natjtan If there’s one thing I’m learning this year is that the sea changes more than nature on land.
I mentioned in my last Under The Mediterranean Sea winter storms had changed the sea floor where I snorkel. The previous 2 years the floor didn’t change much. There hasn’t been any bad storms in the past 2 weeks however already the sea floor has changed. The sand in parts is being replaced by pebbles where it was once sandy. Those pebbles have increased a little. A few more old industrial bricks have been uncovered or maybe pushed around albeit smaller. Usually around Easter the sea retreats exposing more beach while about 50 meters up the beach, it eats the beach only to settle back a few weeks later. Some years the council dregs sand to widen the beaches but I haven’t see that this year and I haven’t cycled along the other beaches to know if they have this year (little research later, they did to widen boat access to Port Olympic) The retreat and eat of the beach is happening now the end of June so I’m curious for the next few weeks. Barcelona Council along with Port Olympic, Zoo Barcelona and the Barcelona Aquarium are involved in an artificial reef project to support the boost the existing dykes at Port Olympic from storms, however I don’t go to the those beaches as they’re too crowded.
The water’s gradually warming up so that means jellyfish! Yellow flag means jellyfish present or bad water quality. Leave it to me to think it was bad water quality as it had been rough for a few days to go in and get stung. Only a little sting. My record was last summer with 3 stings and I’m up to 7 or 8 stings in total. Maybe I’ll hit 10 digits this year (please no)! It was worth it as the water so was so clear. Finally a good visibility day. Unfortunately once I’d found where the fish were and after getting stung, I was getting cold and couldn’t be bothered to deal trying avoiding jellyfish. I should have known it was jellyfish. People were in the water, they weren’t far out and most where just standing in the swash bit. It’s ironic as while some were afraid to get further out, the jellyfish were most where people were in the water amongst the sticks and leaves, which I thought was bad water quality.
Looking up the jellies I saw I came across a great free app, MedusaApp which tell’s you where jellyfish are present as users add spotted sightings and any stings. It’s a cool app, world wide contributing to science to better understand the distribution of jellyfish. The website is in Spanish, however the app’s in English. You can also report plastic, foam sightings as well as oil spills and report anonymous too. It has the most common jellies to choose from if you don’t know the type of jellyfish or do not have a photo to upload.
Wide eye flounder. You could have probably heard me squeal from the beach when I spotted it! I thought I took a video but all I took was 3 seconds of nothing 🤦♀️
Blink and you miss. I think this is a sole or spotted flounder as it’s more elongated. The vis wasn’t good and it was choppy.
Fish snack. Later I found out this jelly gives a painful sting: mauve stinger. I thought nothing of it until seeing more later in the week from tiny to almost the size of the striped sea breams.
I stupidly too had my snorkel band too tight and paid the price. Work up in the middle of the night with headache pain around where the band was. The next day I spend nearly all day in bed with a migraine. Don’t have the snorkel band too tight!
Thank you for stopping by!