Spain
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A Snoot for my Underwater Flash
It’s the light that makes a photograph. The principle also applies to underwater photography. Sunlight penetrates water. However, only twenty percent makes it to a depth of ten metres. Less than one percent of sunlight reaches the ocean at 100 metres depth. To make things more difficult, water filters the warmer side of the light spectrum […]
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The Wreck of the Peñón
Wreck diving is fascinating in many ways: there’s the diving aspect, big underwater shapes are interesting to photograph, and last but not least the story behind a wreck is captivating to discover. The tugboat El Peñón served for 49 years in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife starting in the Fifties, when the port with […]
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Hermit Crabs, The Home Swapping Club
Hermit crabs are crustaceans that scavenge and inhabit the shells of molluscs, most often sea snails. Their abdomen is soft and exposed to predators. As the crab grows in size, it must find a larger shell to inhabit. Sometimes hermit crabs will compete for a desired shell. If a shell is too large for an […]
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Blenny in a Bottle
Blenny are small fish with characteristic faces with large eyes and mouths, some of them have antlers (cirri). Only a few centimetres long, they hide in rock holes or spend their time at the bottom of the ocean. A recent study described unique face markings on individual blennies (J Fish Biol 2016). In fact, you […]
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Comb Jellies, Beautiful Aliens of the Oceans
Comb jellies, or ctenophora, are marine animals with gelatinous bodies. Comb jellies live in tropical and arctic waters, forming about 150 species. Although common, most people have never seen them.
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Diving on the Volcano: El Bajón
El Bajón is an underwater mountain at the southern tip of El Hierro, the island that once was the end of the old world. Out of the deep blue, its steep rock faces rise from a hundred metres depth to a few metres below the ocean surface making the volcanic peak an thrilling dive spot. […]
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Marine Life in El Hierro (Part 2)
This is the second article about scuba diving and marine life in El Hierro. The waters around La Restinga are a marine reserve, and underwater life is rich with diverse animals in the clear waters. There are triggerfish, pufferfish, parrotfish, zebra seabream, porcupinefish, trumpetfish, garden eel and moray eel, dusky grouper, barracuda, greater amberjack, red scorpionfish, slipper lobster, tube-dwelling […]
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Marine Life in El Hierro (Part 1)
El Hierro sits on a ridge on the 3’500-metre-deep seabed, making it a dive spot with rich biodiversity. As marine biology is an overwhelming field, I’ve compiled a simplified and incomplete scheme. The abundant marine life in El Hierro can be classified into bony and cartilaginous fish, whales, crustacea, molluscs, Anthozoa (anemones, corals, and gorgonians), and […]
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El Hierro, the Edge of the Old World
El Hierro once was the edge of the known world. The most western point of the Old World remained the meridian of zero longitude for many centuries – as defined by the Greek geographers Marinos of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemy in the first and second century. Only in 1482, Portuguese Diogo Cão was the first […]