Under water in Corsica

As mentioned before, in 1987 I (F) took part in a field course at the marine research station Stareso, near Calvi. This was the first time I had dived other than in the cold, dark and dirty waters of the Netherlands, and it had made a big impression.

What with the clear and warm water, the colourful fishes, and not least, the numerous octopuses that I ended up doing a small research project on, I was keen to explore this underwater world again!

Visiting Stareso

Stareso was just around a point or two from Calvi Bay, in the Golfe de la Revellata, and from a distance looked similar, albeit a bit more built-up, to how I remembered it from 38 yrs ago.

While being anchored there (see blog ‘Crossing from Marseille to Corsica’) I thought we might be able to visit the research station. Unfortunately, I was not going to get a closer look since, despite having contacted them before and during our time in Corsica, I got zero response. And the previously open access road was now closed off by a locked metal gate and a ‘Accès interdit’ sign (see blog ‘On land in Corsica’). Clearly, a nostalgic visit to Stareso was not meant to be.

Where are all the octopuses?

Still eager to visit my friends the octopuses, we snorkeled over from our anchorage to the bay adjacent to Stareso. Great was my disappointment when we ended up finding only one octopus during several hours of snorkeling, and that was a very well hidden one at that. Instead of coming out to play, it retreated further and further back into its den, all the while clutching onto little rocks and pieces of glass to camouflage itself. It was extraordinarily shy and obviously not at all happy having us around. This was completely different behaviour to what I had experienced all those years ago when the octopuses were abundant, inquisitive and happy to interact.

Sadly, this ended up being the only octopus we saw during our six weeks in Corsica. Had they all been eaten? According to the French, it was the protection and subsequent increase in abundance of the fish mérou (Epinephelus spp.) that had resulted in the disappearance of octopus. Despite its protection, we saw remarkably few mérous and the single larger one that we did see was extremely shy, despite being in a no-fishing zone.

Another explanation was that, with the heatwaves and warming up of the Mediterranean, octopus had moved into deeper and cooler water. But with octopus on the menu everywhere, a far simpler explanation, and one that matched the behavioural change, would be that Homo sapiens has just eaten too many of them.

Hey ho little fishies

Not only had the octopus disappeared but, compared to almost 40 yr ago, the fish seemed to have decreased in size. Where were all the large and colourful wrasses that I remembered so fondly? Strangely enough, small blennies, other than triplefins, seemed to have vanished altogether, even though they were the topic of a PhD study way back when.

Only in the Scandola nature reserve did we see some slightly larger fish, but not that many and not that large, definitely not what one would expect given that it was established in 1975. Outside the reserve, anything and everything was being caught, no matter how small.

Still, the clear-blue water looked inviting, so we figured it would be worth putting our SCUBA gear to have a look, even if only for nostalgia’s sake.

Obtaining a dive medical

We had, however, not SCUBA dived in any official capacity for a few years and as a consequence our dive medicals had lapsed. For years, I got these health assessments done annually through work, which were mandatory to confirm that I was medically fit to dive. This sounds more serious than it is, especially when you have to do them regularly.

The medical doctor who I visited in Townsville asked me the same questions every year: “How many dives have you done?” and “Have you had any problems?”. To which I answered “Well over a 1,000s” and “No”. His response was “Well, if you’re not dead yet you’re obviously healthy enough to SCUBA dive”. He then filled out and signed a form and I was good for another year of diving.

Now that we’re retired from work, we have to organise these dive medicals ourselves, as they are still required for recreational divers for insurance purposes. This I had completely forgotten to organise while we were back in Australia, so we found ourselves on Yuma ready to dive in the Mediterranean but without dive medicals. Dôh!

The French Underwater Federation

Trying to get a dive medical organised in France ended up not being easy. While in Marseille, we were berthed pretty much next door to the head office of the Fédération Française d’Etudes et de Sports Sous Marins (FFESSM), or the French Underwater Federation. Their website showed a standard national medical form for underwater activities, called ‘le certificat médical d’absence de contre-indication (CACI)’.

After contacting them, I received a long list of doctors in Marseille qualified to conduct a dive medical and complete one of these CACI forms. In my best French, I phoned each and every one of them and got nowhere…either they did not do these medicals anymore, lost their qualification, were fully booked, or on holidays.

With the second list I received, of doctors in Corsica, I had more luck. Dr C., an emergency physician at the Emergency Medical Unit at Calvi Hospital, was happy to see us when we arrived in Calvi.

Médicin colonel de Légion étranger

As soon as we arrived in Calvi, I contacted Dr C. again and made an appointment to see him at the hospital. Given that he was a former medical colonel in the French Foreign Legion’s elite parachute regiment, we were a little worried how exhaustive our health assessments were actually going to be.

After signing in at reception, we were taken one after the other into a small examination room for an initial assessment by nurses. This involved measuring blood pressure and heart beat, as well as answering some questions about age, health and dive experience, all in French. After this, Dr C. entered the room, had a look at the forms, the measurements and our answers, asked a few more questions and signed our CACI forms – voilà! The initial assessment was the total assessment – we should not have worried.

The only thing that this decorated medical colonel, who had served in various warzones, was not impressed with was our diving plans (from Yuma, by ourselves); he thought this was scary and dangerous (unlike jumping out of planes into battlefield).

Diving, at last!

With our newly acquired CACI form, we finally hopped in the water with our SCUBA gear at Baie de Focolara, just north of the Scandola nature reserve.

Funnily enough, even though we had not dived for a couple of years, the muscle memory kicked in and we immediately felt completely at home again. We did a total of four dives, two without and two with UW cameras. It felt so good to be underwater again, breathing compressed air and floating around in amongst the fishes!

The underwater landscape and the large Posidonia beds were impressive, but unfortunately fauna-wise it was a bit underwhelming. There were plenty of chromis (Chromis chromis), of course, a few moray eels (Muraena helena), lots of colourful wrasses (e.g. Coris julis, Labrus viridus, Symphodus rostratus, Thalassoma pavo), triplefins (Tripterygion melanurus, T. tripteronotum), and all sorts of bream species (e.g. Diplodus spp., Sarpa salpa), but all were small.

While nice enough, we were quite unimpressed, especially given that we were diving right next to the protected areas of Réserve Naturelle de Scandola. So these four dives ended up being the only ones we did in Corsica, though we did hop in for a snorkel in a few other spots.