Galicia - Spain's rugged north coast

[Adrian]

Dear Friends,
Here are a few shots of what I was up to last summer. They were taken on the north coast near where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Cantabrian Sea. In summer it's generally pretty calm but cold (16ºC -13ºC) compared to the Med (20ºC-24ºC). There's usually a ground swell of a meter or so which makes it interesting when you are near the rocks. This is probably nothing for you Atlantic and Pacific coast divers but it was a welcome and interesting change for me.

The way we dive is usually accompanied by a boat because my freind Fabian, famous in Spain as the "Robalaitor", (robalo means bass in the north), has a non-stop style of spearfishing. Since he knows these waters like the back of his hands, if he doesn't find fish in one place he simply fins on to the next, mostly rapid stalking, very little aspetto. The dives are short and usually from 0-15 meters. In this way we generally cover 2-4 kilometers depending on the time we are out. It's pretty demanding if you are not used to it and if you take time for a decent breathe-up and do an aspetto or two, by the time you look up the rest of the divers are around 200 meters away and the boatman points you to where they are as sometimes it's quite difficult to see the others if there's chop or a swell.

There's a great abundance of sealife, much more than in the Med, tons of sargos/breams, lots of bass, pintos and other species, including an occasional mako which I've been lucky enough not to see and there's never been a time where we haven't returned with a at least 8-15 kgs of decent sized fish.

One of the distinctive features of the underwater landscape is the kelp that virtually covers everything and serves as a great hiding place for sealife. But it makes it that much more challenging and interesting. Sometimes as you are waiting in the kelp, and are swaying side to side with the swell, it suddenly seems as if you and the kelp are still and it's the ground that's moving, a shift in perception that throws you for a loop. However, there's nothing like anchoring to a piece of kelp and being completely covered by an underwater jungle while watching the fish come right up to you - or just hanging there and really feeling a part of the whole as one gently sways in synch with the vegetation while taking in the underwater landscape.

The only downside of the area is that there are around 60 days of diving days as in the winter there can be huge waves coming off the Atlantic storms, and by huge waves I mean last month they were surfing 30 foot waves in San Sebastian, further down the coast. All in all it's an awesome place to dive. I'll be going back after New Year's and hope to be able to get back in the water. For those of you interested in surfing here's a link to a video of the waves mentioned:
Amatriain y Agote surfean una nueva XXL en Gipuzkoa

Here's the link to the album in my DB gallery:

DeeperBlue.net Gallery - Spain's North Coast - Galicia - Powered by PhotoPost

Adrian

[mundial]

gracias
nice pics mate
it seems to be a nice place
i can recall pedro carbonel & Ivan garcia movie
" UN CAMPEON EN GALICIA "
looks like the places they were diving
do you have more info about galicia
when is the best time to go for spearfining @ where excactly?