Nature | Stella Maris Sail

^{The lush carpet of a Posidonia prairie in Spain’s Balearic Islands. Photograph: Jeffrey Cardenas}

The Spanish Posidonia Police came calling on Flying Fish today. I was happy to see them.

Posidonia is a seagrass species that is endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. Like the turtlegrass of the subtropic Americas and the Caribbean, Posidonia forms large underwater meadows vital to the ecosystem. The aquatic grass has a high carbon absorption capacity. It is said to soak up 15 times more carbon dioxide every year than a similar-sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.¹ In 2006, a vast colony of Posidonia was discovered south of Ibiza and is estimated at around 100,000 years old. It may be one of the largest and oldest clonal colonies on Earth.²

Posidonia grows best in clean waters, and its presence is a marker for lack of pollution. It is found only in the Mediterranean Sea, where it is in decline. The UNESCO world heritage site around the Balearic Islands includes about 140,000 acres of Posidonia, which has global significance because of the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs. The meadows are being threatened by rising temperatures, slowing its growth, as well as damage from anchors.³ The Posidonia meadows of Ibiza are fiercely protected. Drop an anchor on Posidonia, and you are breaking the law.

This is why it astonished me when I watched the superyacht Chuck Taylor drop its anchor in a bed of Posidonia at an anchorage on Mallorca that we were sharing. (I don’t know that it was the shoe guy Chuck Taylor; who would name a boat after themselves?) Nonetheless, I wish the Posidonia Police had been in the bay that day. When Chuck Taylor departed, an entire square yard of the living colony was impaled on the tines of its anchor.

Granted, anchoring in the Balearic Islands in July and August–especially during this post-lockdown year–is a challenge. Nowhere in the world have I seen so many boats, and so many inconsiderate boat operators, as I have here during the past two months. Because anchorage space is limited, boats battle for every square foot of sea bottom available without Posidonia. Many boats anchor regardless of the protected areas. Bays are so tightly packed that adequate anchor scope for holding is frequently compromised. Two nights ago, at 03:00, katabatic winds ripped through my anchorage at Benirràs, Ibiza, and tore the fleet apart. One sailboat dragging an anchor collided with two other sailboats, pulling their anchors from the bottom and sending them adrift. A boat ended up against a ragged rock wall. Two large powerboats also dragged and collided in the wind. In the darkness, shouts and curses in foreign languages echoed across the anchorage. Flying Fish somehow escaped the carnage, but the Posidonia meadow at Benirràs was most certainly plowed into oblivion by the dragging anchors.

^{The Posidonia Police encounter a repeat offender in the Illa Sa Conillera marine park who insisted that it was his “right” to drop an anchor anywhere he wanted. Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

The Posidonia meadows are carefully identified on every chart. This morning over coffee, in the lovely anchorage of the Illa Sa Conillera marine park, I was startled by a heated argument coming from two boats. The Posidonia Police had arrived and warned a visiting sailboat owner (for the second time) that he anchored on the protected grass. His anchor was crushing the habitat of plants, fish, and juvenile crustaceans. The sailboat captain maintained it was his “right” to anchor where he wanted. The park ranger explained otherwise. The argument increased in volume and acrimony, and continued for 30 minutes. Then the guilty sailor pointed at me. I was anchored nearby.

The Posidonia Police motored up to Flying Fish with an underwater viewing scope. I passed the inspection; my anchor was embedded in a pocket of sand, where I had carefully placed it when I arrived.

“May I take your photograph,” I asked?

“¿Por qué?” was the reply.

“Because,” I said, “I think what you are doing is important.”

