Page 20 - GC, July, Newsletter

18
LMC GENERALCOMMUNITY
SCUBA DIVING
OFFCABO DE
.
PALOS, MURCIA .
SOMETHING THEBIG MAN UPSTAIRS
DIDN'TINTEND HUMANSTO DO!
.
The marine park provides only some of the diving in the area. Due to the variousreefsin the area and the trading routes to Cartagena, the seabed is busy with shipwrecks. The most famousone isthe 51m long Isla Gomera which went
down in 1946 when its
cargo of oranges
shifted in a storm. This
resulted in the naranjas
littering the shoreline
for months providing
easy pickings for the
locals, but also giving
the wreck its name of
El Naranjito. (However,
I'd prefer to have been
on a Scottish beach when the SS Politician ran aground in 1941 on Eriskay, with its 22,000 cases of
whisky, immortalised in the film Whisky Galore.) The fact that most of the Naranjito crew managed to swim ashore tellsyou that it isclose to the beach and
accessible by the Scuba Murcia inflatable. This is a deeper water dive between 28m and 45m, requiring your PADI Advanced Open Water diving certification.
For the new start though, after shallow water training,theScubaMurcia team (including new intern Sophie from
Germany and Alex from Madrid) will start you off on shore dives like Cala Fria beside the lighthouse at Cabo. Even these are exciting dives, and you always see shoals of smaller fish. Sardines, wrasse and bream are there in abundance, plus there are the more elusive cuttlefish, octopus and rays within fantastic rock formations, with swim-throughs. I always like to start with a shore dive, which lasts some 50 minutes in the shallower water, when I come back to La Manga Club for a break. Embarrassingly, after a break of only a two or three months, I have to stand and think
about how to put the kit together!!