As all the last years, my diving schedule looks like this:
In late winter, that is March, April, I cannot take the grey cold in Berlin anymore and have to leave for something warmer and lighter, in Souteast Asia or any other tropics.
In September I go to Italy and Spain with my wife, in a car, because she doesn't like flying at all. Sure I have my dive gear with me, even with a 5.5 mm Semidry wetsuit for the mediterranean sea.
For the last 3 years we stayed in an area called Liguria Ponente, the Riviera dei fiori, Flower Riviera, in a small town called Diano Marina. Hanging out on the beach, unwinding, reading, enjoying good food. I discovered a SSI Dive Center close by, in Imperia Porto Maurizio, run by Alessandro Ballaré and Chiara Soriente. Borgo Marina Diving, you can find them here on the side bar or under "recommended companies". I go diving with them every time I am in that area. I know most of the dive sites already, notably Saraghi, where there are more Barracudas every year, Frati with a giant anchor and Bell, the Secca di San Stefano (Saint Stefan shoal) and some wrecks.
Around the corner from their harbour is the site Ratthege, 6 meters deep with sandy bottom, where they do most of their skills training during courses. Given the modest depth I sometimes join them and separate under water, doing my own equipment checks, playing around with navigation, breathing patterns etc among the Posidonia meadows close by. It's nice training to be on your own and explore.
This year we went to Saraghi a couple of times, Frati again, and the last dive was right in front of my camping site in Diano Marina. The site is called Ferro da Stiro, the ironing iron. It's just a yacht sunk here some 20 years ago, and the concrete wastewater tubes coming from land. But interesting.
Last year my last dive was another wreck, a WW II bomb fighter plane, Biat BR-20, max. depth 46 meters, my deepest dive til now.
Every two years, in the even year numbers, there is an event called the Vele d'Epoca, Vintage Sails, with sailboats more than a hundred years old. We spent one afternoon out at sea on Chiara's sail boat, enjoying the vintage boats from a close perspective.
Here is the video for our Italy september:
Bella Liguria con Borgo Marina Diving from Vo Sta on Vimeo.
One of the weekends in September, I drive from Italy to northern Spain for a meeting of vintage aircooled Volkswagens in Tossa de Mar, around 90 km north of Barcelona. Have bee doing that for the fifth time in a row now. And of course I take my dive gear with me...
I tried a dive shop in Tossa, Andreas Diving, but I didn't like the shore diving too much, it is hard to get out of the water on the sandy beach with my prosthetic leg.A good hour's drive north, towards the border with France, there is another wellknown dive site, The Iles Medes, or Medas Islands, facing a town called L'Estartit. I had been diving there two years ago, and I wanted to try it again.
So I started one day early, arrived in L'Estartit on thursday evening, did all the paperwork at the dive shop, they were the first in two years to ask for my medical statement by my doctor, and checked in at the hotel for one night.
I got two dives at Iles Medes, with a group of 16 French, and during the second one I saw my first Mola Mola, very untypical for this season. Very happy I continued my trip to Tossa de Mar and the crazy VW bunch.
Here is the video for these two dives at Iles Medes:
Diving Iles Medes 21-09-18_720p from Vo Sta on Vimeo.
Now it's only three and a half months until I get back to Thailand, for the Special Manta Cruise on my favorite liveaboard with my favorite crew and dive professionals...
more dive videos here: https://vimeo.com/user55401320"
See you under water