###

^{Park rangers inspect the placement of the anchor of Flying Fish at Illa Sa Conillera, Ibiza. Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

References:

Ibiza’s Monster Marine Plant, Ibiza Spotlight, 28 May 2006
Oldest living thing on earth’ discovered, Jonathan Pearlman, The Telegraph. 7 February 2012
Posidonia oceanica, Wikipedia

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

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You can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish, boat speed (or lack thereof), and current weather as I sail into the Mediterranean by clicking this satellite uplink: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish. Click the “Legends and Blogs” box on the right side of the tracking page for en route Passage Notes.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

Text and Photography © Jeffrey Cardenas 2021

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}

^{An octopus has the highest brain-to-body mass ratio of all invertebrates and a camera-like eye that can distinguish the color and polarization of light. The eye follows me as I swim past. Photograph: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

“I’d like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus’ garden
In the shade…”

It seems you can’t swing a cat in the Mediterranean this summer without hitting a movie star. Meet my new neighbor, the Oscar-winning Octopus Teacher. Actually, I’m the new neighbor; the octopus lives here. And this isn’t really the Octopus Teacher (that famous cephalopod lived in South Africa). But here in the Mediterranean, during the summer, everybody is whoever they want to be. No questions asked.

I am who I want to be, and in the summer where I want to be is under the sea. My tropical island blood has finally acclimated to the ambient water temperature at latitude 40° north. In about six weeks, the Mediterranean Sea begins getting cold again. Today is my first dive of the year. “Dive” is an exaggeration. I float in the shallows with a mask and snorkel, and camera. It is otherworldly. There are shrimp and crabs and anemones. The variety of life that lives among the rocks and Poseidon grass in the Mediterranean is astounding. To see these shallows come to life it is only necessary to move slowly and pass over the sea bottom like the shadow of a cloud.

Mediterranean Snakelocks Anemone © Jeffrey Cardenas
Mediterranean Sphinx Blenny © Jeffrey Cardenas

Life underwater is always a surprise. Today I am swimming along part of the Menorca shoreline supported by an antique seawall. Giant blocks were laid here in 1793 to build the Llatzeret, a sanatorium to quarantine patients during the Bubonic Plague. It seems ironic with a history of so much death above at Llatzeret that these rocks in the water below the fortress would support such a thriving community of sea life. It is here I meet my octopus friend.

I am enchanted. From the depth of her cave, she holds her ground by siphoning bursts of water at me and never breaking eye contact. (A note on gender reference: It takes more skill than I have to determine the sex of an octopus but, for personal reasons, I’ll reference this amazing creature as female.) She is confident and beautiful. Her body pulsates and changes color with emotion as we meet eye-to-eye. Nonetheless, it is clear that this is a creature that will not suffer fools gladly. In a Live Science article titled, “Animal Sex: How Octopuses Do It,” writer Joseph Castro says females are the dominant gender. If a male displeases her, she may show her disappointment by eating him alive. He writes, “Mating for males is a dangerous game due to the female’s penchant for cannibalism.”

I’m not here to mate. I’m just as curious as she is.

^{Friend or foe? With eyes blazing, the octopus leaves her lair to investigate a curious intruder in her territory. Photo: © Jeffrey Cardenas}

Much of the circumnavigation of Flying Fish has been along the equator in warm water rich in sea life. The Mediterranean Sea has been less inviting. There were freezing temperatures (literally) in Turkey this past winter. In my boat cabin without heat, I would sleep under quilts and blankets, and a zipped-up down jacket to stay warm. For much of the year, swimming was out of the question. I remember dropping an essential ratchet wrench overboard at a mooring one February morning. The water was only three meters deep. I looked at that wrench under the boat every day for a month, but I could not bear the thought of diving into 57-degree water to retrieve it.

Now it is mid-July. I can swim again. The pleasure of the summer sun warms my skin. The water caresses me as I float with the tide. Below the surface of the water, a new world awaits.

“We would be so happy, you and me
No one there to tell us what to do
I’d like to be under the sea
In an octopus’s garden with you…”

^{–Octopus’s Garden / The Beatles 1969}

Sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; equally important are the places to which this boat takes me.

To see where Flying Fish has sailed since leaving Key West in 2017, click here: https://cruisersat.net/track/Flying%20Fish.

Instagram: FlyingFishSail
Facebook: Jeffrey Cardenas

^{Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives –Fr. John Baker}