In the sanctuary of the whales.

Gigantic shipwrecks, colorful coral gardens and playing Dolphins: An Italian Riviera between San Remo and La Spezia is a fantastic diving spot next to another. From time to collect Pot and its fin like Fluke greeting the athletes.

 

If the members of the visiting Nuremberg from diving club now do not need, then: hineinschlüpfen into a skin-tight wet suit, a choppy ride with a small boat and the subsequent descent into the cool, fresh Mediterranean Sea. Yesterday evening was long, was in Portofino Fiesta, and the missed sleep still is expressed on the eyelids. But they are here to Liguria nicest dive sites to explore - and this is now time not from the beach.

The rising air disciples into the boat and look for a place near their diving equipment. Gradually they are hot under the suit. With a loud "Andiamo!" Paolo drives, the skipper, the last in a hurry to Flea. Finally he started the engine and tuckert from the harbor. With the slower pace he crossed the bay, past the luxury yachts and carved into the rock Paraggi Villa, in which every now and then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to leave einmietet.

Outside the bay there Paolo gas. The boat flies over the waves, falls and rises: Rodeo on the sea. The divers cling firmly to the rope holding out against tanks Scheppers. Then it's done: "Uno, due, tre", with a Rückwartsrolle they can fall into the waves.

Farbpracht marine marguerites

By immersing the fatigue disappears, the heavy diving equipment is only a light backpack, and the divers are under water to walkers. The steep, from the surf rundgespülten rocks dominate the landscape below the surface. As pointed out by hand aufgetürmt are giant boulders on the seabed. Some rocks have faces, others are scratched by the falling debris of bygone days. Large colonies of anemones crust, by the Italians' Margherite di Mare "referred to pull on the rocks like flowers with a yellow sea.

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Deep below the fauna is quite another. At the bottom of the rocks hanging in the shade, hundreds of red coral. In the Mediterranean Sea is such a high concentration today, little more can be found: Too intense for decades they have been in jewelry caught. On the edge of the coral garden to grow a further depth of jewelry, rotgefächerte gorgonians, outside the light cone of the divers lights dark blue stone on the stick. Intermediate lugen always thick moray eels from the columns, the mouth wide open.

A swarm of silver bream moves slowly past the divers. A group mackerel appears suddenly, frantically chasing bream through the round, up, down and away. The groupers, which has become familiar here, are just there and watch - they can be sure that nothing happens to them. For over ten years may, in the marine park of Portofino and harpuniert no longer be fished commercially.

From Portofino control from the Nuremberg their next dive spot on. You drive past Genoa and follow the direction Arenzano a coastal road, which indeed the word "picturesque" deserves. It smells of salt and citrus fruit, the warm wind caresses the skin, and in the winding old villages sit on small wooden Schemeln before trattorie: Italy as a picture book.

Steel giant in the Mediterranean

Their goal: the 334-meter-long tanker "Amoco Milford Haven" in 1991 in the Bay of Genoa when deleting its cargo caught fire. It was the worst oil spill on the Ligurian coast. The ship broke into two parts, the rear section with a length of approximately 250 feet sank a half mile away from Arenzano: The "Haven" is now the largest ship in the Mediterranean Sea and ruin one of the largest wrecks worldwide.

The tanker is more than 80 meters deep on, or stands upright on the keel, as he would still want to ride. From the hull up to the bridge is the wreck as high as a 18-storey skyscraper. It is a water column of 30 meters. The huge fireplace has been cut off, so that ships calling at the port of Genoa to start, not to hang him.

Who long and deep dive will find here his playground. But even ordinary sports divers come to the mega-site at their expense. A rope leads the group down to the boat, dive guide Mauro observed them closely: Already, some divers are dropped into the bottomless because they underestimated the depth or to have drunk from the nitrogen, which is below their blood anfüllt.

Decks lead into the darkness and look "like the paragraphs of an oversized staircase." Flocks of red flags perch inhabit the wreck. The leaders, from deck to deck, are oysters with seaweed and overgrown. An eel is hiding in a small fireplace and angry jerks back and forth, as it the glow of the lamp fault. In the control room to get through a burned-out windows. He is empty, the flames, the walls and instruments destroyed - only a small statue is still there: a saint of the crew before the accident should be preserved.

"Wal! As he blows!"

In addition to moray eels, sea bream and eels cavort mammals before the Ligurian coast: The entire section above Sardinia belongs to Santuario dei Cetacean, the "whale sanctuary". The marine reserve was established in 1999 at the instigation of the countries bordering Italy, France and Monaco established. Dolphins, pilot whale and bottlenose dolphin can be seen here regularly. From time to come even Finn and sperm whales over, bump into the wind from its surface and dive back into the depths, the powerful Fluke how to greet collected.

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The chance of these graceful giants to face to get at is "whale watching" tours, however, significantly higher than for a dive. As Manuela Capone of the diving base "Pianeta Blu" in Ventimiglia says, "we often see dolphins under water. But the great whales avoid the coastal areas, they usually pull over in the open sea."

Dives in front of the Riviera around San Remo worthwhile but even without Walbesuch, says Nürnbergerin Nina: "Whether submerged helicopter or a fighter aircraft from World War II, to discover there is enough. This is the good for the Mediterranean fish abundance, as determined by wuselige flags perch , moray eels and stunning bright red mullet kings - the only cardinal perch species in European waters. " My personal highlight? "A two-meter-high fish-moon, which occurs at the surface of the birds had shed putzen." The diskusförmigen and clumsy-looking fish can often spend hours at the surface, its up to two-ton body inclining to the side.

For the diving club is to stay stopped, at least what the diving is concerned. The memory of their digital cameras are full, the memories in my head. Lunch is their morning flying back to Germany - and if they are on the last evening, should be boring, it is in one of the many small towns to find again a fiesta.