Gulf of Naples, southern end, near the Sorrento peninsula. This is where there is something magical, about a half mile from the coast. But let’s start from the beginning. As usual, I meet my friends directly at the Bikini Diving, on the small harbor quay, in Castellammare di Stabia. The warm hospitality of Pasquale Manzi and his staff make the effort of unloading the equipment from the car definitely lighter. However, once greeted all my friends and the others, we all do not wait any longer and start to get dressed. As a Swiss watch, we are ready at the scheduled time and move to the dive site. The day is crisp but sunny, and the journey, lasting fifteen minutes from the port to the site, flies in a moment. We finish to get dressed on board the zodiac wearing our equipment, and after a double check with our buddy, we dive into the water. Looking down I can see sharply the top of the shoal, about 12 meters deep. The water then is quite clear, and this gives us a great pleasure. We begin our descent along the buoy chain up to 18 meters, where we check again our equipment and exchange the OK signal with the other buddies. Then, we begin to turn around the main shoal, enjoying the color spectacle of the gorgonians (Paramuricea clavata), while the sponges and the yellow cluster anemone (Parazoanthus axinellae) cover the rock walls around us. We do the first stop near a branch of false black coral (Savalia savaglia), to make the first photos with a decent backlight against the sun. Then we enjoy the various sea fans, lush and with open polyps, surrounded by the countless, tireless and colorful anthias. But in addition to the colors and small fishes, we are lucky enough to make some more interesting encounter, such as groupers and eagle rays. The various crevices are often inhabited by moray eels and conger eels, and occasionally you can meet some squat lobster. Deeper, we may find also those fishes for which the Banco of Santa Croce has now become famous: the small spotted cat-sharks. They are small sharks, with spotted coloring, and difficult to detect at daytime since they remain hidden in their dens and hunt at night. Their diffusion is constantly monitored by the MedSharks association, which controls the life cycle from the laying of the eggs, which are attached to sea-fans, until hatching. We continue our dive by crossing the cave, which on the inside is full of sponges and coral formations. Polychaete worms, white and yellow sea fans, snappers, damsels, breams and many blennies cover the rock formation that rises from a depth of 43 meters up to the top. A unique show in a little area, that leaves you breathless. Looking at the computer and the pressure gauge, we realize that it is time to start our ascent, with a safety stop at 5 meters before reaching the surface, and then back on boat. On the way back we make our usual comments and exchange enthusiastically information on our sightings. Very happy with our dive, we take care of the cleaning of our equipment, already with a hint of nostalgia in our hearts, and our minds waiting for the next round at the Banco of Santa Croce.
WORDS and PICTURES by Raffaele Livornese
