Port-Cros National Park
15 September 2003
Trip report by Jennifer Soffe
First published in London Diver, October 2003
France was very lovely, and for those of you who couldn’t make it this time around, you missed an extremely good trip. Good diving, incident-free, and some lively boat rides.
For me, it was interesting to go in September as my three previous trips to Port-Cros had been in June, when conditions and marine life were slightly different. So, what was particularly good about it?
Highlight 1: Warm water—23 degrees, so even I made an appearance in a wetsuit and was rarely cold, and that beautiful deep blue colour that makes you want to swim out into the open water and pretend to fly, well it does me anyway.
Highlight 2: Shoaling barracudas, which were a fantastic sight and something I hadn’t seen on previous occasions. They were close in to the walls we were diving on, and circling around in vast numbers—sizeable beasties too, some of them must have been 80+ cm long. I have read subsequently that they’ve been known to bite people, especially when shoaling, so I might not have been quite so enthusiastic about swimming at them had I known that. Also (top piece of barracuda trivia coming up...), apparently they’re attracted to yellow things, so choose your diving companions with care.
Highlight 3: Walls covered in life—lots of anemones and, as you got down to around 25 m, gorgonia too.
Highlight 4: Dinky little purple nudibranchs, otherwise known as flabellina affinis, which hold a particular appeal for me in my role as Nudibranch Queen… these are covered in delicate spines tipped with mauve, although I failed to spot any of my previous faves, the brown-and-white spotted flat variety. I’ve seen a lot of those on other trips, so I don’t know whether their absence was a seasonal thing, or whether there’s been some change in the marine ecology which has caused their demise.
Plus, this was the first year I’d managed to see anything of the surrounding area—one day was blown out due to strong winds—and Favière is at the end of a particularly attractive stretch of the Côte d’Azur, so driving along the corniche is a Very Fine Thing.
So, a great week, thanks in particular to Nigel and Gillian who organised it and everyone who towed the boats down and ensured they performed perfectly in some quite difficult seas. If you get the chance to go diving down there at some point in the future, it’s highly recommended—staying at home looking at seaslugforum.net just isn’t the same.
Posted byUnknown at 12:20 PM
Labels: france, trip report
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