic increase in Israel and other neighboring sites, is either due to the competitive exclusion of autochthonous species by Lessepsian migrants, taking over spatial and food resources, or another possible explanation could be the over-fishing of the targeted, commercially important, groupers and sparids.
The wreck of Mazotos, off the coast of Cyprus, is definitely acting as an artificial reef amongst the vast sandy plains of the sea bottom, but, thankfully, due to its protection as an archaeological site, it is not fished very often, with the exception of rogue fishermen/looters
This beautiful fish cannot be mixed up with any other in the South Mediterranean, well until any more decide to change oceans! Its skin is very rough with hard scales, and the spine on its cheek is venomous, so look, but never touch
It is usually found in coastal reefs, wrecks, caves or cracks of rocks and very often occurs in aggregations.
They feast on benthic crabs and shrimps but even small fishes

I'm sticking with you

Limpets are gastropod shells but they do not have the typical gastropod shell shape, as can be seen in the picture. The common hey hole limpet can reach 40 mm long and can be found in the Mediterranean sea, but no longer in the North Sea, any specimens in the south eastern part of the North sea that are washed out are thought to be fossils. When viewed from above, Diodora graeca, is oval shaped with radiating ribs and bold growth lines. The color varies from creamy to yellow white often with brown, radiating rays. The hole on the top of the shell serves as an outlet for water and waste products. It can be found in deep water up to 200 meters, but this specimen was photographed in Platanitsi at a depth of 10 m. Just like other limpets it adheres firmly on the sides of rocks, making it very hard to detach, unless you use a knife...but why would you do that to such a beautiful, docile creature. This family is mostly herbivorous but the key hole limpet likes to feed on certain species of sponge, especially Halichondria and Hymeniacidon.
And as the Velvet Underground song goes.....I'm sticking with you....coz' I'm made out of glue!

Some days you cannot take care of what you love.

Our souls are there.

www.shiptogaza.gr
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10195838.stm

Colonies and immigrants

Didemnum sp. colonies can been found from the very shallow water up to the depth of 15 meters. These are the colonies of the tiny ascidia which love the light (photophile). There are thousands of them in every colony that you meet. A colony can be found over seaweeds, inside the P.oceanica or on rocks. I have met them in both very polluted water and in very clean. It’s hard to identify the species by the photographs but these photos seem to be of the Didemnum commune. The increase of the sea temperature seems to have given new opportunities to Didemnum sp. to emigrate to new places of the endless sea. So, as we nicknamed ascidia in previous posts, these long cousins have a similar behavior with us. They make big cities and then they leave them behind to find new worlds for development.

A goby in the muck

So, it has been a couple of months I haven't visited Kalogria in Chalkidiki, and luckily Hector visited me so we went!
It was wonderful to be in the water again, but unfortunately the sight we saw was not a very pretty one. Ok the sea bed was covered by the seasonal weeds but the shock was that of very sick sponges ... that were covered by a white slime, that looked like it was suffocating the sponges, causing them to melt....we are looking into what is causing this and will keep you posted. In between the slime, a lonely Thorogobius ephippiatus looked kinda confused....
The leopard spotted goby is one of the easiest gobies to identify because of his pale fawn body and distinctive dark purple or black spots. It has a relatively large body, reaching a maximum length of 13 cm, and the breading males are darker in colour with a conspicuous light-pale blue edge to the dorsal and anal fins. These gobies love to eat amphipod crustaceans and worms.
Most often you will find them in ledges and crevices in vertical rock faces down to a depth of 40m. This fish was photographed at 25 meters.