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July 19, 2008

Sea Mount — Seca Del Capo

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©OCEANA/ Keith Ellenbogen

 

Submerged beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea is a seamount Seca Del Capo — that is 25ft/5m short of clearing the surface and becoming an island. The seamount descends to a maximum depth at the seafloor of 330ft/100m.

This seamount is well known as a fishing ground and the Oceana team of underwater explorers set out this afternoon to photograph and videograph the marine life surrounding the seamount. The underwater landscape was blue and beautiful but once again void of any large marine life.

During our hour long dive we observed numerous schools of common small fish (damselfish and wrasses) feeding in abandoned fishing nets that have become part of the topography and an eye soar to an otherwise beautiful location.

The volume of abandoned fishing lines, nets, plastics and hooks was astonishing. At a depth of 95ft/30m I photographed a fishing hook that symbolized the sad direction for the future of Mediterranean Sea — a polluted ocean with abandoned hooks and no fish.